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16 - Women of Versailles- the Court of Louis XIV by Arthur-Leon Imbert de Saint-Amand · Women of Versailles- the Court of Louis XIV

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  Speaker 1: Section sixteen of Women of Versailles, the Court of Louis
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  Speaker 1: the fourteenth by our tour Leon Ambert de Saint Ammon,
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  Speaker 1: translated by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin. This librovox recording is in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Pamela and Agami, Chapter twelve,
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  Speaker 1: Madame de Mantainant as a political woman, Part one, to
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  Speaker 1: write history with the aid of pamphlets, To accept as
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  Speaker 1: verities all the inventions of malevolence or hatred, to say
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  Speaker 1: with beau marchas calumniate, calumniate some trace of it will
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  Speaker 1: always remain. To belittle what is great, to misinterpret what
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  Speaker 1: is noble, to tarnish what is brilliant. Such are the
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  Speaker 1: tactics of the sworn enemies of our traditions and our glories.
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  Speaker 1: Such is the pleasure of the iconoclasts, who would like
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  Speaker 1: to efface from our annals all grandiose or majestic figures.
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  Speaker 1: The revolutionary school, whose disciples they are, has already done
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  Speaker 1: much harm. It has sapped the foundations of the edifice.
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  Speaker 1: It has aided to destroy that respect which is indispensable
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  Speaker 1: to well organized societies. It has converted books into libels,
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  Speaker 1: criticisms into infectives, portraits into caricatures. It has conspired with
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  Speaker 1: that essentially false literature known as the historical novel, to
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  Speaker 1: travesty persons and things, and spread abroad a massive exaggerations
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  Speaker 1: and fables which confuse facts and ideas and reverse the
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  Speaker 1: conceptions of good sense and justice. One of the men
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  Speaker 1: whom this school holds most in horror is Louis the fourteenth,
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  Speaker 1: because he was the representative, or better, the living symbol
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  Speaker 1: of the principle of authority. It is tired of hearing
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  Speaker 1: him called the grit r like that Athenian who was
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  Speaker 1: weary of hearing Aristides called the just. It has fancied
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  Speaker 1: it would extinguish the royal son by breathing on it
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  Speaker 1: an old potentate kept in leading strings by a bigoted
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  Speaker 1: and intriguing old woman. Such is the image. It would
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  Speaker 1: delineate the characteristics it wishes to hand down to posterity,
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  Speaker 1: as those of him who, to his last hour, his
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  Speaker 1: latest breath, remained what he had been throughout his life,
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  Speaker 1: the very type of royalty, the sovereign by excellence to
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  Speaker 1: dishonor Louis the fourteenth in the woman whom he chose
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  Speaker 1: among all others as the companion of his maturity and
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  Speaker 1: his old age. Such has been, and still is the
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  Speaker 1: thing aimed at by writers of this school. They have
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  Speaker 1: based their judgments on those of the Duchess of Orleans,
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  Speaker 1: the Princess Palatine, whose portrait we have just essayed to trace,
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  Speaker 1: and on those of another equally objectionable witness, the Duc
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  Speaker 1: de Saint Simon. It ought not to be forgotten that
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  Speaker 1: this hot headed Duke in Pierre, who often talked like Filant,
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  Speaker 1: if he always thought like Alceste, was at least frank
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  Speaker 1: enough to say of himself, the stoic is a fine
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  Speaker 1: and noble chimera. I do not pique myself. Therefore, on impartiality,
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  Speaker 1: I should do so in vain. It irritated him to
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  Speaker 1: be of no account in a government where many a
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  Speaker 1: man of middling abilities had secured the sovereign's favor. To
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  Speaker 1: be condemned to the idle existence of a courtier, to
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  Speaker 1: live in ante chambers on staircases in the courts and
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  Speaker 1: gardens of Versailles and other royal residences, vexed and displeased
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  Speaker 1: his vanity. He laid the blame of this on Louis
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  Speaker 1: the fourteenth at first and afterwards on the woman, whom
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  Speaker 1: he considered as the arbiter of all appointments. But it
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  Speaker 1: was only in his memoir written clandestinely and kept under
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  Speaker 1: lock and key, that he dared give expression to his wrath.
