In Château Land, Anne Hollingsworth Wharton [english reading book txt] 📗

show more plainly the generosity and breadth of his character than in his forgiveness of those who had slighted and injured him,--when he said, upon ascending the throne, "The King of France does not avenge the wrongs of the Duke of Orleans," Louis placed himself many centuries in advance of the revengeful and rapacious age in which he lived.

Another poet whose name is associated with Blois is Francois Villon. A loafer and a vagabond he was, and a thief he may have been, yet by reason of his genius and for the beauty of his song this troubadour was welcomed to the literary court of Charles d'Orleans. That Villon received substantial assistance and protection from his royal brother poet appears from his poems. Among them we find one upon the birth of the Duke's daughter Mary: _Le Dit de la Naissance Marie_, which, like his patron's verses, is part in French and part in Latin.

In this chateau, which is so filled with history and romance, our thoughts turned from the times of Charles of Orleans to a later period when Catherine sought to dazzle the eyes of Jeanne d'Albret by a series of fetes and pageants at Blois that would have been quite impossible in her simpler court of Navarre. The Huguenot Queen, as it happened, was not at all bedazzled by the splendors of the French court, but with the keen vision that belonged to her saw, through the powder, paint, tinsel, and false flattery, the depravity and corruption of the life that surrounded her. To her son she wrote that his fiancee was beautiful, witty, and graceful, with a fine figure which was much too tightly laced and a good complexion which was in danger of being ruined by the paint and powder spread over it. With regard to the marriage contract which she had come to sign, the Queen said that she was shamefully used and that her patience was taxed beyond that of Griselda. After many delays the marriage contract was finally signed, and a few days later the good Queen of Navarre was dead, whether from natural causes or from some of the products of Queen Catherine's secret cupboards the world will never know, as Ruggieri and Le Maitre were both at hand to do the will of their royal mistress with consummate skill, and to cover over their tracks with equal adroitness.

It was to a still later and less tragic period in the history of the chateau that our thoughts turned most persistently, when Gaston, Duke of Orleans and his wife, Marguerite of Lorraine, held their court here and a bevy of young girls brought charm and grace to these great bare rooms. Gaston's eldest daughter, the Grande Mademoiselle, was often here in those days, acting in amateur theatricals with her stepsisters, one of whom, the little Princess Marguerite d'Orleans, cherished vain hopes of becoming Queen of France by marrying her own cousin, Louis XIV.

There is an amusing passage in the diary of Mademoiselle de Montpensier, in which she describes the visit of the King at Blois. "My sister," she said, "came to the foot of the stairs to receive his Majesty," this was of course the beautiful stairway of Francis I, which bears the lovely sculptured figures of Diane de Poitiers and other beauties of the time; but alas, the little Princess Marguerite had been stung by certain flies called gnats which quite spoiled her beautiful complexion, and, adds the frank sister, "made her look quite an object." This circumstance added greatly to Marguerite's chagrin when she learned that Louis was on his way to wed the Spanish Infanta, she herself having been flattered with the hope of marrying her cousin, having been frequently addressed as the "little queen." Louis, never insensible to his own charms, confided to Mademoiselle on his way to Blois that he had not changed his coat or dressed his love-locks; in fact had made himself "_le plus vilain possible_," in order to spare the regrets of his cousin Marguerite and her parents that he had slipped through their fingers.

Other young girls in the family group were Mademoiselle de Saint-Remi, whose father, Jacques de Courtarval, Marquis of Saint-Remi, was first steward to Gaston, Duke of Orleans, and Mademoiselle Montelais, whose name occurs in one of the court rhymes of the day in company with that of another young girl, whose history is closely associated with the chateau,

"Guiche of love the ally
The maids of honor did supply,
He has caged a pretty pair,
Montelais and La Valliere."

This other girl, who was destined to be a companion to Mademoiselle Montelais at court, was Louise de La Valliere, the stepdaughter of Saint-Remi and the daughter of the Marquis de la Baume-Le Blanc, Sieur de la Gasserie, who took the title of La Valliere after the death of an elder brother. These high-sounding titles of the La Vallieres did not stand for much in gold or gear at this time, although there are still ruins to be seen in Bourbonnais of a very ancient castle of the La Baumes. An heroic record was theirs, however, as one of the name, Pierre le Blanc, served under Joan of Arc, and the father of Louise successfully bore the brunt of the enemies' attack at the passage of Brai, in 1634, and secured the retreat of the Spanish.

