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It was the object of the French King to repeat the glorious coup of Louis XIV, and to abolish the Pyrenees by placing one of his grandsons on the throne of Spain. In order to bring this about, he did not venture to suggest that his younger son, the Duc de Montpensier, should marry Isabella; that would have been too obvious a move, which would have raised immediate and insurmountable opposition.
"I will do everything they like," Mademoiselle de Montpensier said then; "but shall I have any one near his Majesty to assist and support my undertaking? I have no more trust in Madame de Montespan; she has betrayed us, she will betray us again; the offence of M. de Lauzun is always present in her memory, and she is a lady who does not easily forgive.
Mdlle. de Montpensier had taken the command of the city of Paris. For a week past the Duke of Orleans had been ill, or pretended to be; he refused to give any order. When the prince began his movement, on the 2d of July, early, he sent to beg Mdlle. not to desert him. "I ran to the Luxembourg," she says, "and I found Monsieur at the top of the stairs.
The Prince de Montpensier had, when a very young man, formed a close friendship with the Comte de Chabannes, a man considerably older than himself and of exemplary character.
Mademoiselle de Montpensier had flatly refused the Duc de Savoie, because Madame de Savoie, daughter of Henri IV., was still living, ruling her estate like a woman of authority; and therefore, to this stepmother, a king's daughter, Mademoiselle had to give way, she being but the daughter of a French prince who died in disgrace and was forgotten.
He returned into France with the Comte de Lauzun, for whom he obtained letters of the Duke; which were verified at the Parliament in May, 1692. What a miraculous return of fortune! But what a fortune, in comparison with that of marrying Mademoiselle, with the donation of all her prodigious wealth, and the title and dignity of Duke and Peer of Montpensier. What a monstrous pedestal!
At this the young man smiled complacently, and said to the actress: "Your carriage is waiting for you at the corner of the Rue Montpensier, is it not? Well, I'll take the Princess to it. That will be the simpler plan, you can both go off together!" "Oh! how good of you," cried Rosemonde; "it's agreed."
The moment was ill chosen; just then Mademoiselle de Montpensier was striving to break the fetters of her dear De Lauzun; she certainly did not wish to get him out of one prison, and then put herself into another. Every one blamed this reformer's foolish presumption, and Mademoiselle, thoroughly exasperated, forbade her servants to admit him.
He was sustained in his task by that proud princess, his own and Mayenne's mother, by Madame Montpensier, by the resident triumvirate of Spain, Mendoza, Commander Moreo, and John Baptist Tasais, by the cardinal legate Gaetano, and, more than all, by the sixteen chiefs of the wards, those municipal tyrants of the unhappy populace.
The interests of my son could not be in better hands." The King agreed with me, and both he and I begged the Marquise to conduct M. du Maine to Choisy. Mademoiselle de Montpensier received him with rapture.
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