Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section sixteen of Women of Versailles, the Court of Louis
the fourteenth by our tour Leon Ambert de Saint Ammon,
translated by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin. This librovox recording is in
the public domain. Read by Pamela and Agami, Chapter twelve,
Madame de Mantainant as a political woman, Part one, to
(00:25):
write history with the aid of pamphlets, To accept as
verities all the inventions of malevolence or hatred, to say
with beau marchas calumniate, calumniate some trace of it will
always remain. To belittle what is great, to misinterpret what
is noble, to tarnish what is brilliant. Such are the
(00:47):
tactics of the sworn enemies of our traditions and our glories.
Such is the pleasure of the iconoclasts, who would like
to efface from our annals all grandiose or majestic figures.
The revolutionary school, whose disciples they are, has already done
much harm. It has sapped the foundations of the edifice.
(01:10):
It has aided to destroy that respect which is indispensable
to well organized societies. It has converted books into libels,
criticisms into infectives, portraits into caricatures. It has conspired with
that essentially false literature known as the historical novel, to
(01:31):
travesty persons and things, and spread abroad a massive exaggerations
and fables which confuse facts and ideas and reverse the
conceptions of good sense and justice. One of the men
whom this school holds most in horror is Louis the fourteenth,
because he was the representative, or better, the living symbol
(01:55):
of the principle of authority. It is tired of hearing
him called the grit r like that Athenian who was
weary of hearing Aristides called the just. It has fancied
it would extinguish the royal son by breathing on it
an old potentate kept in leading strings by a bigoted
(02:15):
and intriguing old woman. Such is the image. It would
delineate the characteristics it wishes to hand down to posterity,
as those of him who, to his last hour, his
latest breath, remained what he had been throughout his life,
the very type of royalty, the sovereign by excellence to
(02:37):
dishonor Louis the fourteenth in the woman whom he chose
among all others as the companion of his maturity and
his old age. Such has been, and still is the
thing aimed at by writers of this school. They have
based their judgments on those of the Duchess of Orleans,
the Princess Palatine, whose portrait we have just essayed to trace,
(03:00):
and on those of another equally objectionable witness, the Duc
de Saint Simon. It ought not to be forgotten that
this hot headed Duke in Pierre, who often talked like Filant,
if he always thought like Alceste, was at least frank
enough to say of himself, the stoic is a fine
(03:20):
and noble chimera. I do not pique myself. Therefore, on impartiality,
I should do so in vain. It irritated him to
be of no account in a government where many a
man of middling abilities had secured the sovereign's favor. To
be condemned to the idle existence of a courtier, to
(03:41):
live in ante chambers on staircases in the courts and
gardens of Versailles and other royal residences, vexed and displeased
his vanity. He laid the blame of this on Louis
the fourteenth at first and afterwards on the woman, whom
he considered as the arbiter of all appointments. But it
(04:02):
was only in his memoir written clandestinely and kept under
lock and key, that he dared give expression to his wrath.
He was all respect and docility in presence of the King.
After bestirring himself a good deal concerning a certain collection
which had been a subject of litigation between the princesses
(04:22):
and the duchesses, he said humbly to the King that
to please him he would have passed around the plate
like a village churchwarden. He added that Lewis the fourteenth was,
as king and as benefactor of all dukes, despotically master
of their dignities to a base, or to elevate them,
(04:43):
to dispose of them as a thing belonging to him
and absolutely in his power. He was not more haughty
in the presence of her, whom he characterizes in his
memoirs as a notorious creole, the begging widow of a
crippled poet. He even tried to gain her over to
(05:03):
the interests of his ambition and to obtain through her
means a captaincy of guards. Furious at not being called
to the greatest positions of state. He pleased himself with
the posthumous revenge of describing Madame de Manenau in the
most odious colors. Relying on his imagination and default of
(05:25):
other proofs, he makes her a sort of ancient courtesan,
living by debauchery in her youth and by intrigue in
riper years. What he says of her is a tissue
of inaccuracies. He assigns her birth to America, while it
is certain that she was born at Niorg. He will
(05:45):
scarcely admit that her father was a gentleman, while his
nobility is absolutely incontestable. He accuses her of having been
supported by Villard, father of the Marshal, by the three Villasaus,
and Y several others. While it is positive that she
never received a farthing obliged to own that on Scarron's
(06:07):
death she was reduced to the charity of her parish
of Saint Eustache, he does not perceive that such an
assertion concerning a woman whose beauty was celebrated throughout Paris,
proves in an undeniable fashion the virtue of that woman.
