The Princesse De Cleves Read online

  ‘The Emperor still felt some partiality for the Duc d’Orléans and several times offered to cede him the Duchy of Milan. In the subsequent peace proposals, he offered the prospect that he might give him the seventeen provinces12 and his daughter’s hand. The Dauphin was opposed both to peace and to this marriage. He used the Connétable, whom he had always liked, to convince the King that it was important not to give his successor a brother as powerful as the Duc d’Orléans would be, were he to enjoy both an alliance with the Emperor and the seventeen provinces. The Connétable was only too happy to follow the Dauphin’s wishes, since they were contrary to those of his declared enemy, Mme d’Étampes, who ardently desired the advancement of the Duc d’Orléans.

  ‘At this time, the Dauphin was commanding the King’s army in Champagne and had reduced the Emperor’s forces to such an extent that they would have perished entirely, had not the Duchesse d’Étampes feared that such a marked advantage would lead us to refuse peace and the Duc d’Orléans’s alliance with the Emperor: so she secretly warned our enemies to make a surprise attack on Épernay and Château-Thierry which were full of provisions. They did so, and by this means saved their entire army.

  ‘The duchess did not benefit long from the success of her treachery. The Duc d’Orléans died shortly afterwards at Farmoutier, from some kind of infectious disease. He loved one of the most beautiful women in the court, and she returned his love. I shall not name her because she has since lived such an exemplary life and taken such care to conceal her love for the prince that her reputation deserves to be protected. By chance, she learned the news of her husband’s death on the same day as that of the Duc d’Orléans, so that she had an excuse to conceal her real sorrow without suffering an agony of self-restraint.

  ‘The King did not long survive his son, dying two years later. He recommended the Dauphin to enlist the services of the Cardinal de Tournon and the Amiral d’Annebauld,13 saying nothing of the Connétable who, as far as he was concerned, had been banished to Chantilly. But the first thing that his son, the present King, did was to recall him and appoint him to manage the affairs of State.

  ‘Mme d’Étampes was dismissed and subjected to all the mistreatment she could expect from an all-powerful enemy: the Duchesse de Valentinois revenged herself fully on her rival and everyone else who had fallen foul of her. Her empire over the King seemed even more absolute than it had when he was still Dauphin. In the twelve years of his reign, she has been the absolute mistress of everything: she has control of appointments and offices; she has banished the Cardinal de Tournon, the Chancellor Olivier and Villeroy. Those who have tried to warn the King against her have been destroyed in the attempt. The Comte de Taix, the Grand Master of Artillery, did not like her and felt constrained to talk about her flirtations, especially with the Comte de Brissac, which had already aroused the King’s jealousy. But she arranged for the Comte de Taix to be disgraced and relieved of his office: the most incredible thing is that she arranged for him to be replaced in it by the Comte de Brissac, who was subsequently appointed Maréchal de France. Yet the King’s jealousy increased to the point where he could no longer suffer the Maréchal’s presence at court; however, jealousy, which is bitter and violent in all other men, is mild in him and moderated by his extraordinary respect for his mistress, so that he only dared remove his rival on the pretext of making him Governor of Piedmont. The Comte de Brissac spent several years there before returning last winter, alleging that he needed troops and other supplies for the army under his command. It may be that one major reason for this journey was the desire to see Mme de Valentinois again and the fear of being forgotten by her. The King received him very coldly. The Guise brothers, who are not fond of him but dare not show it because of Mme de Valentinois, made use of his declared enemy the Vidame to prevent him obtaining any of the things that he had come to request. It was not difficult to harm his interests: the King hated him and was uneasy at his presence. The result was that he had to return empty-handed from his journey, except that he may have revived feelings in the heart of Mme de Valentinois that time had started to extinguish. There are many others who might give the King cause for jealousy, but either he is unaware of them, or has not dared to complain.

