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The great number of medals that had been struck on all occasions the most ordinary not having been forgotten were collected, engraved, and destined for a medallic history. The Abbes Tallemant, Toureil, and Dacier, three learned members of the Academy, were charged with the explanation to be placed opposite each of these medals, in a large volume of the most magnificent impression of the Louvre.
His appearance at court was magnificent, and for him the Princesse de Tallemant made every sacrifice. But the Government was deaf to his appeals, a journey to Spain was fruitless; worst of all, his brother Henry, to whom he had been tenderly devoted, accepted a cardinal's hat, on July 3, 1747. This was fatal.
The very names of the frequenters of the salon of Mme. de Rambouillet testify to the prominence of her position in the world of culture: Mlle. de Scudéry, Mlle. du Vigean; Mmes. de Longueville, de la Vergne, de La Fayette, de Sablé, de Hautefort, de Sévigné, de la Suze, Marie de Gonzague, Duchesse d'Aiguillon, Mmes. des Houlières, Cornuel, Aubry, and their respective husbands; the great literary men: Rotrou, Scarron, Saint-Evremond, Malherbe, Racan, Chapelain, Voiture, Conrart, Benserade, Pellisson, Segrais, Vaugelas, Ménage, Tallemant des Réaux, Balzac, Mairet, Corneille, Bossuet, etc.
What befell her infancy, abandoned to the neglect of a fantastic and libertine father, ruled even before his widowhood by a mistress, the wife of one of his lacqueys, whom he killed one day during a hunting match in order to get him out of the way; of a father who, Tallemant tells us, carelessly remarked, when his daughter's marriage was agreed upon as though she belonged to some one else "They are going to make a princess of that little girl!"
You had Branto'me, you had Tallemant, you had Retif, and a dozen others, to furnish materials for scenes of voluptuousness and of blood that would have outdone even the present naturalistes. You had other metal to work on: you gave us that superstitious and tragical true love of La Moles, that devotion how tender and how pure! of Bussy for the Dame de Montsoreau.
He had two daughters, recently married, before whom he repeated the most piquant witticisms of Voltaire, and the most improper stories of Tallemant de Reaux; and consequently both promised to afford the scandalmongers a series of racy anecdotes, as their mother had before them.
Nanteuil, en faisant mon image, A de son art divin signale le pouvoir; Je hais mes yeux dans mon miroir, Je les aime dans son ouvrage. She had her share, however, of small but harmless vanities, and spoke of her impoverished family, says Tallemant, "as one might speak of the overthrow of the Greek empire."
As the marquis was preparing to read a voluminous memorandum refuting a chapter in Tallemant des Reaux' "Historiettes" which did not redound to the credit of the great house of Sallenauve, the wise organist remarked that it was time we dined, if we intended to keep an appointment already made for seven o'clock at the office of Maitre Achille Pigoult the notary.
In summing up her character, we shall be silent upon the subject of many of her faults, though it is not our wish to excuse one of them. "She was not wanting in wit," remarks Tallemant; "for she had been acquainted with so many witty people!"
At least Tallemant des Réaux says that "every evening a valet de chambre of the King played on the lute the dances of the day, and M. de Sully danced all alone, in some sort of extraordinary hat such as he always wore in his cabinet while his cronies applauded him, although he was the most awkward man in the world." Tennis is another courtly exercise in which Dallington urges moderation.
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