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Updated: June 8, 2025
At the same time the Hotel de Lesdiguieres was prepared for the Czar and his suite, under the idea that he might prefer a private house, with all his people around him, to the Louvre. The Hotel de Lesdiguieres was large and handsome, as I have said at the commencement of this chapter, adjoined the arsenal, and belonged by succession to the Marechal de Villeroy, who lodged at the Tuileries.
I had news sent to me from Madame de Lesdiguieres at Saint Germain, that M. d'Elbeuf, an hour after he heard of the arrival of the Prince de Conti and M. de Longueville at Paris, wrote a letter to the Abbe de la Riviere with these words: "Tell the Queen and the Duc d'Orleans that this diabolical Coadjutor is the ruin of everything here, and that in two days I shall have no power at all, but that if they will be kind to me I will make them sensible.
This history was first printed in Paris in 1705, at the expense of the Duchesse de Lesdiguieres, the last of this noble family, whose estate fell after her decease to that of Villeroy. His preceptor was the famous Vincent de Paul, Almoner to Queen Anne of Austria.
The Czar alighted at nine o'clock in the evening at the Louvre, and walked all through the apartments of the Queen-mother. He considered them to be too magnificently hung and lighted, jumped into his coach again, and went to the Hotel de Lesdiguieres, where he wished to lodge. He thought the apartment destined for him too fine also, and had his camp-bed immediately spread out in a wardrobe.
"Do you wonder," he asked them, "that M. de Lesdiguieres should administer the law so that it shall ever be favourable to our great nobles? Would it be just, would it be reasonable that he should otherwise administer it?" He paused dramatically to let his sarcasm sink in. It had the effect of reawakening Le Chapelier's doubts, and checking his dawning conviction in Andre-Louis' sincerity.
If he had failed with the windmill, at least he was now master of the wind. "To the Palais!" they shouted, waving their hands, brandishing canes, and here and there even a sword. "To the Palais! Down with M. de Lesdiguieres! Death to the King's Lieutenant!" He was master of the wind, indeed.
Saint-Simon, the court chronicler, mentions that the gardens were so immaculately kept that when the Archbishop and "La Belle" Duchesse de Lesdiguières used to promenade therein they were followed by a gardener who, with a rake, sought to remove the traces of each footprint as soon as made. Later, the Cardinal de Beaumont, the persecutor of the Jansenists, resided here.
This was the windmill, indeed, and he a poor knight of rueful countenance. To attack it at closer quarters would mean being dashed to pieces. Yet on the threshold he turned again. "M. de Lesdiguieres," said he, "may I recite to you an interesting fact in natural history? The tiger is a great lord in the jungle, and was for centuries the terror of lesser beasts, including the wolf.
In addition to these, there were Matignon and the dowager Duchesse de Lesdiguieres, who claimed Neufchatel by right of their relationship to Madame de Nemours. Matignon was an intimate friend of Chamillart, who did not like the Prince de Conti, and was the declared enemy of the Marechal de Villeroy, the representative of Madame de Lesdiguieres, in this affair.
Great preparations were made there for his reception, and apartments in the Louvre were gorgeously fitted up for the accommodation of him and his suite. But Peter, annoyed by parade, declined the sumptuous palace, and, the very evening of his arrival, took lodgings at the Hotel de Lesdiguieres. To those who urged his acceptance of the saloons of the Louvre he replied, "I am a soldier.
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