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Updated: June 16, 2025
Brought up by the Duc de Montausier, a sort of monkish soldier, and by Bossuet, a sort of military monk, Monsieur le Dauphin had no good examples from which to profit. Crammed as he is with Latin, Greek, German, Spanish, and Church history, he knows all that they teach in colleges, being totally ignorant of all that can only be learnt at the Court of a king.
The Duchesse de Montausier, I know not why, expressed herself to me in the same terms of amazement. I replied that, "Were I in that fair lady's place, I should dare to show myself least of all to the Queen, for fear of grieving her Majesty." I was often rebuked afterwards for this speech, which, I admit, I delivered somewhat thoughtlessly.
The aged Marquise, true to her early tastes, continued to receive her friends in her ruelle, and her salon had a brief revival when the Duchesse de Montausier returned from the provinces, after the second Fronde; but its freshness had faded with its draperies of blue and gold. The brilliant company that made it so famous was dispersed, and the glory of the Salon Bleu was gone.
Yet scandal was not silent; for Molière was loudly censured, as having, in the person of Alceste, ridiculed the Duke de Montausier, a man of honor and virtue, but of blunt, uncourteous manners.
My sister says that Madame de Montausier is a woman of stainless character, and her husband the proudest of men; yet you tell me that both husband and wife are full of kindness and favours for that unhappy Mlle. de la Valliere, whose position at Court is an open insult to your Queen. Have Queens often been so unhappy, I wonder, as her Majesty here, and your own royal mistress?
Next day, Madame de Montausier came to see me at my country-house; she told me of the general rumour that was afloat at Court.
No wonder that her salon at Port Royal was the favorite resort of such women as Madame de la Fayette, Madame de Montausier, Madame de Longueville, and Madame de Hautefort; and of such men as Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Nicole, and Domat. The collections of Valant contain papers which show what were the habitual subjects of conversation in this salon.
She insisted that I should remain on that day and dine with her, and Madame de Montausier indited two charming billets, which were sent to invite our family to join us there in the evening. 'It will not be a full circle, she said; 'but I think your brother treats as a friend a young man who is there to make his first essai.
The beautiful Madame de Turenne, whose husband was the maréchal-general of the armies of France, then engaged in war against Spain, under whose banners the great Condé was meeting with a long series of defeats, the Comtesse de Soissons, the Abbé de la Rivre, Madame de Brigy, the Duc and Duchesse de Montausier, all were laughing and exchanging badinage with the Duc de Gramont, who was playing execrably on Mademoiselle de Longueville's guitar.
The King heard this, and publicly commended such an act of good feeling and grateful sympathy. Madame de Montausier and the Phantom. What She Exacts from the Marquise. Her Reproaches to the Duke. Bossuet's Complacency.
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