  ‘I am not sure, my child,’ Mme de Chartres added, ‘whether you think I have told you more than you wanted to know.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Mme de Clèves replied, ‘that complaint is the last I am inclined to make, and only the fear of wearying you with my importunities restrains me from enquiring about many other matters that you have still not told me.’

  At first, M. de Nemours’s passion for Mme de Clèves was so strong that he had no interest, or even memory, of those he had previously loved, though he had continued to correspond with them during his absence. He did not even bother to look for any excuse to break off with them: he had not the patience to listen to their pleas and answer their complaints. His passionate feelings for Mme la Dauphine were unable to compete in his heart against Mme de Clèves. Even his impatience to set off for England began to wane and he did not press forward with such enthusiasm in the arrangements for his departure. Because Mme de Clèves often went there, he often went to the Dauphine’s and was not sorry that people should continue to assume what they thought were his feelings for the Queen. Mme de Clèves stood so high in his esteem that he decided not to give her any sign of his love, rather than risk it becoming public. He did not even speak of it to the Vidame de Chartres, who was a close friend from whom he kept no secrets. He was so discreet in his manner and so wary that nobody suspected him of being in love with Mme de Clèves, except the Chevalier de Guise. She would have been at pains to detect it herself, were it not that her own feeling for him made her particularly attentive to his behaviour and this left no room for doubt.

  She was less disposed to tell her mother her mind about the prince’s feelings than she had been in speaking to her of her other admirers: without exactly deciding to conceal anything, she said nothing. But Mme de Chartres perceived it only too clearly, as well as her daughter’s liking for him. This knowledge was very painful to her, since she easily judged how dangerous it was for a young woman to be loved by so attractive a man as M. de Nemours when his feelings were reciprocated. Something that happened a few days later entirely confirmed her suspicion that the attraction was mutual.

  The Maréchal de Saint-André, who sought every opportunity to exhibit his affluence, using the excuse that he wished to show off his recently completed house, begged the King to do him the honour of taking supper there with the Queens. The Maréchal was also pleased to let Mme de Clèves admire these visible signs of his extravagance, amounting to prodigality.

  A few days before the one chosen for this entertainment, the Dauphin, whose health was weak, fell ill and was receiving no one. The Queen, his wife, spent the whole day at his side. In the evening, since he was better, he admitted all the nobility who had been waiting in his antechamber. The Reine Dauphine returned home and found Mme de Clèves, with some other ladies who were among her closest friends.

  Since it was then quite late and she had not dressed, she did not go to the Queen’s. She said that she would not go out and called for her jewels, so that she might choose some for the Maréchal’s ball and give some to Mme de Clèves to whom she had promised them. While they were engaged in this, the Prince de Condé arrived: his rank allowed him to enter anywhere. The Reine Dauphine told him that he had doubtless come from the house of her husband, the Dauphin, and asked what was happening there.

  ‘They are arguing with M. de Nemours, madame,’ he replied. ‘And he is putting his case so warmly that he must believe in it. I think he has some mistress or other who must make him uneasy when she is at the ball, because he insists that it is distressing for a lover to see the object of his love on such occasions.’

  ‘What!’ the Dauphine exclaimed. ‘Does M. de Nemours not want his mistress to go to the ball? I did think that husbands might not want their wives t
o go there, but I had never imagined that lovers could share that opinion.’

  ‘In M. de Nemours’s view,’ the Prince de Condé said, ‘balls are the most unbearable things for lovers, whether their feelings are returned or not. He claims that, if they are loved, then they have the annoyance of being less loved for several days. There is no woman who is not too preoccupied with her dress and toilet to think about her lover, it consumes all her thoughts. And this concern is with how she appears to anybody, not only to the person she loves; when she is at a ball, she wants to be liked by everyone who sees her, so that if she is pleased with her appearance, she experiences a pleasure for which she is not mainly indebted to her lover. He also says that, when one is not loved, the pain of seeing one’s mistress on such public occasions is even greater: the more she is admired by others, the more one feels the misfortune of not being loved, and constantly fears that her beauty will inspire some more fortunate passion than one’s own. In short, he considers no affliction comparable to that of seeing one’s mistress at a ball, except knowing that she is there, when one is not there oneself.’

