Stray Pearls: Memoirs of Margaret De Ribaumont, Viscountess of Bellaise by Yonge (summer reads txt) 📕

The Prince of Conde came back to Paris for a few weeks, and my poor Cecile was greatly disappointed that her husband remained in garrison and did not come with him. ‘But then,’ as she said to console herself, ‘every month made the children prettier, and she was trying to be a little more nice and agreeable.’

Two appointments were made for which I was less grateful than was my mother. My little son was made one of the King’s gentlemen of the bedchamber, and Mademoiselle requested me to be one of her ladies-in-waiting. She was very good-natured, provided she thought herself obeyed, and she promised that my turn should always come at the same time as my son’s, so that I might be at home with him. I was a little laughed at, and my former name of Gildippe was made to alternate with that of Cornelia; but French mothers have always been devoted to their sons, and there was some sympathy with me among the ladies.

I owned that my presence was required at home, for Gaspard generally came back a much naughtier boy than he went, and with a collection of bad words that I had to proscribe. Before the Queen-Regent, the little King and the Duke of Anjou were the best boys in the world, and as stately and well-mannered as become the first gentlemen of France; but when once out of her sight they were the most riotous and mischievous children in the world, since nobody durst restrain, far less punish them. They made attacks on the departments of the stewards and cooks, kicking and biting any one who tried to stop them, and devouring fruit and sweetmeats till their fine clothes were all bedaubed, and they themselves indisposed, and then their poor valets suffered for it. The first time this happened my poor Gaspard was so much shocked that he actually told the King that it was dishonourable to let another suffer for his fault.

‘I would have you to know, Monsieur le Marquis,’ said Louis XIV., drawing himself up, ‘that the King of France is never in fault.’

However, I will say for His Majesty that it was the Duke of Anjou who told the Queen that the little Nidemerle had been disrespectful, and thus caused the poor child to be sent home, severely beaten, and with a reprimand to me for not bringing him up better.

I leave you to guess how furious I was, and how I raged about the house till I frightened my mother, Annora backing me up with all her might. We were almost ready to take Gaspard in our hands and escape at once to England. Even in its present sad state I should at least be able to bring up my boy without having him punished for honourable sentiments and brave speeches. Of course it was the Abbe on the one hand, and Eustace on the other, who moderated me, and tried to show me, as well as my son, that though the little Louis might be a naughty boy, the kingly dignity was to be respected in him.

‘Thou wouldst not blame thy mother even if she were in fault,’ argued Eustace.

‘But my mother never is in fault,’ said Gaspard, throwing himself into my arms.

‘Ah, there spoke thy loyal heart, and a Frenchman should have the same spirit towards his King.’

‘Yes,’ broke out Annora; ‘that is what you are all trying to force on your children, setting up an idol to fall down and crush yourselves! For shame, Walwyn, that you, an Englishman, should preach such a doctrine to the poor child!’

‘Nay, you little Frondeuse, there is right and safety in making a child’s tongue pay respect to dignities. He must separate the office from the man, or the child.’

All that could be done was that I should write a humble apology for my son. Otherwise they told me he would certainly be taken from so dangerous a person, and such a dread always made me submissive to the bondage in which we were all held.

Was it not strange that a Queen who would with her own hands minister to the suffered in the hospital should be so utterly ignorant of her duties in bringing up the heir of the great kingdom? Gaspard, who was much younger, could read well, write, and knew a little Latin and English, while the King and his brother were as untaught as peasants in the fields. They could make the sign of the cross and say their prayers, and their manners COULD be perfect, but that was all. They had no instruction, and their education was not begun. I have the less hesitation in recording this, as the King has evidently regretted it, and has given first his son, then his grandsons, the most admirable masters, besides having taken great pains with himself.

I suppose the Spanish dislike to instruction dominated the Queen, and made her slow to inflict on her sons what she so much disliked, and she was of course perfectly ignorant of their misbehaviour.

I am sorry to say that Gaspard soon ceased to be shocked. His aunt declared that he was becoming a loyal Frenchman who he showed off his Louvre manners by kicking the lackeys, pinching Armantine, and utterly refusing to learn his lessons for the Abbe, declaring that he was Monsieur le Marquis, and no one should interfere with him. Once when he came home a day or two before me, he made himself quite intolerable to the whole house, by insisting on making Armantine and her little brother defend a fortress on the top of the stairs, which he attacked with the hard balls of silk and wool out of our work-baskets. Annora tried to stop him, but only was kicked for her pains. It was his HOTEL he said, and he was master there, and so he went on, though he had given poor Armantine a black eye, and broken two panes of glass, till his uncle came home, and came upon him with a stern ‘Gaspard.’ The boy began again with his being the Marquis and the master, but Eustace put him down at once.

‘Thou mayst be Marquis, but thou art not master of this house, nor of thyself. Thou art not even a gentleman while thou actest thus. Go to thy room. We will see what thy mother says to this.’

Gaspard durst not struggle with his uncle, and went off silent and sulky; but Eustace had subdued him into penitence before I came home. And I can hardly tell how, but from that time the principle of loyalty to the sovereign, without imitation of the person, seemed to have been instilled into the child, so that I feel, and I am sure he will agree with me, that I owe my son, and he owes himself, to the influence of my dear brother.

Had it not been for leaving him, my service to Mademoiselle would have been altogether amusing. True, she was marvelously egotistical and conceited, but she was very good-natured, and liked to make those about her happy. Even to her stepmother and little sisters, whom she did not love, she was never unkind, though she lived entirely apart, and kept her own little court separately at the Louvre, and very odd things we did there.

Sometimes we were all dressed up as the gods and goddesses, she being always Minerva—unless as Diana she conducted us as her nymphs to the chase in the park at Versailles. Sometimes we were Mademoiselle Scudery’s heroines, and we wrote descriptions of each other by these feigned names,