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Updated: May 20, 2025
They were as careless, as merry, as shameless as before; the talk then had been of Madame's coming, now it was of her going; they talked of Dover and what had passed there, but the treaty was dismissed with a shrug, and the one theme of interest, and the one subject of wagers, was whether or how soon Mlle. de Quérouaille would return to the shores and the monarch she had left.
Such were the annoyances doubtless unforeseen by Mademoiselle Querouaille on quitting France, and to which La Vallière and Montespan were not exposed in the Court of the Grand Monarque, where vice itself put on airs of grandeur and majesty.
The purpose of her receiving an appointment at the Court of St. James's was apparently foretold, for Madame de Sévigné thus writes to her daughter: "Ne trouvez-vous pas bon de savoir que Querouaille dont l'étoile avait été devineé avant qu'elle partit, l'a suivie très-fidèlement? Le roi d'Angleterre l'a aimée, elle s'est trouvée avec une légère disposition
Although maîtresse-en-titre, and favourite mistress as she became, she could not, however, prevent the unworthy and frequent resort of the debauched prince to rivals of a lower grade, and Madame de Sévigné penned some amusing lines on the subject of those duplicate amours: "Querouaille has been in no way deceived; she had a mind to be the King's mistress, she has her wish.
Breathing such a vitiated atmosphere, and having so many lamentable examples before her eyes, Mademoiselle Querouaille saw only the dazzling side of the proposition made to her the hope of reigning despotically over the heart of a great prince, and of becoming the equal of that La Vallière whose elevation was the object of so much envy and feminine ambition.
"On my life," said he, "I didn't know you were interested in the lady, Simon, or I wouldn't have taken a hand in the affair." "On my life," said I, "I'm obliged to you. What of Mlle. de Quérouaille?" "She has returned with Madame." "But will return without Madame?" "Who knows?" he asked with a smile that he could not smother. "God and the King," said I. "What of M. de Perrencourt?"
The Duchess of Cleveland having shared the fate common to court favourites, her place in the royal affections was speedily filled by a mistress whose influence was even more baneful to the king, and more pernicious to the nation. This woman was Louise de Querouaille, the descendant of a noble family in Lower Brittany.
At an early age she had been appointed maid of honour to Henrietta, youngest sister of Charles II., soon after the marriage of that princess, in 1661, with the Duke of Orleans, brother to Louis XIV. Fate decreed that Mademoiselle de Querouaille should be brought into England by means of a political movement; love ordained she should reign mistress of the king's affections.
If it be noted that the Duke of Richmond only came into the world in 1672, we may be led to suppose that Mademoiselle Querouaille did not yield without hesitation to the desires of her royal lover; and that supposition becomes almost a certitude, when one reads this passage of a letter which Saint-Evremond addressed to his fair countrywoman:
In fine, Simon, our King feels that he can't be a good Catholic without the counsels of Madame Quérouaille, and the French King feels that he must by all means convert and save so fair a lady as is the name on your tongue, nay, is it in your heart, Simon?" "I know whom you mean," I answered, for her revelation came to no more than what I had scented out for myself.
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