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  Speaker 1: He was all respect and docility in presence of the King.
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  Speaker 1: After bestirring himself a good deal concerning a certain collection
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  Speaker 1: which had been a subject of litigation between the princesses
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  Speaker 1: and the duchesses, he said humbly to the King that
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  Speaker 1: to please him he would have passed around the plate
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  Speaker 1: like a village churchwarden. He added that Lewis the fourteenth was,
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  Speaker 1: as king and as benefactor of all dukes, despotically master
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  Speaker 1: of their dignities to a base, or to elevate them,
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  Speaker 1: to dispose of them as a thing belonging to him
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  Speaker 1: and absolutely in his power. He was not more haughty
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  Speaker 1: in the presence of her, whom he characterizes in his
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  Speaker 1: memoirs as a notorious creole, the begging widow of a
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  Speaker 1: crippled poet. He even tried to gain her over to
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  Speaker 1: the interests of his ambition and to obtain through her
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  Speaker 1: means a captaincy of guards. Furious at not being called
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  Speaker 1: to the greatest positions of state. He pleased himself with
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  Speaker 1: the posthumous revenge of describing Madame de Manenau in the
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  Speaker 1: most odious colors. Relying on his imagination and default of
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  Speaker 1: other proofs, he makes her a sort of ancient courtesan,
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  Speaker 1: living by debauchery in her youth and by intrigue in
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  Speaker 1: riper years. What he says of her is a tissue
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  Speaker 1: of inaccuracies. He assigns her birth to America, while it
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  Speaker 1: is certain that she was born at Niorg. He will
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  Speaker 1: scarcely admit that her father was a gentleman, while his
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  Speaker 1: nobility is absolutely incontestable. He accuses her of having been
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  Speaker 1: supported by Villard, father of the Marshal, by the three Villasaus,
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  Speaker 1: and Y several others. While it is positive that she
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  Speaker 1: never received a farthing obliged to own that on Scarron's
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  Speaker 1: death she was reduced to the charity of her parish
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  Speaker 1: of Saint Eustache, he does not perceive that such an
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  Speaker 1: assertion concerning a woman whose beauty was celebrated throughout Paris,
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  Speaker 1: proves in an undeniable fashion the virtue of that woman.
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  Speaker 1: He reproaches her for having been led astray by the
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  Speaker 1: councils of Nino de Lanclo, whereas Nino herself says, Madame
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  Speaker 1: de Manino was virtuous in her youth through weak mindedness.
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to cure her of it, but she feared
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  Speaker 1: God too much. Every day increases the fame of Saint Simon.
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  Speaker 1: Considered as a writer, one must admire a style which
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  Speaker 1: recalls by turns the boldness of Bassuet, the brilliance of
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  Speaker 1: La Briere, and the ease and freedom of Madame de Sevigne.
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  Speaker 1: But on the other hand, the more one studies the
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  Speaker 1: Court of Louis the fourteenth, the more fully one recognizes
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  Speaker 1: that the famous memoir are full of inaccuracies. In his
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  Speaker 1: remarkable critical study of Sassimon's work, the learned Monsieur Cheerrouel
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  Speaker 1: has already refuted in an invincible manner a great number
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  Speaker 1: of his errors, and Monsieur Souliers, curator of the Museum
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  Speaker 1: of Versailles, is constantly discovering new ones in the course
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  Speaker 1: of his patient and indefatigable researches. Monsieur Cherrouel has abundant
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  Speaker 1: reason to say Saint Simond's observation is subtle, sagacious, penetrating
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  Speaker 1: when it is a question of sounding the recesses of
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  Speaker 1: the hearts of courtiers, but it lacks breadth and grandeur.
