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Updated: June 12, 2025
Just, as she had been bled, Madame de Brancas entered, and saw us all in confusion and agitation, and Madame lying on her chaise-longue. She asked what was the matter, and was told.
All the success of his journey consisted in hindering Brancas from returning to Spain. This was no great punishment, for Brancas had nothing more to hope for from Madame des Ursins, and was not a man to lose his time for nothing.
He remained a considerable time undergoing the process of initiation, and succeeded at last in being of the private parties that some of the important Jansenists then held once or twice a week at the house of the Duchesse de Brancas.
Brancas appreciated all the importance of what was told him, but warned by the fate of the Abbe d'Estrees, fearing even for his couriers, he took the precaution of sending word to the King that he had pressing business to acquaint him with, which he could not trust to paper, and that he wished to be allowed to come to Versailles for a fortnight.
"Why are you going to bed here, sir?" said his valet de chambre; "do you not mean to go to your wife?" "I had quite forgotten," he replied. He was the Queen-mother's chevalier d'honneur. One day, while she was at church, Brancas forgot that the Queen was kneeling before him, for as her back was very round, her head could hardly be seen when she hung it down.
These praises of Madame des Ursins were but vague; she had not sufficient confidence in the Cardinal to admit to him her real position in our Court, and to give him instructions accordingly, so that what he had to say was soon all said; against the Marquis de Brancas he had really no fact to allege, his sole crime that he was too sharp-sighted and not sufficiently devoted to the Princess.
I, however, did not go till half-past six o'clock, for I can go to any box I please, being pretty well known. I was in the Brancas' box; I looked at Keiserin with my opera-glass, and at times she drew tears from my eyes. I often called out bravo, bravissimo, for I always remembered that it was only her third appearance.
The Emperor had no fewer than ninety chamberlains, among whom figured these among other great names of the old regime: an Aubusson de la Teuillade, a Galard de Bearn, a Marmier, a d'Alsace, a Turenne, a Noailles, a Brancas, a Gontaut, a Gramont, a Beauvau, a Sapicha, a Radziwill, a Potocki, a Choiseul-Praslin, a Nicolay, a Chabot, a La Vieuville.
The Cardinal was somewhat embarrassed; he was charged with no business; all his mission was to praise Madame des Ursins, and complain of the Marquis de Brancas.
Let me add what I learnt from the Marechal de Brancas, to whom Alberoni related, a long while after this disgrace, that one evening as the Queen was travelling from Parma to Spain, he found her pacing her chamber, with rapid step and in agitation muttering to herself, letting escape the name of the Princesse des Ursins, and then saying with heat, "I will drive her away, the first thing."
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