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22 - 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 twenty two of Women of Versailles The Court of
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  Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenth by our tour leon Ambert de saint Ament,
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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 Pamel and Agami, Chapter sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: The Duchess of Burgundy, Part two. The Duchess of Burgundy
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  Speaker 1: suffered simultaneously from the disasters of both her countries Savoy
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  Speaker 1: in France. Make us some saints to obtain peace for us,
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  Speaker 1: said Madame de Mantanon to the inmates of Saint Cyr.
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  Speaker 1: The Duchess as la BeO mal remarks exhibited in the
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  Speaker 1: perilous circumstances of the country, the dignity of the first
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  Speaker 1: woman of the state, the sentiments of a Roman matron
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  Speaker 1: for Rome, and the agitations of a soul which desired
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  Speaker 1: the good with an ardor beyond her age. The hour
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  Speaker 1: of great sorrows had arrived. As Monsieur Capfigue has said
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  Speaker 1: so well, the difficult time for a powerful and fortunate
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  Speaker 1: king is old age. Though the head remained firm, the
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  Speaker 1: arms grow feeble, garlands wither even laurels take a grayish hint.
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  Speaker 1: People respect you still but they do not love you anymore.
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  Speaker 1: Cocked hats with waving plumes bring out the wrinkles of
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  Speaker 1: the face and the lines of the forehead. The gold
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  Speaker 1: headed cane is no longer a sort of scepter, but
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  Speaker 1: a staff which sustains the feeble legs and the stooping body.
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  Speaker 1: For the Duchess of Burgundy, the aging Louis the fourteenth,
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  Speaker 1: preserved all his prestige. She loved him sincerely. The public,
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  Speaker 1: says Madame de Caelouse, has difficulty in comprehending that princes
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  Speaker 1: act simply and naturally, because they do not see them
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  Speaker 1: near enough at hand to judge, and because the marvelous
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  Speaker 1: that they are always seeking is never found in simple
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  Speaker 1: conduct and orderly sentiments. Hence they wished to believe that
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  Speaker 1: the Duchess resembled her father, and that at the age
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  Speaker 1: of eleven, when she came to France, she was as
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  Speaker 1: crafty and as politic as he was, and affected for
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  Speaker 1: the King and Madame de Mantaillon, a tenderness she did
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  Speaker 1: not possess. I you have had the honor of seeing
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  Speaker 1: her very near judge. Otherwise I have seen her weeping,
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  Speaker 1: and such good faith over the great age of these
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  Speaker 1: two persons, who she thought must die before her, that
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  Speaker 1: I cannot doubt her tenderness for the King. Louis the fourteenth,
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  Speaker 1: who knew the human heart, perceived with his usual perspicacity,
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  Speaker 1: that the Duchess of Burgundy had a sincere affection for him.
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  Speaker 1: It was on that account that he displayed an exceptional
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  Speaker 1: attachment for her, Like a rose blooming in his cemetery,
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  Speaker 1: the young and enchanting princess charmed and consoled the sorrowful
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  Speaker 1: years of the great king. It was the last smile
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  Speaker 1: of fortune, the last ray of sunlight. But alas the
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  Speaker 1: fair rose was to bloom but a day and yet
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  Speaker 1: a little longer, and all would be enshrouded in gloom.
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  Speaker 1: Since seventeen eleven, when Monseigneur died, the Duke of Burgundy
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  Speaker 1: had been Dauphin, and Sassimon reports that the Duchess says,
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  Speaker 1: in speaking of the ladies who criticized her, they will
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  Speaker 1: have to reckon with me, and I will be their queen.
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  Speaker 1: Alas he adds, she believed it, the charming princess, and
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  Speaker 1: who would not have believed it with her? And yet,
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  Speaker 1: according to the Prince's palatine, she was convinced that her
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  Speaker 1: end was near. Madame thus expresses herself a learned astrologer
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  Speaker 1: of Turin, having drawn the horoscope of Madame, the Dauphiness
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  Speaker 1: had predicted to her all that would happen to her,
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  Speaker 1: and that she would die in her twenty seventh year.