He reproaches her for having been led astray by the
councils of Nino de Lanclo, whereas Nino herself says, Madame
(06:32):
de Manino was virtuous in her youth through weak mindedness.
I wanted to cure her of it, but she feared
God too much. Every day increases the fame of Saint Simon.
Considered as a writer, one must admire a style which
recalls by turns the boldness of Bassuet, the brilliance of
(06:53):
La Briere, and the ease and freedom of Madame de Sevigne.
But on the other hand, the more one studies the
Court of Louis the fourteenth, the more fully one recognizes
that the famous memoir are full of inaccuracies. In his
remarkable critical study of Sassimon's work, the learned Monsieur Cheerrouel
(07:16):
has already refuted in an invincible manner a great number
of his errors, and Monsieur Souliers, curator of the Museum
of Versailles, is constantly discovering new ones in the course
of his patient and indefatigable researches. Monsieur Cherrouel has abundant
reason to say Saint Simond's observation is subtle, sagacious, penetrating
(07:41):
when it is a question of sounding the recesses of
the hearts of courtiers, but it lacks breadth and grandeur.
The court bounds his horizon. All that lies beyond it
is vague and indeterminate for him. While granting him the
perspicacity of an observer, one must deny him the impartiality
(08:02):
of a judge to listen to him. Madame de Mantineau
is the sole mistress of France, the omnipotent sultana, the
Ponto Kraut, as the Princess Palatine calls her. In her
curious jargon. He describes with many details her incredible success,
the entire confidence, the rare dependence, the almightiness, the almost
(08:27):
universal public adoration, the ministers, the generals of the army,
the royal family at her feet, every boon and every
advantage through her, everything rejected without her men, affairs, things, appointments, justice, favors, religion,
(08:48):
everything without exception in her hands, and the King and
the state her victims. Needless to say that the revolutionary
school has accepted this exaggerated assertion literally to believe it,
Louis the fourteenth is nothing but a mannequin of which
Madame de Mantinon pulls the strings, a sort of crowned
(09:10):
jahant who lets himself be tricked like a child by
a jesuit and an old woman. It is thus they
seek to tarnish the oriole with which posterity has surrounded
the most majestic of all instances of old age. Let
them say what they will. Louis the fourteenth always remained master,
(09:31):
and it was he who traced the great political lines
of his reign. Madame de Mantinon may have advised him,
but it was he who gave the final decision. We
say willingly with Monsieur emil Schals, this intelligent woman, far
from being too much listened to, was not a nutso
(09:52):
there was in her a veritable love for the public welfare,
a true sorrow in the midst of our misfortunes. To
day is necessary to retrench much from the grandeur of
her power, and add a great deal to that of
her soul. It is well worthy of remark that the
woman who is now accused of a mischievous meddling in everything,
(10:15):
was reproached by the most eminent man of her time
of standing too much aside, Fenelon wrote to her. They say,
you take two little pardon affairs. Your mind is more
capable of it than you think. You are perhaps a
little too distrustful of yourself, or rather you are too
much afraid to enter into discussions contrary to the inclination
(10:37):
you have for a tranquil and meditative life. That Madame
de Mantineau may have influenced certain appointments does not appear doubtful.
But that she alone of her own motion control the
minister's is a pure invention. We believe her to have
been sincere when she wrote to Madame desur Sain. In
(11:00):
whatever way matters turn, I conjure you, Madame, to regard
me as a person incapable of affairs, who heard them
talked of, too late to be skillful in them, and
who hates them more than she ignores them. My interference
in them is not desired, and I do not desire
to interfere. They are not concealed from me, but I
(11:23):
know nothing consecutively, and am often badly informed, reading or
working at her tapestry while the King was working with
one or another of his ministers. Madame de Mantinan never
timidly hazarded a word, except formally when requested. Her attitude
toward Louis the fourteenth was that of respect, humility, and modesty. True,
(11:48):
the King said to her, they call the popes your holiness,
and kings your majesty. You, madame, should be called your solidity.
