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Conclusion: The Tombs · Women of Versailles: The Court of Louis XIV

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Section twenty three of Women of Versailles. The Court of Louis the fourteenth by
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Artur Leon Ambert de saint Ament, translated by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin. This librovox
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recording is in the public domain. Read by Pamel and Agami conclusion the tombs,
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it is the most melancholy of all spectacles to behold in the trappings of
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sadness and death, the places which were once the theater of splendors or effetes.
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While listening to the prayers of the dying succeed the flare of trumpets and
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joyous orchestral harmonies. One reflects painfully on the things of earth and comprehends the
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inanity of glory, riches and pleasure. The courtiers of Louis the fourteenth had
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to endure this impression. When this monarch of happiness, of majesty, of
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apotheosis, as Saint Simon says, was about to breathe his last, the
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incomparable gallery of mirrors was now merely the vestibule of a death chamber. The
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triumphant paintings of Lebron seemed darkened. The place of transports had changed its aspect.
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The modern olympus was vanishing before the great Christian idea, and this king
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the terror of his neighbors, the astonishment of the universe. The father of
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kings, grander than all his ancestors, more magnificent than Solomon, seemed to
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be saying with the preacher, I have surpassed in glory and in wisdom all
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those who have preceded me in Jerusalem. I have recognized that even in this
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there was nothing but vanity and affliction of spirit. During the last illness of
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him who had been the Sun King, the court remained all day long in
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the gallery of mirrors. No one stopped in the Eudiputheca except the domestic servants
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and the physicians. As to Madame de Mantanon, in spite of her eighty
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years and her infirmities, she nursed the august invalid with great devotion, and
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often remained beside his bed for fourteen hours. Together. The king bade me
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adieu three times, she related afterwards to the ladies of Saint Cyr. The
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first time he said he had no regret but that of leaving me, but
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that we should soon see each other again. I begged him to think no
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longer of anything but God. The second he asked me to pardon him for
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not having lived well enough with me. He added that he had not made
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me happy, but that he had always loved and esteemed me equally. He
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was weeping, and he asked if any one were present. I told him
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no. Then he said, even though they should hear me crying with you,
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no one would be surprised. I went away so as not to do
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him any harm. The third time, he said to me, what is
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going to become of you? For you have nothing. I answered him,
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I am a nonentity, do not think of anything but God, And I
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left him. Louis the fourteenth deserved the name of great until his latest breath.
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He died still better than he had lived. All that was elevated,
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majestic, grandiose in this chosen soul is summed up in the final moment.
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His death is that of a king, a hero, and a saint.
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Like the first Christians. He made a sort of public confession. He said
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August twenty sixth, seventeen fifteen to those who were admitted to his presence,
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gentlemen, I ask your pardon for the bad examples I have given you.
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I have to thank you much for the way in which you have served me,
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and the attack and fidelity you have always shown for me. I see
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that I am affected, and that I am affecting you also. I beg
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your pardon for it. Adieu, gentlemen, I rely upon your remembering me
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sometimes. He gave his blessing the same day to the little Dauphin and addressed
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him in these beautiful words, My dear child, you are going to be
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the greatest king of the world. Never forget your obligations to God. Do
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not imitate me in wars. Try always to preserve peace with your neighbors,
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and to assist your people as much as you can, which I have had
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the misfortune not to be able to do on account of the necessities of the
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state. Always follow wise counsels, and remember well that it is to God
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you owe all that you are. I give you pere LeTellier for confessor.
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Follow his advice, and always remember the obligations which you owe to Madame de
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Ventadour. During the night of August twenty seventh to twenty eight, the dying
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man was seen joining his hands. At every moment, he said his customary
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prayers, and at the confiteor he smote his breast. In the morning of
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the twenty eighth, he saw in the mirror on his chimney piece, two
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domestics who were shedding tears. Why are you weeping? He said to them?
