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The story got abroad, and M. le Duc d'Orleans repaired his forgetfulness by the bishopric of Laon, and upon the refusal of M. de Marseilles to change, gave him a fat abbey. M. de Lauzun hindered also a promotion of Marshal of France by the ridicule he cast upon the candidates. I have elsewhere related other of his witty remarks.
She came to me one evening, with a face of grief. "Mercy upon me," cried I, "what ails you?" "Alas!" replied she, in a piteous tone, "I have just quitted a most afflicted family; their loss is heavy and irreparable. The marechale de Luxembourg is well nigh distracted with grief." "Good heavens!" exclaimed I, "can the duchesse de Lauzun be dead?" "Alas! no." "Perhaps poor madame de Boufflers?"
I hurried off accordingly, as soon as I could get away, in search of Fontanieu. I had already had some relations with him, for he had married his daughter to the son of the sister of my brother-in-law, M. de Lauzun. I had done him some little service, and had therefore every reason to expect he would serve me on this occasion.
They did not know that his courage was extreme; and were quite taken aback by his calmness, and, his evident readiness to push on even farther than they chose to venture. On returning to Court, M. de Lauzun was of course pressed by everybody to relate all he knew of the position of the two armies. But he held himself aloof from all questioners, and would not answer.
The Pretender set out disguised from Bar, accompanied by only three or four persons, and came to Chaillot, where M. de Lauzun had a little house, which he never visited, and which he had kept for mere fancy, although he had a house at Passy, of which he made much use.
It burst after Lauzun had been in England eight or ten months. It seemed made expressly for him, by the success he derived from it, as everybody is aware.
Now, despite all the precautions of Louvois and Saint-Mars, despite sentinels for ever posted under Dauger's windows, despite arrangements which made it impossible for him to signal to people on the hillside at Les Exiles, despite the suppression even of the items in the accounts of his expenses, his secret, if he knew it, could have been discovered, as we have remarked, by the very man most apt to make mischievous use of it by Lauzun.
But towards the evening Tyrconnel and Lauzun collected all their forces, and marched out of the city by the road leading to that vast sheepwalk which extends over the table land of Kildare. Instantly the face of things in Dublin was changed. The Protestants every where came forth from their hiding places. Some of them entered the houses of their persecutors and demanded arms.
M. de Lauzun was, beyond gainsaying, a man of feeling and courage, but he nourished in his heart a limitless ambition, and his head, subject to whims and caprices, would not suffer him to follow methodically a fixed plan of conduct. The King had just pardoned him as a favour to his cousin; but, knowing him well, he was not at all fond of him.
This was all the thanks M. de Villeroy obtained from M. de Lauzun for the honours he had paid him; and this was M. de Lauzun's consolation for his ill-success at Aix- la-Chapelle. In Italy our armies were not more successful than elsewhere.
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