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Picture of the Court of France in the Minority of Louis XV. (1715), and of the private life of the Regent (the Duke of Orleans). By the Duc de Richelieu †.

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HE first impression which the new appointment of the Duke of Orleans to the Regency made upon the minds of the people was favourable to the Duke. The whole talk was about his affability, his humanity, his decifive, butgracious deportment, and especially his openness and his loyalty. His campaigns in Italy and in Spain were recollected, the battles he had gained, and the places he had taken were spoken of, with that fatisfaction so natural to Frenchmen, who are always exceedingly attached to their princes, especially to those who are brave. It was said that he was well informed, and even learned. Artists and men of letters, Fontenelle especially, who was then the fashionable author, and gave the ton in company, praised him up to the skies; the parliament, charmed with being called to the administration of affairs, and of being able to offer remonftrances to kings, attached themselves to him; but the severe, the bigotted, or the hypocritical of the old Court, the party of Madame Maintenon, though not numerous, yet powerful, the Jesuits, the Pope's Nuncio, the Molinists, and the Priests of St Sulpice, offended at the gene

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ral and favourable opinion entertained of the Duke of Orieans, detefted him, and fecretly fomented cabais against him. They compofed a fable which was attributed to Madame his mother, because she herself repeated it, "There was once, faid the fable, a great Queen, who, upon being delivered of a beautiful prince, invited, according to custom, all the fa ries of the empyreum, one only excepted, whom she forgot. The feast was celebrated with magnificence, and the fairies, crowding round the charming little infant, each of them give him a gift, as is the practice in fuch cafes. One gave him courage, another gentleness, a third wit, a fourth judgment, the fifth beauty, the fixth strength; others bestowed on him learning, a love of the fine arts and generohty. At this moment approached the neglected fairy, who, full of rage and fecret rosentment, refolved to give him a gift favourable in appearance, but which, being carried to excefs, should become fatal to him. This was pliancy of temper, without determining how far it was to be carried; and accordingly she meant that it should reader useless to him all his other good qualities."

+ Memoires du Marechal Due de Richelieu.

Eafiness

The fubject of these Memoirs is a grand nephew of the famous Cardinal de Richelieu, They are curious; and, though written in the first person, are the work of another pen. They were composed, under the Duke's own eye, from materials in his poffeffion. "The parish registers at Versailles, fays he, do not record the day of my birth, nor could I ever difcover it, (fometime in 1699): neither will it be easily believed, that my mother brought me into the world after on y five months pregnancy, especially by those who are acquainted with my great age, and the life. I have led. It is to nature alone that I owe the strength, and at the fame time the delicacy of a constitution which has refifted the attacks of time, and of the passions. At the hour of my birth I struggled with death, and was kept in a box filled with cotton. New-born chidren that are weak and delicate nced only a genial warmth, and my father would not funerany physician to meddle with a frame so weakly as mine, but ordered me to be left to the operation of nature. It is, theretore, to nature alone that I owe my existence; the repaired the imprudences of my mother, which had hatened my birth, and the has given me that folid conftitution which has preferved me to extreme old age, notwithstanding the injuries fuflained from excel which destroy the strongest."

Easiness of temper was indeed the principal defect in the character of this prince, the fource of all the errors of his regency, and of his connection with dangerous or contemptible perfons: and if this facility was of advantage to him in the study of the profound sciences and arts, it was alfo the cause of his allowing himself to be governed by Law and Dubois, people unworthy of his confidence.

The great fault of the regent, and which he had imbibed from the Abbé Dubois, the person who had the care of his education, was the want of all principle either of religion or morality. The system of modern philosophers was then unknown; but Dubois had studied the principles of that sect of Pagan philosophers who taught that all actions are in themselves indifferent, and were rendered bad only by law or custom; he had instilled these principles into the mind of his pupil, and had taught him that laws are not made for princes, but are made by them at their pleasure. Thus fenfual pleasures be coming his ruling paffion, he confidered the laws as trifles, not to be regarded, and the restraints of strict morality as the work of popular opinion, which he only fometimes refpected on account of the prejudices of the people. He boasted of his parties of pleasure, of the nocturnal exceffes he committed with his friends, of the favours he had received from the fair; fo that one person drew his portrait in two words before the late king who approved of it; he called him a Braggart of vice. Business cost him little trouble, on account of his quickness of apprehenfion; but he had naturally an averfion to labour.

