The Equipage at Full Speed.--The Poor Vine-grower.--Sensibility of Madame de Maintenon.--Her Popularity.--One Has the Right to Crush a Man Who Will Not Get Out of the Way.--What One Sees.--What They Tell You.--All Ends at the Opera.--One Can Be Moved to Tears and Yet Like Chocolate.
Another event with a tragical issue, and one to which I contributed even less, served to feed and foster that hatred, mixed with envy, which the rabble populace guards always so persistently towards the favourites of kings or fortune.
Naturally quick and impatient, I cannot endure to move with calm and state along the roads. My postilions, my coachmen know it, driving in such fashion that no equipage is ever met which cleaves the air like mine.
I was descending one day the declivity of the Coeur-Volant, between Saint Germain and Marly. The Marquises de Maintenon and d'Hudicourt were in my carriage with M. le Duc du Maine, so far as I can remember. We were going at the pace which I have just told, and my outriders, who rode in advance, were clearing the way, as is customary. A vine-grower, laden with sticks, chose this moment to cross the road, thinking himself, no doubt, agile enough to escape my six horses. The cries of my people were useless. The imprudent fellow took his own course, and my postilions, in spite of their efforts with the reins, could not prevent themselves from passing over his body; the wheels followed the horses; the poor man was cut in pieces.
At the lamentations of the country folk and the horrified passers-by, we stopped. Madame de Maintenon wished to alight, and when she perceived the unfortunate vine-grower disfigured with his wounds, she clasped her hands and fell to weeping. The Marquise d'Hudicourt, who was always simplicity itself, followed her friend's example; there was nothing but groans and sorrowful exclamations. My coachman blamed the postilions, the postilions the man's obstinacy.
Madame de Maintenon, speaking as though she were the mistress, bade them be silent, and dared to say to them before all the crowd: "If you belonged to me, I would soon settle you." At these words all the spectators applauded, and cried: "Vive Madame de Maintenon!"Irritated at what I had just heard, I put my head out of the door, and, turning to these sentimental women, I said to them: "Be good enough to get in, mesdames; are you determined to have me stoned?"They mounted again, after having left my purse with the poor relations of the dead man; and as far as Ruel, which was our destination, I was compelled to listen to their complaints and litanies.
"Admit, madame," I declared to Madame de Maintenon, "that any person except myself could and would detest you for the harm you have done me.
Your part was to blame the postilions lightly and the rustic very positively. My equipage did not come unexpectedly, and my two outriders had signalled from their horses.""Madame," she replied, "you have not seen, as I did, those eyes of the unhappy man forced violently from their sockets, his poor crushed head, his palpitating heart, from which the blood soaked the pavement; such a sight has moved and broken my own heart. I was, as I am still, quite beside myself, and, in such a situation, it is permissible to forget discretion in one's speech and the proprieties. I had no intention of giving you pain; I am distressed at having done so. But as for your coachmen I loathe them, and, since you undertake their defence, I shall not for the future show myself in your equipage."[In one of her letters, Madame de Maintenon speaks of this accident, but she does not give quite the same account of it. It is natural that Madame de Montespan seeks to excuse her people and herself if she can.--EDITOR'S NOTE.]
At Ruel, she dared take the same tone before the Duchesse de Richelieu, who rebuked her for officiousness, and out of spite, or some other reason, Madame de Maintenon refused to dine. She had two or three swooning fits; her tears started afresh four or five times, and the Marquise d'Hudicourt, who dined only by snatches, went into a corner to sob and weep along with her.
"Admit, madame," I said then to Madame de Maintenon, "your excessive grief for an unknown man is singular. He was, perhaps, actually a dishonest fellow. The accident which you come back to incessantly, and which distresses me also, is doubtless deplorable; but, after all, it is not a murder, an ambush, a premeditated assassination. I imagine that if such a catastrophe had happened elsewhere, and been reported to us in a gazette or a book, you would have read of it with interest and commiseration; but we should not have seen you clasp your hands over your head, turn red and pale, utter loud cries, shed tears, sob, and scold a coachman, postilions, perhaps even me. The event, would, nevertheless, be actually the same. Admit, then, madame, and you, too, Madame d'Hudicourt, that there is an exaggeration in your sorrow, and that you would have made, both of you, two excellent comedians."Madame de Maintenon, piqued at these last words, sought to make us understand, and even make us admit, that there is a great difference between an event narrated to you by a third party, and an event which one has seen. Madame de Richelieu shut her mouth pleasantly with these words: "We know, Madame la Marquise, how much eloquence and wit is yours.
We approve all your arguments, past and to be. Let us speak no further of an accident which distresses you; and since you require to be diverted, let us go to the Opdra, which is only two leagues off."She consented to accompany us, for fear of proving herself entirely ridiculous; but to delay us as much as possible, she required a cup of chocolate, her favourite dish, her appetite having returned as soon as she had exhausted the possibilities of her grief.