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Did you think I was immortal? An elixir intended to restore him to
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life was handed to him too, life or to death, he answered,
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taking in the glass all that pleases God. His confessor asked him if he
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suffered much hum No, he replied, that is what displeases me. I
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would like to suffer more in expiation of my sins. In giving his orders
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August twenty ninth, he happened to speak of the Dauphin as the young king,
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And as he observed the movement and those around him, huh why,
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he exclaimed, that gives me no pain. This is what made Massillon say,
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This monarch, environed by such glory, and who saw around him so
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many objects capable of arousing his desires or his tenderness, cast not even one
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regretful glance on life. How grand is man? When he is so through
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faith? Vanity has never had more than the mask of grandeur. It is
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grace which is the reality. During the daytime of August twenty ninth, the
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dying man lost consciousness, and it was thought he had but a few more
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hours to live. You are no longer necessary to him, said his confessor
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to Madame de Mantinon. You can go away. Martial de Villroit exhorted her
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not to remain any longer, and to go to Saint Cyr, where she
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could rest. After so much emotion. He posted the king's guards along the
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road and lent her his carriage. Some popular commotion may be feared, said
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he, and possibly the road may not be safe. Madame de Mantanon,
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enfeebled, disturbed by age and sorrow, made the mistake of listening to such
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pusillanimous counsels. Posterity will always reproach her with a weakness unworthy of this woman
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of intelligence and feeling. There are positions which oblige Madame de Mantinon ought to
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have closed the eyes of the great King and prayed beside his corpse. The
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courtiers who prescribe the resolution of egoism and fear are chiefly to be blamed.
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Ah how they are abandoned the gods of flesh and blood, the gods of
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clay and dust. When they are going down to the grave. A few
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domestics alone lament them. The crowd is indifferent, or it rejoices. The
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courtiers turned toward the rising sun, alas, what a contrast between the throne
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and the coffin the Death of a man is always a subject for philosophic reflections.
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What is it then, when he who dies has called himself Louis the
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fourteenth August thirtieth, The dying man returned to consciousness and asked for Madame Dementinau.
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She was sent forth to Saint Cyr. She came back, The King
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recognized her, said a few more words, and then drowsed. In the
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evening, she descended the marble staircase, which she was never to ascend again,
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and went to Saint Cyr to shut herself up forever. On Saturday,
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August thirty first, towards eleven o'clock in the evening, the prayers for the
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dying were said for Louis the fourteenth. He recited them himself in a louder
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voice than any of the spectators, and seemed still more majestic on his deathbed
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than on his throne. When the prayers were ended, he recognized Cardinal de
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Rowan, said to him, These are the last graces of the Church.
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Several times he repeated, nunk et enhora mortis now and at the hour of
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our death. Then he said, O, God, come unto mine,
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aid O Lord, make haste to help me. These were his last words.
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The agony was beginning. It lasted all night, and on Sunday,
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September one, seventeen fifteen, at a quarter past eight in the morning,
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Lewis the fourteenth, aged seventy seven years, lacking three days during sixty two
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of which he had been king, yielded his great soul to God. One
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does not terminate the study of a memorable epoch without a sentiment of regret.
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After having lived for some time by the life of a celebrated personage, one
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suffers from his death and is affected at his tomb When reading Sa Simon,
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does not one seem present at the death agony of Louis the fourteenth and feel
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the tears welling into his eyes as if he were mingling with the loyal servitors
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who are weeping for the best of masters and the greatest of kings. As
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soon as the tidings of the death of Louis the fourteenth reached, Saint Cyr.
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Mademoiselle d'malles entered Mademoiselle de Mantineau's chamber. Madame said she the whole house
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is at prayer in the choir. Madame de Mantineau understood. She raised her
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hands to Heaven, weeping, and then repaired to the church, where she
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was present at the office for the dead. Then she dismissed her servants and
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got rid of her carriage, unable, as she said, to reconcile herself
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to feeding horses while so many young girls were in need. She lived in
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her modest apartment in profound peace. She submitted to the regulations of the house
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as far as her age permitted, and never went out, except to go
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to the village to visit the sick and the poor. When Peter the Great
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went to Saint Cyr June tenth, seventeen seventeen, the illustrious octogenarian was suffering.
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The CSAR sat down beside the bed of this woman, whose name he
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had heard so often. He asked her through an interpreter, if she were
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ill. She answered yes. He wanted to know what her malady was.
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A great old age, she replied. Madame de Maintenon died at Saint Cyr,
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August fifteenth, seventeen nineteen. For two days she remained exposed on her
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bed, with an air so sweet and so devout that one would have said
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she was praying to God. She was buried in the choir of the church.
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A modest slab of marble indicates the spot where her body reposes. It
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was there the napaces went to weep and pray, before dedicating themselves forever to
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the Lord. Now that we have quitted Versailles, let us go down into
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the cryps where lie these beautiful heroines, these famous women whose gracious figures we
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have endeavored to evoke. Mademoiselle de la Valliere rests at Paris, and the
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carmelite church of the Rue Saint Jacques. Queen Marie theres the two Duchesses of
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Orleans, the Bavarian Dauphiness, and the Duchess of Burgundy at San Denis.