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  Speaker 1: She often spoke of it. One day she said to
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  Speaker 1: her husband, see the time is coming when I must die.
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  Speaker 1: You cannot remain without a wife, on account of your
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  Speaker 1: rank and your devotion. Tell me I entreat you whom
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  Speaker 1: you will marry. He answered, I hope God will never
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  Speaker 1: punish me enough to let me see you die. And
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  Speaker 1: if this misfortune must befall me, I shall never remarry,
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  Speaker 1: for I should follow you to the grave in eight days.
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  Speaker 1: While the Dauphiness was still in good health, fresh and gay,
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  Speaker 1: she often said, well, I must rejoice, because I cannot
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  Speaker 1: rejoice long, for I shall die this year. I thought
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  Speaker 1: it was a pleasantry, but the thing was only too real.
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  Speaker 1: When she fell ill, she said she would not recover.
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  Speaker 1: The nearer the door fine approached the fatal time. The
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  Speaker 1: better she grew, one might have thought she wanted to
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  Speaker 1: deepen the grief that would be caused by her premature death.
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  Speaker 1: The prince's palatine, ordinarily so malevolent, so sarcastic avows it herself,
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  Speaker 1: having says she enough intelligence to note her faults, the
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  Speaker 1: Dauphiness could not do other than try to correct them. This,
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  Speaker 1: in fact, is what she did, and to such a
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  Speaker 1: point as to excite general astonishment. She continued thus to
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  Speaker 1: the end. Madame the Viscountess of Noai has said, in
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  Speaker 1: the most touching way, from time to time history offers
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  Speaker 1: us attractive personages who move the reader even to affection.
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  Speaker 1: Providence frequently withdraws them from the world in their youth,
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  Speaker 1: still adorned with the charms which time removes, and the
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  Speaker 1: hopes which it might have realized. The Duchess of Burgundy
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  Speaker 1: was one of these girls, graceful apparitions, attacked with a
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  Speaker 1: terrible malady, which was, it appears, the measles, but which
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  Speaker 1: was attributed to poison. The Duchess was taken away in
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  Speaker 1: a few days from the king of whom she was
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  Speaker 1: the consolation, the husband who idolized her, the court whose
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  Speaker 1: ornament she was, and France, of which she was the hope.
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  Speaker 1: She died with equal dignity and courage in the most
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  Speaker 1: religious sentiments. It was in her bedroom at Versailles on
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  Speaker 1: Friday February twelfth, seventeen twelve, between eight and nine in
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  Speaker 1: the evening, that she breathed her last. Almost exactly two
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  Speaker 1: years before, in the same room she had brought into
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  Speaker 1: the world the prince who was to be called Louis
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  Speaker 1: the fifteenth. Her husband's grief was such that he could
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  Speaker 1: not survive a wife so beloved. Six days afterward he
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  Speaker 1: followed her to the tomb. France cried Sansimon fell at
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  Speaker 1: last beneath the final chastisement. God has shown her a
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  Speaker 1: prince whom she did not deserve. The earth was not
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  Speaker 1: worthy of him. He died ripe already for a blissful eternity.
