He became fond, in his way, of the sister of La Force, who was afterwards compelled to marry young Du Roure. The attachment continued, notwithstanding this marriage; and she procured the Dauphin's written promise to marry her in case of the death of the Dauphine and her husband. I do not know how the late King became acquainted with this fact; but it is certain that he was seriously angered at it, and that he banished Du Roure to Gascony, his native country. The Dauphin had an affair of gallantry with another of his wife's filles d'honneur called Rambures. He did not affect any dissimulation with his wife; a great uproar ensued; and that wicked Bessola, following the directions of old Maintenon, who planned everything, detached the Dauphin from his wife more and more. The latter was not very fond of him; but what displeased her in his amours was that they exposed her to be openly and constantly ridiculed and insulted. Montchevreuil made her pay attention to all that passed, and Bessola kept up her anger against her husband.
Maintenon had caused it to be reported among the people by her agents that the Dauphine hated France, and that she urged the imposition of new taxes.
The Dauphine was so ill-treated in her accouchement of the Duc de Berri that she became quite deformed, although previous to this her figure had been remarkably good. On the evening before she died, as the little Duke was sitting on her bed, she said to him, "My dear Berri, I love you very much, but I have paid dearly for you." The Dauphin was not grieved at her death; old Montchevreuil had told him so many lies of his wife that he could not love her. That old Maintenon hoped, when this event happened, that she should be able to govern the Duke by means of his mistresses, which could not have been if he had continued to be attached to his wife. This old woman had conceived so violent a hatred against the poor Princess, that I do believe she prevailed on Clement, the accoucheur, to treat her ill in her confinement; and what confirms me in this is that she almost killed her by visiting her at that time in perfumed gloves. She said it was I who wore them, which was untrue.
I would not swear that the Dauphine did not love Bessola better than her husband; she deserved no such attachment. I often apprised her mistress of her perfidy, but she would not believe me.
The Dauphine used to say, "We are two unhappy persons, but there is this difference between us: you endeavoured, as much as you could, to avoid coming here; while I resolved to do so at all events. I have therefore deserved my misery more than you."
They wanted to make her pass for crazy, because she was always complaining. Some hours before her death she said to me, "I shall convince them to-day that I was not mad in complaining of my sufferings."
She died calmly and easily; but she was as much put to death as if she had been killed by a pistol-shot.
When her funeral service was performed I carried the taper (nota bene) and some pieces of gold to the Bishop who performed the grand mass, and who was sitting in an arm-chair near the altar. The prelate intended to have given them to his assistants, the priests of the King's chapel; but the monks of Saint Denis ran to him with great eagerness, exclaiming that the taper and the gold belonged to them. They threw themselves upon the Bishop, whose chair began to totter, and made his mitre fall from his head. If I had stayed there a moment longer the Bishop, with all the monks, would have fallen upon me. I descended the four steps of the altar in great haste, for I was nimble enough at that time, and looked on the battle at a distance, which appeared so comical that I could not but laugh, and everybody present did the same.
That wicked Bessola, who had tormented the Dauphine day and night, and had made her distrust every one who approached her, and thus separated her from all the world, returned home a year after her mistress's death.
Before her departure she played another trick by having a box made with a double bottom, in which she concealed jewels and ready money to the amount of 100,000 francs; and all this time she went about weeping and complaining that, after so many years of faithful service, she was dismissed as poor as a beggar. She did not know that her contrivance had been discovered at the Customhouse and that the King had been apprised of it. He ordered her to be sent for, showed her the things which she had prepared to carry away, and said he thought she had little reason to complain of the Dauphine's parsimony. It may be imagined how foolish she looked. The King added that, although he might withhold them from her, yet to show her that she had done wrong in acting clandestinely, and in complaining as she had done, he chose to restore her the whole.
