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But Madame des Ursins, who thought that the time had not yet arrived for this step, persuaded him to remain, and endeavoured to flatter his vanity by an expedient altogether ridiculous. She gave him the command of a regiment of guards, and he, priest, archbishop, primate and cardinal, accepted it, and was, of course, well laughed at by everybody for his pains.
On the other hand, Madame des Ursins did not fail to hold herself out as representing the respected authority of Louis XIV. and Madame de Maintenon; on the other, she knew well how to initiate herself, by means of the domestic duties, of which she designedly exaggerated the importance, into the innermost prejudices of the royal wife.
The Abbe d'Estrees, who expected that Madame des Ursins would be at once disgraced, and who had made a great outcry when his letter was opened, fell into such despair when he saw how lightly she was let off, that he asked for his dismissal. He was taken at his word; and this was a new triumph for Madame des Ursins, who thought herself more secure than ever. Her triumph was of but short duration.
The King of Spain and Alberoni have a personal hatred against my son, which is the work of the Princesse des Ursins. My son is naturally brave, and fears nothing: death is not at all terrible to him. On the 29th of March the young Duc de Richelieu was taken to the Bastille: this caused a great number of tears to be shed, for he is universally loved.
Mémoires de Saint Simon, tom. xx., p. 171, 172. This statement of Saint Simon, quite insupportable as it is, would nevertheless leave subsisting, in the melancholy position of the children and their father, a means of justification to Madame des Ursins, did not Duclos deprive her of it; and who, less charitable than the authority whom he generally cites when treating of this celebrated woman, tells us purely and simply that she desired to facilitate the communication of her own apartments with those of the King, which leaves ample room for slander and suspicion.
He was quite aware who Louville was; the credit he had attained with the King of Spain; the trouble Madame des Ursins and the deceased Queen had had to get him out of their way; the fear, therefore, that he conceived on account of this unexpected arrival, was so great that he passed all bounds, in order to free himself from it.
The Abbe, vain of his family and of his position, was not a man much to be feared as it seemed. Madame des Ursins accordingly laughed at and despised him. He was admitted to the council, but was quite without influence there, and when he attempted to make any representations to Madame des Ursins or to Orry, they listened to him without attending in the least to what he said.
She took her tabouret that evening at the King's grand supper, which was the last he ever gave. On the morrow he sent some precious stones to the Persian ambassador just alluded to. It was on this day that the Princesse des Ursins set off for Lyons, terrified at the state of the King as I have already related. For more than a year the health of the King had diminished.
A more solid gratification to us were the kind things Madame des Ursins said in our behalf to the King and Madame de Maintenon.
As for Madame des Ursins, she had counted upon this sovereignty with as much certainty as though it were already between her fingers.
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