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  Speaker 1: The very day of the Duke of Burgundy's death, Madame wrote,
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  Speaker 1: I am so overwhelmed that I cannot recover. I scarce
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  Speaker 1: know what I am saying. You, who have a good heart,
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  Speaker 1: will certainly pity us, for the sadness that prevails here
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  Speaker 1: cannot be described. Saint Simon pretends that the sorrow caused
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  Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenth by the death of the Duchess of
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  Speaker 1: Burgundy was the only real one he ever had in
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  Speaker 1: his life that is not exact. The Great King had
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  Speaker 1: profoundly regretted his mother and Madame. The Prince's palatine thus
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  Speaker 1: expresses herself concerning the grief that overwhelmed him in the
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  Speaker 1: death of his only son. The Grand Dauphin. I saw
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  Speaker 1: the King yesterday at eleven o'clock. He is a prey
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  Speaker 1: to such affliction that he would soften a rock. He
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  Speaker 1: does not fret, however, he speaks to everyone with a
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  Speaker 1: resigned sadness, and gives his orders with great firmness. But
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  Speaker 1: the tears come into his eyes every moment, and he
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  Speaker 1: stifles his sobs. Such was the man whom superficial minds
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  Speaker 1: characterized as egoistic and insensitive. On February twenty second, seventeen twelve,
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  Speaker 1: the bodies of the Duchess and the Duke of Burgundy
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  Speaker 1: were born from their Sailles to Saint Denis on a
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  Speaker 1: single beer. The Dauphin, their eldest son, died the following
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  Speaker 1: March eighth. He was five years and some months old.
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  Speaker 1: Thus the father, the mother, and the eldest son disappeared
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  Speaker 1: within twenty four days. Three Dauphins had died in a
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  Speaker 1: single year. These events, so horrible in themselves, were made
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  Speaker 1: still more so by the widely prevalent false idea that
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  Speaker 1: these premature deaths were the result of poison. The Duke
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  Speaker 1: of Orleon was most perfidiously and unjustly accused of being
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  Speaker 1: the author of these crimes, and efforts were made to
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  Speaker 1: induce Louis the fourteenth to entertain this abominable suspicion. With
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  Speaker 1: the Duchess of Burgundy were eclipsed joy, pleasures, amusements, even
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  Speaker 1: and every sort of favors. If the court existed after her,
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  Speaker 1: it was only to languish. And yet under the weight
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  Speaker 1: of so many trials, the great soul of Louis the
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  Speaker 1: fourteenth was not enfeebled. Amidst the lugubrious debris of his
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  Speaker 1: august house. Louis remains firm in the faith God had
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  Speaker 1: breathed upon his numerous posterity, and in an instant it
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  Speaker 1: was effaced, like characters written in the sand, of all
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  Speaker 1: the princes who had surrounded him, and who formed, as
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  Speaker 1: it were, the rays and the glory of his crown.
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  Speaker 1: There remained but one feeble spark, even then, on the
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  Speaker 1: point of being extinguished. He adores him who disposes of
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  Speaker 1: crowns and scepters, and perhaps he sees in these domestic
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  Speaker 1: losses the mercy which is completing the effacement from the
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  Speaker 1: book of the Lord's justice the traces of his former
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  Speaker 1: guilty passions. All France was in despair. This time of desolation,
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  Speaker 1: says Voltaire, left so profound an impression in hearts, that
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  Speaker 1: during the minority of Louis the fifteenth I have seen
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  Speaker 1: many persons who could not speak of these losses without
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  Speaker 1: shedding tears. Monsieur Michelet, who cannot be accused of exaggerated
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  Speaker 1: admiration for the great century, is himself affected. While relating
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  Speaker 1: the death of the charming Duchess of Burgundy, the court,
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  Speaker 1: he says, was literally as if stunned by the blow
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  Speaker 1: one still weeps a hundred and fifty years afterwards. In
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  Speaker 1: reading the heartrending pages in which Saint Simon records his grief,
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  Speaker 1: du Cloe has claimed, without indicating the source, whence he
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  Speaker 1: obtained his information that, on the death of the Duchess
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  Speaker 1: of Burgundy, Madame de Mantineou and the King found in
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  Speaker 1: a casket that had belonged to the princess, papers which
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  Speaker 1: extorted from the King, the exclamation the little rogue betrayed
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  Speaker 1: us from such a speech so unlikely. From the mouth
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  Speaker 1: of Louis, the fourteenth Duke Clo infers a correspondence in
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  Speaker 1: which the daughter of Victor Amadeus had surrendered state secrets
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  Speaker 1: to him. This we believe to be one of those
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  Speaker 1: numerous hearsays from which history is too often written. The
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  Speaker 1: archives of Turin have preserved no trace of this pretended correspondence,
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  Speaker 1: which is neither true nor probable. Assuredly, the Duchess of
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  Speaker 1: Burgundy did not forget her native land, but after bidding
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  Speaker 1: adieu to Savoy, she had no longer any country but France.