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There they sleep their slumber in those gloomy abodes, whereas Bossuet says, the
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ranks are so crowded, so prompt is death to fill the places There.
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One should go to meditate there, to draw the conclusions from histories which have
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their lessons there to listen to the great Christian maxim momento homo quie polvis s
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etinpolverem rivertus. Bossuet says, speaking of the Pharaohs, that they did not
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even possess their sepulchers. Such was also the destiny of Louis the fourteenth.
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This potentate, who had given laws to Europe, did not even possess his
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tomb. The profaners of graves descended into the subterranean abode of annihilated princes,
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and in spite of their regard of eight centuries of kings, as Chateaubrion says,
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the great shade of Louis the fourteenth could not defend the majesty of sepulchers,
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which all the world had deemed inviolable. During the session of July twenty
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first, seventeen ninety four, Bahreer read to the Convention in the name of
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the Committee of Public Safety a long report in which he demanded that, in
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order to celebrate the anniversary of August tenth, the mausoleums of Saint Denis should
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be destroyed. Under the monarchy, said he, even tombs had learned to
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flatter kings. Royal pomp and pride could not be lessened on this theater of
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death, and the scepter bearers, who have caused so many woes to France
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and to humanity, seem still, even in the grave, to pride themselves
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on a vanished grandeur. The powerful hand of the Republic should pitilessly effaced these
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mausoleums, which recall the frightful memory of kings. The Convention carried by acclamation
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a decree conformable to this report. Considering that the country was in danger and
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lacked cannons wherewith to defend itself, it decided that the tombs of the former
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king should be destroyed. On the ensuing tenth of August. It appointed commissioners
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in power to go to Sandini for the purpose of proceeding to the exhuming of
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the former kings and queens, princes and princesses, and decreed the breaking of
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the coffins in order to melt the lead and send it to the national foundries.
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This odious decree was strictly executed. Kings, queens, princes and princesses
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were torn from their sepulchers. The lead was carried as fast as it was
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found to a cemetery, in which a foundry had been established, and the
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corpses were cast into the common grave. The vandalism of the revolutionists and the
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atheists took delight in this spectacle. Assuredly, as Chateaubriand writes, God,
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in the effusion of his wrath, had sworn by himself to punish France.
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Seek not on earth the causes of such events, they are higher than that.
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A few weeks later came the turn of Madame de Mantineau's dead body.
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In January seventeen ninety four, while the Church of Saint Cyr was being transformed
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into hospital wards, the workmen perceived a slab of black marble amidst the debris
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of the devastated choir. It was the tomb of Madame de Mantanon. They
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broke it, opened the vault, and, taking out the body, dragged
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it into the court with dreadful yells, and threw it, stripped and mutilated,
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into a hole in the cemetery. On that day, the unrecognized spouse
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of Louis the fourteenth was treated like a queen. Thus, then these illustrious
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heroines of Versailles, the good Marie Therese, the clever Mantanon, the melancholy
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Bavarian Dauphiness, the haughty Princess Palatine, the alluring Duchess of Burgundy were dispossessed
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of their tombs. Listening to the tale of such iconoclastic and sacrilegious rage,
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the heart contracts and feels the anguish of an inexpressible sadness. The sentiment of
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holy wrath against such odious profanations and savage furies blends with profound reflections on the
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nothingness of human things are eloquent, more terrible than any funeral sermon. History
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assumes a sepulchral tone and speaks more forcibly than the preachers of the Great century.
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The shades of these once flattered women come before us, one after another,
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and as they pass, each seems to say, like Fenelon in his
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Book of Prayers, what does not one do to find a false happiness?
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What rebuffs? What thwartings? Does not one endure for a phantom of worldly
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glory? What pains for wretched pleasures of which nothing is left but remorse from
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the depths of the dust of graves profound The dazzled eye suddenly perceives, arising
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a pure and incorruptible radiance, which places in their true light all things here
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below, And one recalls the saying of Massion before the coffin of Louis the
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fourteenth. God alone is great, my brethren. End of section twenty three,
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read by Pamel and Nagami M. D. In Encino, California,
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October twenty twenty three. End of Women of Versailles the Court of Louis the
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fourteenth by Artour Leon Ambert de Saint Amo, translated by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin,