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Updated: June 17, 2025
There has been a council of all the general officers here this morning. I am to carry some dispatches to Versailles not altogether a pleasant business, but some one must do it, and of course he will have heard the main incidents direct from Villeroi. I leave at noon, Rupert, and you will accompany me, unless indeed you would prefer remaining here on the chance of getting an earlier exchange."
The sumptuous banners of the family of Villeroi, which had long slept in dust, were once more unfurled, to wave over the gothic points of painted casements; and music echoed, in many a lingering close, through every winding gallery and colonnade of that vast edifice.
The Duchess wrote a song upon Mailly, in which she reproached her, notwithstanding her airs of prudery, with an infidelity with Villeroi, a sergeant of the Guard. In the Duchess's house malice passes for wit, and therefore they are under no restraint. The three sisters the Duchess, the Princesse de Conti, and Madame d'Orleans behave to each other as if they were not sisters.
At the end of that time they were forced to surrender, but the time gained by their heroic defence afforded time for Overkirk to bring up his army, and when Villeroi arrived near Maestrich, he found the allies already there, and so strongly posted that although his force was fully twice as strong as theirs, he did not venture to attack.
"I wrote myself to Marshal Villeroi to ask tidings of you, and to know why you were not among the officers exchanged; and I was told that you had escaped from Lille, and had never been heard of since." "He never heard of me, sir, but his Majesty of France could have given you further news. But the story is too long for telling you now." "You must be anxious about your friends, Rupert.
Arnold d'Ossat had acquired veritable weight at the court of Rome, and had paved the way with a great deal of art towards turning to advantage any favorable chances that might offer themselves. Villeroi, having broken with the League, had become Henry IV.'s minister of foreign affairs, and obtained some confidence at Rome in return for the good will he testified towards the papacy.
He precisely defined his peculiar merit when he said, "Princes have servants of all values and all sorts; some do their own business before that of their master; others do their master's and do not forget their own; but Villeroi believes that his master's business is his own, and he bestows thereon the same zeal that another does in pushing his own suit or laboring at his own vine."
"All this has nothing to do with my question, my lord," resumed I. "I ask you once again, whether you ever heard the duc de Villeroi assign his passion for one of my women as the reason for his visits to me? Have you, my lord bishop? I entreat you to answer." "Madam, I have not," said the good prelate, colouring deeply.
The fact was, that Henriette had drawn upon herself a general hatred and ill will, because she steadily refused all gossiping invitations, where my character would have been pulled to pieces, and the affairs of my household discussed and commented upon: there, indeed, she had sinned beyond all hope of pardon. She it was who pointed out to me the perfidious conduct of the duc de Villeroi.
"The duc de Tresmes talks much of you, and boasts greatly to the honor of your friendship; he has dubbed himself your <sapajou>; this is not amiss for a peer of France, and what is still more gratifying, he has assumed a title which, I believe, no one in the kingdom will attempt to dispute his incontestable claim to call his own. Villeroi is all impatience to return to Versailles.
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