We had seen the house at Tours where Louise was born, but it was at Amboise that the La Vallieres lived during her childhood, and here she may have seen the fourteen-year-old Louis, who came with the Queen Mother and Mazarin to this town, which was so gallantly held for him, its rightful lord, against Gaston and his bellicose daughter, by the honest soldier, Laurent de La Valliere. Whether or not little Louise de La Valliere saw the young King at Amboise during the war of the Fronde she certainly saw him when he stopped at Blois, some years later, on his way to Saint-Jean de Luz and the Spanish marriage. Louis and his court were the guests of Gaston in 1660, although they had been openly arrayed against each other at Amboise in 1651. Mademoiselle de Montpensier, in her frank and amusing chronicles, tells us that the King evidently found her father's chateau a dull place to stop in over night. The customs and costumes of the household failed to please the fastidious young monarch; the meal was served in "old-fashioned style, and the ladies were dressed like the dishes--all out of fashion."

Dumas makes Louis remark facetiously to Madame Gaston, that his teacher in geography had not told him that Blois was so far from Paris that the fashions could not reach the provincial town for several years. Only one figure in the group, which had gathered in the vast _salle_ to do honor to the monarch, appeared to him worthy of royal regard. This was a slight, girlish form, in white muslin, a costume so simple that it could never be quite out of date.

Standing this afternoon in the Salle de Reception, we pictured to ourselves the first meeting of the King and Louise de La Valliere on the night of the arrival of the court at Blois. The fast-fading light lent a semblance of reality to the scene, as the torches and candles used in those early days could not have brilliantly lighted the vast hall. We fancied the chairs placed in half circle for the accommodation of the royal guests, the King's not a half-inch higher than that of Mazarin or of the Queen, Anne of Austria. The astute Italian Prime Minister is seated, his body is bent, his face pallid, the hand of Death is already laid upon him, but his mind is as keen and alert as in youth, his eyes as penetrating. The courtiers are grouped around Mazarin, the real king; Gaston, the indolent father of the energetic and courageous Mademoiselle de Montpensier, is talking to Mazarin, and chronicles of the day tell us that the Duke was an admirable _raconteur_. The Grande Mademoiselle, now over thirty, and in the full flower of a beauty which, according to Petitot's miniature and her own rose-colored description, was not inconsiderable, is in another group at one side of the hall, with her half-sisters and the other young girls of the house. Called forth from her modest station behind the princesses of the House of Orleans by the command of her hostess, Louise de La Valliere stepped forward, confused and blushing, to make her deep courtesy before the King, while the Duchess presented her in due form as Mademoiselle de la Baume-Le Blanc, daughter of the Marquis de La Valliere and stepdaughter of the Marquis de Saint-Remi.

As Madame de Motteville described her at seventeen, we see the slight girlish form of La Valliere making her reverence before royalty, owing her charm, as the court lady relates, more to a certain grace, modesty and tenderness in bearing and expression than to the dazzling whiteness and rosiness of her skin, the exquisite blueness of her eyes and the brilliancy of her blonde hair of the shade which the French call _cheveux argentes_.

Although Madame de la Motte's description of Louise de La Valliere is charming and sympathetic, we long for the graceful and vivifying pen of Madame de Sevigne to picture for us the young girl as she appeared at her home in Blois, before the equally baneful breath of court favor or court scandal had brushed the bloom from her innocent loveliness.

Dear Madame de Sevigne, with her graceful fancy, her _joie de vivre_, and her inimitable skill in presenting a situation and making her characters live before us, should have been immortal as well as universal. We wish for a letter from her in every chateau of the Loire, most of all here at Blois, of which she has written so little. When Madame de Sevigne saw Louise de La Valliere some months later at court, she likened her to a modest violet, hiding beneath its leaves; but not so completely as to evade the eyes of royalty. And if Louise was lovely in her gown of virginal white, the King was a no less pleasing object to gaze upon. At all times courteous and graceful, at twenty-three Louis is described as handsome, well-formed, with deep blue eyes, and a profusion of curling hair which fell over his shoulders. Although somewhat under the middle height, he bore himself with an air of majesty and dignity, inherited from his royal mother, and would have been "every inch a King," said Saint-Simon, "even if he had been born under the roof of a beggar." It was this grace and personal charm, which Louis possessed in no small degree, that appealed to the girl's imagination, rather than the grandeur of his station. If Louise had not seen him again the image of this young prince from fairyland might in time have faded from her mind, especially as an incipient love affair with a neighbor's son already existed. Some notes and occasional shy glances had been exchanged between Mademoiselle de La Valliere and young Bragelongne, who lived next door to the Saint-Remis at Blois, and had she not been suddenly carried off to court this nebulous romance might have materialized into a happy marriage, and a career more honorable, if less brilliant and exciting, than that which lay before her.

It was this early affair with a neighbor's son which gave Dumas some historic foundation for his captivating and pathetic story of the Vicomte de Bragelonne. Whether