The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, vol 7 | Page 4

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

MEMOIRS OF MADAME LA MARQUISE DE MONTESPAN, v7
Written by Herself

Being the Historic Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV.

BOOK 7.

CHAPTER XXXVII
The King Takes Luxembourg Because It Is His Will.--Devastation of
the Electorate of Treves.--The Marquis de Louvois.--His Portrait.-- The
Marvels Which He Worked.--The Le Tellier and the Mortemart.-- The
King Destines De Mortemart to a Colbert.--How One Manages Not to
Bow. --The Dragonades.--A Necessary Man.--Money Makes
Fat.--Meudon.-- The Horoscope.
This journey to Flanders did not keep the King long away from his
capital. And, withal, he made two fine and rich conquests, short as the
space of time was. The important town of Luxembourg was necessary
to him. He wanted it. The Marechal de Crequi invested this place with
an army of thirty thousand men, and made himself master of it at the
end of a week.
Immediately after the King marched to the Electorate of Treves, which
had belonged, he said, to the former kingdom of Austrasia. He had no
trouble in mastering it, almost all the imperial forces being in Hungary,
Austria, and in those cantons where the Ottomans had called for them.
The town of Treves humbly recognised the King of France as its lord
and suzerain. Its fine fortifications were levelled at once, and our
victories were, unhappily, responsible for the firing, pillage, and
devastation of almost the whole Electorate. For the Duke of Crequi,
faithful executor of the orders of Louvois, imagined that a sovereign is
only obeyed when he proves himself stern and inflexible.
In the first years of my favour, the Marquis de Louvois enjoyed my
entire confidence, and, I must admit, my highest esteem. Independently
of his manners, which are, when he wishes, those of the utmost
amiability, I remarked in him an industrious and indefatigable minister,
an intelligent man, as well instructed in the mass as in details; a mind
fertile in resources, means, and expedients; an administrator, a jurist, a
theologian, a man of letters and of affairs, an artist, an agriculturist, a
soldier.

Loving pleasure, yet knowing how to despise it in favour of the needs
of the State and the care of affairs, this minister concentrated in his own
person all the other ministries, which moved only by his impulse and
guiding hand.
Did the King, followed by his whole Court, arrive in fearful weather by
the side of some vast and swollen river, M. de Louvois, alighting from
his carriage, would sweep the horizon with a single glance. He would
designate on the spot the farms, granaries, mills, and chateaux
necessary to the passage of a fastidious king on his travels. A general
repast, appropriate and sufficient, issued at his voice as it had been
from the bowels of the earth. An abundance of mattresses received
provisionally the more or less delicate forms, stretched out in slumber
or fatigue. And in the depth of the night, by the light of a thousand
flaring torches, a vast bridge, constructed hastily, in spite of wind and
rain, permitted the royal carriage and the host of other vehicles to cross
the stream, and find on the further bank succulent dishes and
voluptuous apartments.
This prodigious energy, which created results by pulverising obstacles,
had rendered the minister not only agreeable but precious to a young
sovereign, who, unable to tolerate delays and resistance, desired in all
things to attain and succeed. The King, without looking too closely at
the means, loved the results which were the consequences of such a
genius, and he rewarded with a limitless confidence the intrepid and
often culpable zeal of a minister who procured him hatred.
When the passions of the conqueror, owing to success, grew calm, he
studied more tranquilly both his own desires and his coadjutor's. The
King by nature is neither inhuman nor savage, and he knew that
Louvois was like Phalaris in these points. Then he was at as much pains
to repress this unpopular humour as he had shown indifference before
in allowing it to act.
The Marquis de Louvois (who did not like me) had lavished his incense
upon me, in order that some fumes of it might float up to the prince. He
saw me beloved and, as it were, almost omnipotent; he sought my
alliance with ardour. The family of Le Tellier is good enough for a

judicial and legal family; but what bonds are there between the Louvois
and the Mortemart? No matter: ambition puts a thick bandage over the
eyes of those whom it inspires; the Marquis wished to marry his
daughter to my nephew, De Mortemart!!!
I communicated this proposition to the King. His Majesty said to me: "I
am delighted that he has committed the