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Updated: June 22, 2025
On leaving the chamber of Louis XV., the Duc de Villequier, first gentleman of the bedchamber for the year, ordered M. Andouille, the King's chief surgeon, to open the body and embalm it. The chief surgeon would inevitably have died in consequence. "I am ready," replied Andouille; "but while I operate you shall hold the head; your office imposes this duty upon you."
I was especially anxious to learn whether he had tracked his wife hither, or was merely here in pursuance of his general schemes against me, and to this end. I asked him with as much irony as I could compass to what I was to attribute his presence. 'I am afraid I cannot stay to offer you hospitality, I continued; 'but for that you have only your friend M. Villequier to thank!
"I have seen," she said, "what I never expected to see there; I have seen love in its tomb and the Ministry in its cradle." The elder Margrave of Anspach was smitten with Mademoiselle d'Armagnac, but he would not marry her, and said afterwards that he had never intended to do so, because the familiarities which had passed between her and the Marquis de Villequier had disgusted him.
What of that? my companion lisped in his silkiest tone. 'What of that? the other cried, frowning, and pushing slightly forward. 'Precisely, M. d'Agen repeated, laying his hand on his hilt and declining to give back. 'I am not aware that his Majesty has appointed you Provost-Marshal, or that you have any warrant, M. Villequier, empowering you to stop gentlemen in the public streets.
M. de Villequier, agreeably to the command he had received from the Queen my mother, asked for leave, and obtained it. The King, however, staying in his closet, like Rehoboam, with his council of five or six young men, they suggested suspicions in his mind respecting my brother's departure from Court.
The paramour of the woman was with her, watching the motions of the Royal Family on the night they passed from their own apartments to those of the Duc de Villequier in order to get into the carriage; and by this paramour was La Fayette instantly informed of the departure. The traitress discovered that Her Majesty was on the eve of setting off by seeing her diamonds packed up.
Such is the delicacy which prevails here in affairs of love. The Duke is very passionate. When Madame de Nesle dismissed him he almost died of vexation; he looked as if he was about to give up the ghost, and for six months he did not know what to do. The Marquis de Villequier, the Duc d'Aumont's son, one day visited the Marquise de Nesle.
We are too young to govern." The degradation of the monarchy during the reign is reflected in the condition of the Louvre. Henry IV.'s great scheme, which Louis XIII. had inherited and furthered, included a colossal equestrian statue, which was to stand on a rocky pedestal in the centre of a new Place, before the east front of the Louvre, but the regency revoked the scheme, and for thirty years nothing was done. It had even been proposed under the ministry of Cardinal Fleury to pull the whole structure down and sell the site. The neglect of the palace during these years is almost incredible. Perrault's fine façade was hidden by the half-demolished walls of the Hôtels de Longueville, de Villequier, and de Bourbon. The east wing itself was unroofed on the quadrangle side and covered with rotting boarding. Perrault's columns on the outer façade were unchannelled, the capitals unfinished, the portal unsculptured, and the post-office stabled its horses along the whole of the wing from the middle entrance to the north angle. The royal apartments of Anne of Austria in the Petite Galerie were used as stables; so, too, were the halls where now is housed the collection of Renaissance sculpture. The Infanta's garden was a yard where grooms exercised their horses; a colony of poor artists and court attendants were lodged in the upper floors, and over most of the great halls entresols were constructed to increase this kind of accommodation. The building was described as a huge caravanserai, where each one lodged and worked as he chose, and over which might have been placed the legend, "Ici on loge
I found the colonel standing in the square at Villequier Aumont, watching the departure by car of the three American ladies who for a month past had dispensed tea and cakes in the gaily-painted maisonette at the top of the village.
Villequier blushed, but at last said, "I confess that up to this moment I had no reason to believe it; but since you put me into such good company I have no right to complain." I do not think Madame de Nesle was well revenged. I remember that the Duke, who was terribly ill-made, said one day to the late Monsieur, who was a straight, well-formed person, that a mask had taken him for Monsieur.
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