



Produced by David Widger





          MEMOIRS OF LOUIS XIV AND HIS COURT AND OF THE REGENCY

                        BY THE DUKE OF SAINT-SIMON




VOLUME 10.




CHAPTER LXX

The reign of Louis XIV. was approaching its conclusion, so that there is
now nothing more to relate but what passed during the last month of his
life, and scarcely so much.  These events, indeed, so curious and so
important, are so mixed up with those that immediately followed the
King's death, that they cannot be separated from them.  It will be
interesting and is necessary to describe the projects, the thoughts, the
difficulties, the different resolutions, which occupied the brain of the
Prince, who, despite the efforts of Madame de Maintenon and M. du Maine,
was of necessity about to be called to the head of affairs during the
minority of the young King.  This is the place, therefore, to explain all
these things, after which we will resume the narrative of the last month
of the King's life, and go on to the events which followed his death.

But, as I have said, before entering upon this thorny path, it will be as
well to make known, if possible, the chief personage of the story, the
impediments interior and exterior in his path, and all that personally
belonged to him.

M. le Duc d'Orleans was, at the most, of mediocre stature, full-bodied
without being fat; his manner and his deportment were easy and very
noble; his face was broad and very agreeable, high in colour; his hair
black, and wig the same.  Although he danced very badly, and had but ill
succeeded at the riding-school, he had in his face, in his gestures, in
all his movements, infinite grace, and so natural that it adorned even
his most ordinary commonplace actions.  With much ease when nothing
constrained him, he was gentle, affable, open, of facile and charming
access; the tone of his voice was agreeable, and he had a surprisingly
easy flow of words upon all subjects which nothing ever disturbed, and
which never failed to surprise; his eloquence was natural and extended
even to his most familiar discourse, while it equally entered into his
observations upon the most abstract sciences, on which he talked most
perspicuously; the affairs of government, politics, finance, justice,
war, the court, ordinary conversation, the arts, and mechanics.  He could
speak as well too upon history and memoirs, and was well acquainted with
pedigrees.  The personages of former days were familiar to him; and the
intrigues of the ancient courts were to him as those of his own time.
To hear him, you would have thought him a great reader.  Not so.  He
skimmed; but his memory was so singular that he never forgot things,
names, or dates, cherishing remembrance of things with precision; and his
apprehension was so good, that in skimming thus it was, with him,
precisely as though he had read very laboriously.  He excelled in
unpremeditated discourse, which, whether in the shape of repartee or
jest, was always appropriate and vivacious.  He often reproached me, and
others more than he, with "not spoiling him;" but I often gave him praise
merited by few, and which belonged to nobody so justly as to him; it was,
that besides having infinite ability and of various kinds, the singular
perspicuity of his mind was joined to so much exactness, that he would
never have made a mistake in anything if he had allowed the first
suggestions of his judgment.  He oftentimes took this my eulogy as a
reproach, and he was not always wrong, but it was not the less true.
With all this he had no presumption, no trace of superiority natural or
acquired; he reasoned with you as with his equal, and struck the most
able with surprise.  Although he never forgot his own position, nor
allowed others to forget it, he carried no constraint with him, but put
everybody at his ease, and placed himself upon the level of all others.

He had the weakness to believe that he resembled Henry IV.  in
everything, and strove to affect the manners, the gestures, the bearing,
of that monarch.  Like Henry IV.  he was naturally good, humane,
compassionate; and, indeed, this man, who has been so cruelly accused of
the blackest and most inhuman crimes, was more opposed to the destruction
of others than any one I have ever known, and had such a singular dislike
to causing anybody pain that it may be said, his gentleness, his
humanity, his easiness, had become faults; and I do not hesitate to
affirm that that supreme virtue which teaches us to pardon our enemies he
turned into vice, by the indiscriminate prodigality with which he applied
it; thereby causing himself many sad embarrassments and misfortunes,
examples and proofs of which will be seen in the sequel.

I remember that about a year, perhaps, before the death of the King,
having gone up early after dinner into the apartments of Madame la
Duchesse d'Orleans at Marly, I found her in bed with the megrims,
and M. d'Orleans alone in the room, seated in an armchair at her pillow.
Scarcely had I sat down than Madame la Duchesse began to talk of some of
those execrable imputations concerning M. d'Orleans unceasingly
circulated by Madame de Maint