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With Madame de Tencin, a woman as scheming and with as evil a reputation as himself, for chief ally, the Due determined to find another mistress who should finally oust Madame de Mailly from Louis' favour; and her he found in a woman, devoted to himself and his interests, and of such surpassing loveliness that, when the King first saw her at Petit Bourg, he exclaimed, "Heavens! how beautiful she is!"
And, the following day, the usurper was callously writing to a friend, "Doubtless Meuse will have informed you of the trouble I had in ousting Madame de Mailly; at last I obtained a mandate to the effect that she was not to return until she was sent for." "No portrait," says de Goncourt, referring to this letter, "is to be compared with such a confession.
Chamillart, therefore, persuaded the King to remain neutral, and aided Matignon by money and influence to get the start of the other claimants. It was more distant; more entangled if possible, than that of Madame de Mailly.
In the year 1456, at the trial for the rehabilitation of Joan of Arc's memory, Mailly signed his name among those who condemned the deed he had helped to carry out. Zanon de Castiglione, Bishop of Lisieux. One of the reasons that this man gave for condemning Joan of Arc to the stake was that she was born in too low a rank of life to have been inspired by God.
Madame de Nemours had amongst other possessions the sovereignty of Neufchatel. As soon as she was dead, various claimants arose to dispute the succession. Madame de Mailly laid claim to it, as to the succession to the principality of Orange, upon the strength of a very doubtful alliance with the house of Chalons, and hoped to be supported by Madame de Maintenon.
He took no notice of the little group observing him, however, but, drawing his men up against the wall, leaned against a buttress, moodily pulling at his long moustache. "We are going to see pretty things," said the hostess; "that tall crookback is the Vidame d'Orrain himself, and 'twas just the same way last year that he took poor Monsieur de Mailly."
It was not long before the identity of the worker of this miracle was revealed to the world. She had been recognised more than once when making her stealthy way to the King's apartments; she was his chosen companion on his journey to Compiègne; and it was soon public knowledge that Madame de Mailly was the woman who had captured the King's elusive heart.
Madame de Mailly, the widow of a marshal of the royal period, had been admitted to the rank and privileges of the wives of the grand officers of the crown, and had figured as a marshal's widow, at the reception of January 1, 1811. The court of Versailles appeared to have revived. Napoleon preferred to derive his power from divine right than from the will of the nation.
Mailly was killed, several of the grenadiers and sappers fell round him, and the rest retired, meeting, as they climbed the counterscarp, two battalions who had joined them as soon as the breach was reported practicable; but upon hearing from the grenadiers that this was not the case they fell back again after losing their commanding officer and many men from the Turkish fire.
The King, upon getting up, was duly made acquainted with La Vrilliere's proposal, and at once agreed to it. There was only one person opposed to the marriage, and that was Mademoiselle de Mailly. She was not quite twelve years of age.
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