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  Speaker 1: The court bounds his horizon. All that lies beyond it
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  Speaker 1: is vague and indeterminate for him. While granting him the
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  Speaker 1: perspicacity of an observer, one must deny him the impartiality
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  Speaker 1: of a judge to listen to him. Madame de Mantineau
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  Speaker 1: is the sole mistress of France, the omnipotent sultana, the
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  Speaker 1: Ponto Kraut, as the Princess Palatine calls her. In her
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  Speaker 1: curious jargon. He describes with many details her incredible success,
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  Speaker 1: the entire confidence, the rare dependence, the almightiness, the almost
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  Speaker 1: universal public adoration, the ministers, the generals of the army,
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  Speaker 1: the royal family at her feet, every boon and every
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  Speaker 1: advantage through her, everything rejected without her men, affairs, things, appointments, justice, favors, religion,
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  Speaker 1: everything without exception in her hands, and the King and
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  Speaker 1: the state her victims. Needless to say that the revolutionary
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  Speaker 1: school has accepted this exaggerated assertion literally to believe it,
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  Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenth is nothing but a mannequin of which
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  Speaker 1: Madame de Mantinon pulls the strings, a sort of crowned
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  Speaker 1: jahant who lets himself be tricked like a child by
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  Speaker 1: a jesuit and an old woman. It is thus they
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  Speaker 1: seek to tarnish the oriole with which posterity has surrounded
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  Speaker 1: the most majestic of all instances of old age. Let
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  Speaker 1: them say what they will. Louis the fourteenth always remained master,
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  Speaker 1: and it was he who traced the great political lines
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  Speaker 1: of his reign. Madame de Mantinon may have advised him,
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  Speaker 1: but it was he who gave the final decision. We
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  Speaker 1: say willingly with Monsieur emil Schals, this intelligent woman, far
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  Speaker 1: from being too much listened to, was not a nutso
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  Speaker 1: there was in her a veritable love for the public welfare,
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  Speaker 1: a true sorrow in the midst of our misfortunes. To
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  Speaker 1: day is necessary to retrench much from the grandeur of
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  Speaker 1: her power, and add a great deal to that of
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  Speaker 1: her soul. It is well worthy of remark that the
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  Speaker 1: woman who is now accused of a mischievous meddling in everything,
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  Speaker 1: was reproached by the most eminent man of her time
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  Speaker 1: of standing too much aside, Fenelon wrote to her. They say,
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  Speaker 1: you take two little pardon affairs. Your mind is more
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  Speaker 1: capable of it than you think. You are perhaps a
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  Speaker 1: little too distrustful of yourself, or rather you are too
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  Speaker 1: much afraid to enter into discussions contrary to the inclination
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  Speaker 1: you have for a tranquil and meditative life. That Madame
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  Speaker 1: de Mantineau may have influenced certain appointments does not appear doubtful.
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  Speaker 1: But that she alone of her own motion control the
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  Speaker 1: minister's is a pure invention. We believe her to have
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  Speaker 1: been sincere when she wrote to Madame desur Sain. In
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  Speaker 1: whatever way matters turn, I conjure you, Madame, to regard
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  Speaker 1: me as a person incapable of affairs, who heard them
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  Speaker 1: talked of, too late to be skillful in them, and
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  Speaker 1: who hates them more than she ignores them. My interference
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  Speaker 1: in them is not desired, and I do not desire
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  Speaker 1: to interfere. They are not concealed from me, but I
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  Speaker 1: know nothing consecutively, and am often badly informed, reading or
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  Speaker 1: working at her tapestry while the King was working with
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  Speaker 1: one or another of his ministers. Madame de Mantinan never
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  Speaker 1: timidly hazarded a word, except formally when requested. Her attitude
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  Speaker 1: toward Louis the fourteenth was that of respect, humility, and modesty. True,
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  Speaker 1: the King said to her, they call the popes your holiness,
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  Speaker 1: and kings your majesty. You, madame, should be called your solidity.
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  Speaker 1: But this pray did not turn the head of so
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  Speaker 1: prudent and reasonable a woman. And of Section sixteen