  Mme de Clèves pretended not to hear what the Prince de Condé was saying, though she was in fact listening attentively. It was not hard for her to guess her own role in M. de Nemours’s argument, particularly what he said about the sorrow of not being at a ball when one’s mistress was there, since he was to be absent from that held by the Maréchal de Saint-André, the King sending him to meet the Duc de Ferrare.

  The Dauphine laughed with the Prince de Condé and disagreed with M. de Nemours.

  ‘There is only one circumstance, madame,’ he said, ‘when M. de Nemours would permit his mistress to go to a ball, and that is if he were giving it himself; adding that, last year, when he gave one for Your Majesty, he considered his mistress had done him a favour by attending though she seemed only to follow you: it is always a favour to a lover to participate in a pleasure that he is giving; and it is also a pleasant thing for a lover to be observed as master of a place at which the whole court is present, when she sees him successfully doing the honours.’

  ‘M. de Nemours was right,’ the Dauphine said, smiling, ‘to approve of his mistress going to the ball. On that occasion there were so many women to whom he had given a claim to the title that, if they had not attended, the place would have been almost deserted.’

  As soon as the Prince de Condé started to describe M. de Nemours’s opinion on the matter, Mme de Clèves experienced a strong disinclination to go to the Maréchal de Saint-André’s ball. She easily persuaded herself that she should not in fact go to the house of a man who was in love with her, and was very pleased to find such a proper excuse for doing something that would be a favour to M. de Nemours. Yet, she took away the ornaments given her by the Dauphine; and in the evening, when showing them to her mother, said that she meant not to use them, since the Maréchal de Saint-André was so open in displaying his attachment to her, she had no doubt he would let it be known that she was associated with the entertainment he was offering the King and, with the excuse of being a good host, pay her attentions that might prove embarrassing.

  For a while, Mme de Chartres argued against her daughter, finding her reasons odd. But, seeing that she was determined, she agreed and told her that she must pretend to be ill, so as to have some excuse not to go, since no one would support her in her real reason for not going, and indeed no one should be allowed even to suspect it. Mme de Clèves willingly agreed to spend a few days at home, so as to avoid anywhere where she would not find M. de Nemours, and he left without having the pleasure of knowing that she would not be going to the ball.

  He returned the day after the event and discovered that she had not attended; but, since he did not know that anyone had told her of his conversation at the Dauphin’s, he had no idea of his good fortune in having been the one to prevent her going.

  The following day, while he was at the Queen’s and was speaking to the Dauphine, Mme de Chartres and Mme de Clèves arrived and went over to her. Mme de Clèves was somewhat casually turned out, like a person who had been ill, but her face belied her dress.

  ‘You look so lovely,’ the Dauphine said, ‘that I would never believe you had been unwell. I think that the Prince de Condé, when he told you M. de Nemours’s views on dancing, convinced you that it would be a favour to the Maréchal de Saint-André if you were to accept his invitation and it was this that prevented you.’

  Mme de Clèves blushed at the fact that the Dauphine, having so perceptively guessed her reason, had mentioned it in front of M. de Nemours.

  And at that very moment, Mme de Chartres realized why her daughter had not wished to attend the ball; so, to prevent M. de Nemours reaching the same conclusion, she interrupted with every appearance of speaking the truth.

  ‘I assure you, madame,’ she told the Dauphine, ‘that Your Majesty gives my daughter more credit than she deserves. She was truly ill; but, if I had not prevented her, I believe she would certainly have accompanied you and shown herself in public, unwell though she was, in order to enjoy all the wonderful things to be seen at yesterday evening’s ball.’