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  Speaker 1: Doubtless Italy may count among the fairest pearls of her
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  Speaker 1: casket those two intelligent and alluring sisters who both died
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  Speaker 1: so prematurely, and left behind them so touching a remembrance,
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  Speaker 1: the Duchess of Burgundy and her sister, the Queen of Spain,
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  Speaker 1: the valiant consort of Philip the fifth. But the greater
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  Speaker 1: part of the Duchess of Burgundy's destiny was fulfilled in France,
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  Speaker 1: and her portrait must figure in the Chateau of Versailles.
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  Speaker 1: How many times in eighteen seventy one, when the Ministry
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  Speaker 1: of Foreign Affairs was, so to say, encamped in the
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  Speaker 1: midst of the Queen's apartments, did we evoke the souvenir
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  Speaker 1: of the charming princess in this chamber, where she slept
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  Speaker 1: from the time of her arrival at Versailles, and where
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  Speaker 1: sixteen years and a half later she breathed her last sigh.
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  Speaker 1: It was there that, at eleven years of age, torn
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  Speaker 1: forever from her family, her friends, her country, she found
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  Speaker 1: herself alone among the splendors of a strange palace. Twas
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  Speaker 1: there the child grew, became a young girl, and then
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  Speaker 1: a young woman, increasing daily in graces and attractions. There,
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  Speaker 1: in the silence of the night, she thought she beheld
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  Speaker 1: the brilliant phantoms of the world, the seductive images against
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  Speaker 1: which perhaps her reason battled with her heart. There she
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  Speaker 1: recalled to aid her in resisting the temptations of an
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  Speaker 1: ardent soul. The austere instructions of Madame de Mantineau, who
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  Speaker 1: had written to her, have a horror of sin. Vice
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  Speaker 1: is full of evils and afflictions. Even in this world.
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  Speaker 1: There is no joy, no repose, no true delight. But
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  Speaker 1: in serving God It was there that she beheld death
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  Speaker 1: coming and welcomed its approach with a noble and religious courage.
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  Speaker 1: Poor princess, even in presence of her dead body, disputes
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  Speaker 1: over etiquette went on. Four bishops, sitting in ratchet and
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  Speaker 1: camail at the right side of the bed, relieved each
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  Speaker 1: other like the ladies. When notified by the agents of
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  Speaker 1: the clergy, they claimed chairs with backs, kneeling cushions, and
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  Speaker 1: a holy water sprinkler. The first two were refused them
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  Speaker 1: they had nothing but folding stools and no cushions. They
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  Speaker 1: made such an outcry that they got the sprinkler. Strictly speaking,
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  Speaker 1: history is nothing but a long funeral sermon. The more
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  Speaker 1: closely it is studied, the more it is seen to
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  Speaker 1: be full of tears. The view of a palace is
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  Speaker 1: as fruitful in lessons as that of a cemetery and
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  Speaker 1: the chateau of Versailles. When one is surrounded there by
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  Speaker 1: the illustrious shades that have occupied it, suddenly assumes the
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  Speaker 1: aspect of an immense catafalque. The guildings are veiled with crape.
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  Speaker 1: One fancies that the fountains are weeping, and the son
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  Speaker 1: of the great King is hidden behind a heavy cloud.
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  Speaker 1: Death is in every chamber. It stands at every door,
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  Speaker 1: to make its dismal voice listened to, and to repeat
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  Speaker 1: the great saying, Vanity, All is Vanity. End of Section
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  Speaker 1: twenty two