Produced by David Widger
Written by Herself
Being the Historic Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV.
Madame de Montespan——Etching by Mercier
Hortense Mancini——Drawing in the Louvre
Madame de la Valliere——Painting by Francois
Moliere——Original Etching by Lalauze
Boileau——Etching by Lalauze
A French Courtier——Photogravure from a Painting
Madame de Maintenon——Etching by Mercier from Painting by Hule
Charles II.——Original Etching by Ben Damman
Bosseut——Etching by Lalauze
Louis XIV. Knighting a Subject——Photogravure from a Rare Print
A French Actress——Painting by Leon Comerre
Racine——Etching by Lalauze
Historians have, on the whole, dealt somewhat harshly with thefascinating Madame de Montespan, perhaps taking their impressions fromthe judgments, often narrow and malicious, of her contemporaries. To helpus to get a fairer estimate, her own "Memoirs," written by herself, andnow first given to readers in an English dress, should surely serve.Avowedly compiled in a vague, desultory way, with no particular regard tochronological sequence, these random recollections should interest us, inthe first place, as a piece of unconscious self-portraiture. The cynicalCourt lady, whose beauty bewitched a great King, and whose ruthlesssarcasm made Duchesses quail, is here drawn for us in vivid fashion byher own hand, and while concerned with depicting other figures she reallyportrays her own. Certainly, in these Memoirs she is generally contentto keep herself in the background, while giving us a faithful picture ofthe brilliant Court at which she was for long the most lustrous ornament.It is only by stray touches, a casual remark, a chance phrase, that we,as it were, gauge her temperament in all its wiliness, its egoism, itslove of supremacy, and its shallow worldly wisdom. Yet it could havebeen no ordinary woman that held the handsome Louis so long her captive.The fair Marquise was more than a mere leader of wit and fashion. If sheset the mode in the shape of a petticoat, or devised the sumptuoussplendours of a garden fete, her talent was not merely devoted to thingsfrivolous and trivial. She had the proverbial 'esprit des Mortemart'.Armed with beauty and sarcasm, she won a leading place for herself atCourt, and held it in the teeth of all detractors.
Her beauty was for the King, her sarcasm for his courtiers. Perhapslittle of this latter quality appears in the pages bequeathed to us,written, as they are, in a somewhat cold, formal style, and we may assumethat her much-dreaded irony resided in her tongue rather than in her pen.Yet we are glad to possess these pages, if only as a reliable record ofCourt life during the brightest period of the reign of Louis Quatorze.
As we have hinted, they are more, indeed, than this. For if we lookcloser we shall perceive, as in a glass, darkly, the contour of a subtle,even a perplexing, personality.
The Reason for Writing These Memoirs.—Gabrielle d'Estrees.
...