THE DTJCHESSE DII MAINE.f ANNE LOUISE BLEBDICTE DE BOURBON, generally
known as Mademoiselle de Charolais, was of mean stature. Her
* Joan of Arc. By Grace James. London : Methuen and Co. [106. 6d. net.] t A Princess of Strategy: The Life of the Duchess. du Maine. Translated from the French of General de Pi 1pape by J. Lana May. London : J. Lane. [126. 6d. net.] grandfather, the great Conde, was exasperated indeed by the puny aspect of his descendants. " They will grow smaller and smaller," he cried, "till they come to nothing at all." She had, however, some share of good looks ; she was clever, as the story of her life sufficiently proves, and she was well educated—La Bruyere was one of her tutors. She was betrothed as a child to the Comte de Vermandois, one of the natural sons of Louis XIV.—his mother was Mademoiselle de la Valliere. The young man died, but there were others left, and in her sixteenth year (1692) the " hop o' my thumb," as her enemies called her, married Louis Auguste de Bourbon, Due du Maine, one of the children of Madame du Montespan. The King gave his son a million livres and the bride had a dowry of eight hundred thousand. As long as the Grand Monarque lived all went well ; the Duchess had ambitions, and was able to achieve at least a show of greatness. At Sceaux, once the residence of Colbert, which the Duke pin-chased in 1699, she held a court which was certainly more brilliant than the somewhat sombre following of the old King and Madame de Maintenon. Then came the change. Louis did his best for the Duke and his family. In 1709 he made the children Princes of the Blood, and made the command of the Swiss Guard and of the Artillery hereditary possessions of the House. The royal will went still further, for, in addition to further honours, it gave to the Due du Maine the custody of the young King. But the wille of kings have an uncertain validity, and it was not long before things began to move the other way. The royal charge he never had ; in 1717 he and the other bastards ceased to be royal princes. With this change of fortune began, it may be said, the Duchess's career as a " Princess of Strategy." It was not a very long one ; its active stage, when she was posi- tively conspiring against the Regent, lasted little more than a year. That she never hadany real prospect of success is manifest, at least to us; in fact the whole affair was known from very early days to the enemy. The narrative, indeed, makes us feel that if this title, "Princess of Strategy," means anything more than an "intriguing Princess" it is ill-bestowed. The Duchess was certainly not skilful in the art. As for the story, it is, it must be owned, somewhat tedious. This is no fault of the author, who has made good use of his materials, nor of his translator, who does justice to his original. There is something inexpressibly mean about the whole subject. A king's bastards are intriguing against his legitimate offspring. And while they are struggling for the prizes of place and power the people perish. A more telling justification of the Revolution there could not be. The struggle ended as law and right ordained that it should end, and the result was to consolidate the power of the Regent and Louis Quinze.
Previous page