Dubois had inspired him with such a bad opinion of mankind in general, that he confounded the honest man with the knave, saying that all were alike, and even adding, that those he had honoured with his friendship were no better than the rest, but that

they were men of spirit, of vivacity, and wit. He himself had bestowed on these favourites the name of roués, an equivocal epithet, which they explained, by saying, that they were ready to be broke on the wheel for him; but which he explained by adding, that they were worthy of being broken on the wheel, not like ordinary malefactors, but as courtiers, who were ready to applaud every action of their prince, however voluptuous.

It was the custom of the regent to dedicate a part of the day to business; but towards evening he retired with his mistresses and his roués to sup, to play, to drink, &c. and to season the repast with the most diverting news of the town; all of them about nine o'clock repaired to the Palais Royal with Madame de Mouchi, Madame de Sabran, the Dutchess of Gefvres, and often Madame de Berry, the re gent's own daughter, who, though young, was initiated in all the nocturnal myfteries.

To this strange society was sometimes joined a detachment of opera girls for the entertainment of the company: there were also comedians and other persons, whose only recomendation was the being poffeffed of a certain degree of wit, whose talents lay in repartee, or who were known to be habituated to debauchery. There virtue, and even joftice were criticised; they ridiculed all the maxims of the old court, which they termed the antiquaille; all fervants and lacqueys were excluded; every one served himself; and when the accustomed hour arrived, the doors were shut, and had all Paris been in flames, the regent was utterly inacceffible. In that company there were neither princes, nor comedians, nor mistresses, nor respect, nor ceremony; all ranks were confounded, all diftinctions levelled; he who faid the best things was the most honoured; sometimes, even, (shall I venture to tell it?) the candles were extinguished,

ed, and the Duke of Orleans, who was naturally of a prying and curious difpofition, and fond of scandalous anecdotes, sometimes had a closet dexteroufly filled with torches, the door of which he fuddenly opened, and difcovered the fecrets of his company.

In these orgies the regent learned all the news of the day; there, he faid, he formed his judgment of the merit of perfons of distinction, and as people were allowed and encouraged to speak without referve, he there studied the public opinion; but he kept his own fecret, and never gave his company to understand what ufe he made of the liberties they took; he often rallied even himself and his mistresses, who were generally all present, the most favoured never being able to exclude her rivals. This scene lasted till morning, when many of them went home to fleep off their fatigues, and acquire strength for fupporting the fame riot the next day.

No one was more agreeable in these nocturnal societies than the regent himself: he had a great deal of fweetness, politeness, and affability; he never offended any one, at least, to his face'; but always behaved with the greatest gentleness and urbanity. In conversation he was often difplea sed when his friends were attacked; but he always contented himself with faying, that he would be happy if the fubject was changed. This he always faid to his favourites, when they were speaking ill of Law or any other perfons that were unworthy of his favours. Though in love with every pretty woman he saw, he was jealous of none, being more attached to the indulgences, than to the delicacies of the paffion. He was free in his difcourse, but he knew how to dissemble; and though he perfectly well understood human nature, he behaved as if he did not.

He had fo much accustomed himfelf to these nocturnal affemblies, that they became neceffary to his happi

ness; and had he not spent the night in that way, he would have employed it in wandering about with his companions. His inclination to ramble to a distance with a few friends, even on foot, often alarmed his family; he would fometimes enter like a common person into companies known for the freedom of their principles, or for the diffoluteness of their manners; and all companies were agreeable to him if wit, and libertinifm, or literature and the fine arts, were to be found there. Such was his private life, and no body can speak of it with more certainty than I, for I was often an ocular witness of the scenes I describe. I was likewife often a partaker of the misfortunes he experienced, and I strictly recommended to the historian of my time, not to pass over in filence the picture of these scenes which faithfully reprefent the manners of that period. I gave him the materials, and he promised to suppress only fuch relations as were unworthy of hiftory.