But this pray did not turn the head of so
prudent and reasonable a woman. And of Section sixteen
Section sixteen of Women of Versailles, the Court of Louis
the fourteenth by our tour Leon Ambert de Saint Ammon,
translated by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin. This librovox recording is in
the public domain. Read by Pamela and Agami, Chapter twelve,
Madame de Mantainant as a political woman, Part one, to
(00:25):
write history with the aid of pamphlets, To accept as
verities all the inventions of malevolence or hatred, to say
with beau marchas calumniate, calumniate some trace of it will
always remain. To belittle what is great, to misinterpret what
is noble, to tarnish what is brilliant. Such are the
(00:47):
tactics of the sworn enemies of our traditions and our glories.
Such is the pleasure of the iconoclasts, who would like
to efface from our annals all grandiose or majestic figures.
The revolutionary school, whose disciples they are, has already done
much harm. It has sapped the foundations of the edifice.
(01:10):
It has aided to destroy that respect which is indispensable
to well organized societies. It has converted books into libels,
criticisms into infectives, portraits into caricatures. It has conspired with
that essentially false literature known as the historical novel, to
(01:31):
travesty persons and things, and spread abroad a massive exaggerations
and fables which confuse facts and ideas and reverse the
conceptions of good sense and justice. One of the men
whom this school holds most in horror is Louis the fourteenth,
because he was the representative, or better, the living symbol
(01:55):
of the principle of authority. It is tired of hearing
him called the grit r like that Athenian who was
weary of hearing Aristides called the just. It has fancied
it would extinguish the royal son by breathing on it
an old potentate kept in leading strings by a bigoted
(02:15):
and intriguing old woman. Such is the image. It would
delineate the characteristics it wishes to hand down to posterity,
as those of him who, to his last hour, his
latest breath, remained what he had been throughout his life,
the very type of royalty, the sovereign by excellence to
(02:37):
dishonor Louis the fourteenth in the woman whom he chose
among all others as the companion of his maturity and
his old age. Such has been, and still is the
thing aimed at by writers of this school. They have
based their judgments on those of the Duchess of Orleans,
the Princess Palatine, whose portrait we have just essayed to trace,
(03:00):
and on those of another equally objectionable witness, the Duc
de Saint Simon. It ought not to be forgotten that
this hot headed Duke in Pierre, who often talked like Filant,
if he always thought like Alceste, was at least frank
enough to say of himself, the stoic is a fine
(03:20):
and noble chimera. I do not pique myself. Therefore, on impartiality,
I should do so in vain. It irritated him to
be of no account in a government where many a
man of middling abilities had secured the sovereign's favor. To
be condemned to the idle existence of a courtier, to
(03:41):
live in ante chambers on staircases in the courts and
gardens of Versailles and other royal residences, vexed and displeased
his vanity. He laid the blame of this on Louis
the fourteenth at first and afterwards on the woman, whom
he considered as the arbiter of all appointments. But it
(04:02):
was only in his memoir written clandestinely and kept under
lock and key, that he dared give expression to his wrath.
He was all respect and docility in presence of the King.
After bestirring himself a good deal concerning a certain collection
which had been a subject of litigation between the princesses
(04:22):
and the duchesses, he said humbly to the King that
to please him he would have passed around the plate
like a village churchwarden. He added that Lewis the fourteenth was,
as king and as benefactor of all dukes, despotically master
of their dignities to a base, or to elevate them,
(04:43):
to dispose of them as a thing belonging to him
and absolutely in his power. He was not more haughty
in the presence of her, whom he characterizes in his
memoirs as a notorious creole, the begging widow of a
crippled poet. He even tried to gain her over to
(05:03):
the interests of his ambition and to obtain through her
means a captaincy of guards. Furious at not being called
to the greatest positions of state. He pleased himself with
the posthumous revenge of describing Madame de Manenau in the
most odious colors. Relying on his imagination and default of
(05:25):
other proofs, he makes her a sort of ancient courtesan,
living by debauchery in her youth and by intrigue in
riper years. What he says of her is a tissue
of inaccuracies. He assigns her birth to America, while it
is certain that she was born at Niorg. He will
(05:45):
scarcely admit that her father was a gentleman, while his
nobility is absolutely incontestable. He accuses her of having been
supported by Villard, father of the Marshal, by the three Villasaus,
and Y several others. While it is positive that she
never received a farthing obliged to own that on Scarron's
(06:07):
death she was reduced to the charity of her parish
of Saint Eustache, he does not perceive that such an
assertion concerning a woman whose beauty was celebrated throughout Paris,
proves in an undeniable fashion the virtue of that woman.
