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The King, who plumed himself upon knowing better than anybody the minutest military details, walking one day about the camp, found an ordinary cavalry guard ill-posted, and placed it differently. Later the same day he again visited by chance the spot, and found the guard replaced as at first. He was surprised and shocked. He asked the captain who had done this, and was told it was Louvois.
In your own reception-room you act as queen, and I am perfectly willing that you should do so, for it proves that you are the wife of the king, and not his mistress. Be magnanimous, then, and forgive Louvois if, above the ambition of Madame de Mainterion, he valued the dignity and honor of the French throne.
Louvois had conceived the audacious idea of purchasing in Holland itself the supplies of powder and ball necessary for the French army and the commercial instincts of the Hollanders had prevailed over patriotic sentiment. Ruyter was short of munitions in the contest already commenced against the French and English fleet.
Prisoners were sometimes forgotten, and letters are extant from Louvois and other ministers, asking the governor to report how many years certain prisoners had been detained, and if he remembered what they were charged with. In Louis XIV.'s reign 2228 persons were incarcerated there; in Louis XV.'s, 2567.
Not only were his praises proclaimed by the silver- tongued Bossuet, but he was served by such men as Colbert, the financier and reformer; Louvois, the military organizer; Vauban, the master builder of fortifications; Conde and Turenne, unconquerable generals; and by a host of literary lights, whom he patronized and pensioned, and who cast about his person a glamour of renown.
It was, indeed, foolishness and insolence on the part of Louvois, and the King had spoken truly of him. The King was so wounded that he could not pardon him. After Louvois's death, he related this incident to Pomponne, still annoyed at it, as I knew by means of the Abbe de Pomponne.
His Majesty said to me: "I am delighted that he has committed the grave fault of approaching any one else than me about this marriage. Answer him, if you please, that it is my province alone to marry the daughters, and even the sons of my ministers. Louvois has thus far helped me to spend enormous sums. M. Colbert has assisted me to heap up treasure.
"The towns of Nimes, Alais, Uzes, Villeneuve, and some others, are entirely converted," writes the Duke of Noailles to Louvois in the month of October, 1685; "those of most note in Nimes made abjuration in church the day after our arrival. There was then a lukewarmness; but matters were put in good train again by means of some billets that I had put into the houses of the most obstinate.
The spies of Louvois are close at hand; they watch before your palace-gates, and await the twelfth stroke of the iron tongue that speaks from the towers of Notre Dame, to force their way into the very room wherein we stand. If they pass the threshold of the palace you are irretrievably lost!" The countess spoke not a word in reply.
"Sire," cried the duchess, "the whole world knows Prince Eugene to be above mercenary considerations, and it also knows that had Monsieur Louvois not driven him away from France, he would not now be the most distinguished officer in the army of a foreign prince." "Very true," returned the king.
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