  The Dauphine believed Mme de Chartres, and M. de Nemours was very annoyed at finding it plausible, though Mme de Clèves blushed in a way that made him suspect the Dauphine’s first explanation was not altogether untrue. At first, Mme de Clèves was cross that M. de Nemours might have had reason to think it was because of him that she had not gone to the Maréchal de Saint-André’s; but afterwards, she felt a sort of regret that her mother had entirely dispelled that notion.

  Although the gathering at Cercamp had dissolved, peace negotiations still continued and took such a course that, at the end of February, a new meeting was convened, at Cateau-Cambrésis. The same delegates attended, and the resulting absence of the Maréchal de Saint-André removed the rival from whom M. de Nemours had most to fear – as much because of his close scrutiny of all those who approached Mme de Clèves as for any progress that he might make in his own courtship of her.

  Mme de Chartres did not want to let her daughter see that she understood her feelings for the prince, for fear that she might suspect the motives behind certain things that her mother wanted to tell her. One day, she started to speak about him, in favourable terms, but insidiously praising his good sense, in being unable to fall in love and treating his relations with women as a pleasure, rather than serious attachments. ‘This is not to say,’ she added, ‘that people have not suspected him of having a great passion for the Dauphine; and I see that he often visits her, so I should advise you, as far as possible, to avoid speaking to him, especially in private, since in view of the Dauphine’s condescension towards you, people would think you their go-between, and you know how disagreeable it is to be thought that. If the rumour continues, you might go rather less to the Dauphine’s, to avoid becoming involved in such affairs.’

  Mme de Clèves had never heard speak of M. de Nemours and the Dauphine. She was surprised at what her mother was saying and thought she could see how mistaken she had been in everything she had imagined about the prince’s feelings, so that her face fell. Mme de Chartres noticed this. People were coming in at that moment, and Mme de Clèves went and shut herself in her room.

  It is impossible to describe the pain she felt on realizing, as a result of what her mother had just told her, how much the Duc de Nemours meant to her: she had not yet dared admit it to herself. She saw then that the feelings she had for him were those that M. de Clèves had so often required of her, and she felt the full shame of experiencing them for someone other than a husband who deserved them. She felt wounded and confused by the fear that M. de Nemours only wished to use her as an excuse in his affair with the Dauphine, and this idea made her determine to tell Mme de Chartres what she had not yet told her.

  The following morning she went to her mother’s room to do as she had resolved. But she found Mme de Chartres with a slight temperature and not inclined to conversation. However, the il
lness seemed so mild that Mme de Clèves did not put off attending the Dauphine’s after dinner, in her private apartment with two or three ladies who were her most intimate friends.

  ‘We were talking about M. de Nemours,’ the Dauphine said when she saw her, ‘and wondering at the change in him since his return from Brussels. Before he left, he had an infinite number of mistresses: it was even a weakness in him, since he treated those who deserved his attentions in the same way as those who did not. Since coming back, he pays no heed to any of them. There has never been so great a change, and I think it has even affected his humour, as he seems less carefree than previously.’

  Mme de Clèves did not answer, but was ashamed to think that, before her mother had disabused her, she would have taken everything they were saying about the change in the prince as evidence of his love for her. She felt some annoyance at the Dauphine when she saw her hunting for reasons and showing surprise at something which, by all accounts, she ought to be able to explain better than anybody. She was unable to restrain herself from letting her know as much and, when the other ladies moved away, went across to her and whispered:

  ‘Did you intend what you have just said for my ears as well, madame, and are you trying to conceal from me that you are the person who has inspired this change in M. de Nemours’s behaviour?’

  ‘You do me an injustice,’ answered the Dauphine. ‘You know that I hide nothing from you. It is true that, before going to Brussels, M. de Nemours intended, I think, to indicate to me that I was not displeasing to him. But, since his return, I cannot believe that he even remembers what he did, and I admit that I am curious to know what has altered him. It is unlikely that I shall not get to the truth of it,’ she added. ‘His close friend, the Vidame de Chartres, is in love with a woman over whom I have some influence and by those means I shall learn the reason for this change.’