He reproaches her for having been led astray by the
councils of Nino de Lanclo, whereas Nino herself says, Madame
(06:32):
de Manino was virtuous in her youth through weak mindedness.
I wanted to cure her of it, but she feared
God too much. Every day increases the fame of Saint Simon.
Considered as a writer, one must admire a style which
recalls by turns the boldness of Bassuet, the brilliance of
(06:53):
La Briere, and the ease and freedom of Madame de Sevigne.
But on the other hand, the more one studies the
Court of Louis the fourteenth, the more fully one recognizes
that the famous memoir are full of inaccuracies. In his
remarkable critical study of Sassimon's work, the learned Monsieur Cheerrouel
(07:16):
has already refuted in an invincible manner a great number
of his errors, and Monsieur Souliers, curator of the Museum
of Versailles, is constantly discovering new ones in the course
of his patient and indefatigable researches. Monsieur Cherrouel has abundant
reason to say Saint Simond's observation is subtle, sagacious, penetrating
(07:41):
when it is a question of sounding the recesses of
the hearts of courtiers, but it lacks breadth and grandeur.
The court bounds his horizon. All that lies beyond it
is vague and indeterminate for him. While granting him the
perspicacity of an observer, one must deny him the impartiality
(08:02):
of a judge to listen to him. Madame de Mantineau
is the sole mistress of France, the omnipotent sultana, the
Ponto Kraut, as the Princess Palatine calls her. In her
curious jargon. He describes with many details her incredible success,
the entire confidence, the rare dependence, the almightiness, the almost
(08:27):
universal public adoration, the ministers, the generals of the army,
the royal family at her feet, every boon and every
advantage through her, everything rejected without her men, affairs, things, appointments, justice, favors, religion,
(08:48):
everything without exception in her hands, and the King and
the state her victims. Needless to say that the revolutionary
school has accepted this exaggerated assertion literally to believe it,
Louis the fourteenth is nothing but a mannequin of which
Madame de Mantinon pulls the strings, a sort of crowned
(09:10):
jahant who lets himself be tricked like a child by
a jesuit and an old woman. It is thus they
seek to tarnish the oriole with which posterity has surrounded
the most majestic of all instances of old age. Let
them say what they will. Louis the fourteenth always remained master,
(09:31):
and it was he who traced the great political lines
of his reign. Madame de Mantinon may have advised him,
but it was he who gave the final decision. We
say willingly with Monsieur emil Schals, this intelligent woman, far
from being too much listened to, was not a nutso
(09:52):
there was in her a veritable love for the public welfare,
a true sorrow in the midst of our misfortunes. To
day is necessary to retrench much from the grandeur of
her power, and add a great deal to that of
her soul. It is well worthy of remark that the
woman who is now accused of a mischievous meddling in everything,
(10:15):
was reproached by the most eminent man of her time
of standing too much aside, Fenelon wrote to her. They say,
you take two little pardon affairs. Your mind is more
capable of it than you think. You are perhaps a
little too distrustful of yourself, or rather you are too
much afraid to enter into discussions contrary to the inclination
(10:37):
you have for a tranquil and meditative life. That Madame
de Mantineau may have influenced certain appointments does not appear doubtful.
But that she alone of her own motion control the
minister's is a pure invention. We believe her to have
been sincere when she wrote to Madame desur Sain. In
(11:00):
whatever way matters turn, I conjure you, Madame, to regard
me as a person incapable of affairs, who heard them
talked of, too late to be skillful in them, and
who hates them more than she ignores them. My interference
in them is not desired, and I do not desire
to interfere. They are not concealed from me, but I
(11:23):
know nothing consecutively, and am often badly informed, reading or
working at her tapestry while the King was working with
one or another of his ministers. Madame de Mantinan never
timidly hazarded a word, except formally when requested. Her attitude
toward Louis the fourteenth was that of respect, humility, and modesty. True,
(11:48):
the King said to her, they call the popes your holiness,
and kings your majesty. You, madame, should be called your solidity.
But this pray did not turn the head of so
prudent and reasonable a woman. And of Section sixteen
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