The Dauphine of Bavaria.--The Confessor with Spurs.--Madame de Maintenon Disputes with Bossuet.--He Opposes to Her Past Ages and History.--The Military Absolution.
Eight months after the wedding of Marie Louise, we witnessed the arrival of Anne Marie Christine, Princess of Bavaria, daughter of the Elector Ferdinand. The King and Monseigneur went to receive her at Vitry-le-Francais, and then escorted her to Chalons, where the Queen was awaiting her.
The Cardinal de Bouillon celebrated the marriage in the cathedral church of this third-class town. The festivities and jubilations there lasted a week.
The King had been very willing to charge me with the arrangement of the baskets of presents destined for the Dauphine; I acquitted myself of this commission with French taste and a sentiment of what was proper. When the Queen saw all these magnificent gifts placed and spread out in a gallery, she cried out, and said:
"Things were not done so nobly for me; and yet, I can say without vanity, I was of a better house than she."This remark paints the Queen, Maria Theresa, better than anything which could be said. Can one wonder, after that, that she should have brought into the world an hereditary prince who so keenly loves 'touru', and asks for it!
Madame de Maintenon and M. Bossuet had gone to receive the Princess of Schelestadt. When she was on her husband's territory, and it was necessary, to confess her for the sacrament of matrimony, she was strangely embarrassed. They had not remembered to bring a chaplain of her own nation for her; and she could not confess except in the German tongue.
Madame de Maintenon, who is skilled in all matters of religion, said to the prelate: "I really think, monsieur, that, having educated Monsieur le Dauphin, you ought to know a little German,--you who have composed the treatise on universal history."The Bishop of Meaux excused himself, saying that he knew Greek, Syriac, and even Hebrew; but that, through a fatality, he was ignorant of the German language. A trumpeter was then sent out to ask if there was not in the country a Catholic priest who was a German, or acquainted with the German tongue. Luckily one was found, and Madame de Maintenon, who is very, pedantic, even in the matter of toilet and ornaments, trembled with joy and thanked God for it. But what was her astonishment when they came to bring her the priest! He was in coloured clothes, a silk doublet, flowing peruke, and boots and spurs. The lady in waiting rated him severely, and was tempted to send him back. But Bossuet--a far greater casuist than she--decided that in these urgent cases one need hold much less to forms. They were contented with taking away the spurs from this amphibious personage; they pushed him into a confessional,--the curtain of which he was careful to draw before himself,--and they brought the Bavarian Princess, who, not knowing the circumstances, confessed the sins of her whole life to this sort of soldier.
Madame de Maintenon always had this general confession on her conscience;she scolded Bossuet for it as a sort of sacrilege, and the latter, who was only difficult and particular with simple folk, quoted historical examples in which soldiers, on the eve of battle, had confessed to their general.
"Yes," said the King, on hearing these quotations from the imperturbable man; "that must have been to the Bishop of Puy or the Bishop of Orange, who, in effect, donned the shield and cuirass at the time of the crusades against the Saracens; or perhaps, again, to the Cardinal de la Valette d'Epernon, who commanded our armies under Richelieu successfully.""No, Sire," replied the Bishop; "to generals who were simply soldiers.""But," said the King, "were the confessions, then, null?""Sire," added the Bishop of Meaux, "circumstances decide everything.
Of old, in the time of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and much later still, confessions of Christians were public,--made in a loud voice; sometimes a number together, and always in the open air. Those of soldiers that Ihave quoted to madame were somewhat of the kind of these confessions of the primitive Church; and to-day, still, at the moment when battle is announced, a military almoner gives the signal for confession. The regiments confess on their knees before the Most High, who hears them;and the almoner, raised aloft on a pile of drums, holds the crucifix in one hand, and with the other gives the general absolution to eighty thousand soldiers at once."This clear and precise explanation somewhat calmed Madame de Maintenon, and Madame la Dauphine,--displeased at what she had done on arriving,--in order to be regular, learned to confess in French.
