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Updated: May 12, 2025
My second sister, Mademoiselle de Mortemart, was so unfortunate as to fall in love with a young Knight of Malta, doomed from his birth and by his family to celibacy. Such was Mademoiselle de Mortemart's grief that life became unbearable to her. Beautiful, witty, and accomplished, she quitted the world where she was beloved, and, at the age of seventeen, took the veil at Fontevrault.
I am glad to die; but I will give you money willingly on condition that you save the Duchesse de Mortemart." And while Madame de Mortemart, daughter of the man she loved, was making her way to safety under the priest's escort, Jeanne du Barry was being led to the scaffold, breathing the name of the man she had loved so well; and, however feeble the flesh, glad to follow where he had led the way.
I transcribe it here: I am jealous; an unusual thing for me. And I am much vexed, I confess, with Madame de Mortemart, who might have chosen a very different moment to be ill. I am ignorant as to the nature of her malady, but if it be serious, and of those which soon grow more dangerous, she has played me a very sorry trick in sending for you to act as her nurse or her physician.
Still more significant is the second incident, which happened shortly after. A relative of the Duke of Mortemart, shooting on his property, was attacked by peasants who insisted that he should cease his sport.
She at once became gentle, sycophantic, almost caressing in manner, and assured me that the ceremony of taking the vow would be indefinitely postponed, although the Bishop of Lugon had already prepared his homily, and invitations had been issued to the nobility. Madame de Mortemart is the very embodiment of subtlety and cunning.
I take the respectful liberty of here thanking my King for the extreme kindness which he has shown to my wife, nee De Mortemart, to my son D'Antin, to his brothers and sisters, both dead and living, and also to myself, who have only been dismissed, and kept in exile: In recognition of which I give and bequeath to his Majesty my vast chateau of Montespan, begging him to create and institute there a community of Repentant Ladies, to wear the habit of Carmelites or of the Daughters of the Conception, on the special charge and condition that he place my wife at the head of the said convent, and appoint her to be first Abbess.
"They say that Caravan looks puffy," lisped in a low voice a young man, lounging on the edge of a buhl table that had once belonged to a Mortemart, and dangling a rich cane with affected indifference in order to conceal his anxiety from all, except the person whom he addressed. "They are taking seven to two against him freely over the way," was the reply. "I believe it's all right."
He passes it to the second, who places it on the coffin. The marshal salutes the altar and the princes and resumes his place. The King-at-Arms continues the calls. "Monsieur the Duke of Mortemart, captain-colonel of the regular foot-guards of the King, bring the ensign of the company which you have in keeping."
Like an equitable judge he pardoned neither of us; he did not forgive himself and he dared not condemn me. Since this sad time of desertion and sorrow, into which the new state of things had brought me, MM. de Mortemart, de Nevers, and de Vivonne had been glad to avoid me. They found my humour altered, and I admit that a woman who sulks, scolds, or complains is not very attractive company.
The family of Le Tellier is good enough for a judicial and legal family; but what bonds are there between the Louvois and the Mortemart? No matter: ambition puts a thick bandage over the eyes of those whom it inspires; the Marquis wished to marry his daughter to my nephew, De Mortemart!!! I communicated this proposition to the King.
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