By always threatening the children with me, he kept them in constant fear of me. He estranged them from me as much as possible, but he left me to exercise more authority over my elder daughter and over the Queen of Sicily than over my son; he could not, however, prevent my occasionally telling them what I thought. My daughter never gave me any cause to complain of her. Monsieur was always jealous of the children, and was afraid they would love me better than him: it was for this reason that he made them believe I disapproved of almost all they did. I generally pretended not to see this contrivance.
Without being really fond of any woman, Monsieur used to amuse himself all day in the company of old and young ladies to please the King: in order not to be out of the Court fashion, he even pretended to be amorous; but he could not keep up a deception so contrary to his natural inclination. Madame de Fiennes said to him one day, "You are in much more danger from the ladies you visit, than they are from you." It was even said that Madame de Monaco had attempted to give him some violent proofs of her affection. He pretended to be in love with Madame de Grancey; but if she had had no other lover than Monsieur she might have preserved her reputation. Nothing culpable ever passed between them; and he always endeavoured to avoid being alone with her. She herself said that whenever they happened to be alone he was in the greatest terror, and pretended to have the toothache or the headache. They told a story of the lady asking him to touch her, and that he put on his gloves before doing so. I have often heard him rallied about this anecdote, and have often laughed at it.
Madame de Grancey was one of the most foolish women in the world. She was very handsome at the time of my arrival in France, and her figure was as good as her face; besides, she was not so much disregarded by others as by my husband; for, before the Chevalier de Lorraine became her lover, she had had a child. I knew well that nothing had passed between Monsieur and Grancey, and I was never jealous of them; but I could not endure that she should derive a profit from my household, and that no person could purchase an employment in it without paying a douceur to her. I was also often indignant at her insolence to me, and at her frequently embroiling me with Monsieur. It was for these reasons, and not from jealousy, as was fancied by those who knew nothing about it, that I sometimes sharply reprimanded her. The Chevalier de Lorraine, upon his return from Rome, became her declared lover. It was through his contrivances, and those of D'Effiat, that she was brought into the house of Monsieur, who really cared nothing about her. Her continued solicitations and the behaviour of the Chevalier de Lorraine had so much disgusted Monsieur, that if he had lived he would have got rid of them both.
He had become tired of the Chevalier de Lorraine because he had found out that his attachment to him proceeded from interested motives. When Monsieur, misled by his favourites, did something which was neither just nor expedient, I used to say to him, "Out of complaisance to the Chevalier de Lorraine, you put your good sense into your pocket, and button it up so tight that it cannot be seen."
After my husband's death I saw Grancey only once; I met her in the garden. When she ceased to be handsome, she fell into utter despair; and so great a change took place in her appearance that no one would have known her. Her nose, before so beautiful, grew long and large, and was covered with pimples, over each of which she put a patch; this had a very singular effect; the red and white paint, too, did not adhere to her face. Her eyes were hollow and sunken, and the alteration which this had caused in her face cannot be imagined. In Spain they, lock up all the ladies at night, even to the septuagenary femmes de chambre. When Grancey followed our Queen to Spain as dame d'atour, she was locked up in the evening, and was in great grief about it.
When she was dying, she cried, "Ah, mon Dieu, must I die, who have never once thought of death?"
She had never done anything but sit at play with her lovers until five or six o'clock in the morning, feast, and smoke tobacco, and follow uncontrolled her natural inclinations.
When she reached her climacteric, she said, in despair, "Alas, I am growing old, I shall have no more children."
This was exceedingly amusing; and her friends, as well as her enemies, laughed at it. She once had a high dispute with Madame de Bouillon. One evening, Grancey chose to hide herself in one of the recesses formed by the windows in the chamber of the former lady, who, not thinking she was heard, conversed very freely with the Marquise d'Allure, respecting the libertine life of Grancey; in the course of which she said several strange things respecting the treatment which her lovers had experienced from her. Grancey at length rushed out, and fell to abusing Madame de Bouillon like a Billingsgate. The latter was not silent, and some exceedingly elegant discourse passed between them. Madame de Bouillon made a complaint against Grancey; in the first place, for having listened to her conversation; and in the second, for having insulted her in her own house. Monsieur reproved Grancey; told her that she had brought this inconvenience upon herself by her own indiscretion, and ordered her to be reconciled with her adversary.
"How can I," said Grancey, "be reconciled to Madame de Bouillon, after all the wicked things she has said about me?" But after a moment's reflection she added, "Yes, I can, for she did not say I was ugly."
They afterwards embraced, and made it up.
Monsieur was taken ill at ten o'clock at night, but he did not die until the next day at noon. I can never think of this night without horror.
I remained with him from ten at night until five the next morning, when he lost all consciousness.--[The Duc d'Orleans died of apoplexy on the 9th June, 1701]
The Electors of Germany would not permit Monsieur to write to them in the same style as the King did.