The Court of the late king had been so severe during the last years of that monarch, and Madame de Maintenon had introduced so much ceremony and referve into its pleasures, that France now felt itself relieved from a yoke, except the devotees, and excused the regent for all his excefies. At the death of the King, the Regent was the idol of all the youth, and had no enemies but among the remains of the old court, and among the old people who were no longer ambitious, or who did not wish to conform their rigid morals to the tranfient circumstances of the time; he was, befides, much beloved by the officers who had feen him in Italy and in Spain, where he had commanded with fo much fplendor and fuccefs; the military youth loudly applauded his pleasures and his nocturnal parties, eagerly deûring to be admitted to them, and for that purpose endeavouring to qualify themselves,

by

by acquiring that never failing title, celebrity in libertinism.

Such was the character of the regent, and of the lords of his secret court. The princesses who had preferved the ton of the old court, lived with much reserve and dedecorum; and the Dutchess of Orleans, who was the daughter of Louis XIV. by Madame de Montespan, never quitted that air of referve in her manners and discourse which she inherited from her father; she was only a legitimated princess of France. She was, however, so proud of being a daughter of Louis XIV. that she always gave her husband and others to understand, that he had done honour to the Duke of Orleans by her marriage with him. To fuch a length did she carry her conceit, that the faction, adverse to thelegitimated princes, gave her the name of Madame Lucifer; an expreffion which the regent himself sometimes made use of, even in public; hence arose that coldness which she teftified all her life for her husband, and the haughty deportment which the always affected towards him, shewing neither affection to him when he behaved to her as a husband, nor jealousy when he abandoned her.

The Dutchess of Berry, daughter of the regent, was endowed with much wit, and a lively imagination; but fo foolish witral as, like her father, to look upon those enterprises as the most laudable, that were the most spirited and bold.

Her figure was graceful and commanding, her conversation delightful; but a disposition, eagerly turned to pleasure, fpoiled all that was beautiful, and grand, and natural in this princefs, and made her relish the principles of her father, who even introduced her into those nocturnal affembhes which he frequented with women of libertine or fufpicious characters, and with the companions of his exceffes. The Dutchess of Berry

quired in that fociety a freedom of

manners, a disgust at etiquette, and fuch a love for liberty, that she gave way to every emotion of her temper, 'and to every impulfe of sense. Befides the amours which she was reported to have had with her f-, fhe had always several other lovers, whom she often changed, and often took back.

Notwithstanding this temper of facility and libertinifm, Madame de Berry was often diftracted with remorse. Having been partly educated in the principles of the old Court, and partly in those of the new, fhe was by turnstormented with the reproaches of religious libertines, and of libertines without religion. When she was under the horrors of repentance, the ufed to quit the world and endeavour to reconcile herself to the God of the penitent: She then buried herself in the innermoft recesses of a convent of Carmelites, with whom she fasted and prayed, rifing in the middle of the night to the stated devotions, groaning over the errors of her past life, and undergoing the difcipline of penance; then, whenever the defire of pleasure began to torment her anew, the would throw away her rosaries and her confeffors, appear again as if from the other world, return to her favourite Riom, or fome other lover, and hold her court as usual; thus pailing the period of her fhort life in alternate paroxyfms of diffipation and repentance; and, as Louis XIV. and the great Dauphin had made it fashionable to marry their mistresses, Madame de Berry conceived the defign of marrying her lover. Maurepas says in his memoirs, that the married Riom in her own chapel, and that the Curé of St. Sulpice performed the ceremony. Riom, with whom I was very intimate, never would confefs his marriage to me; but he never denied it. He had, however, nothing in him that could charm that princess. He was ill made, and had the look of a Chinese, but he had made Madame de Berry believe, that the

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