by Miss Pardoe.
Originally published in Ainsworth's Magazine: A Miscellany of Romance (Chapman and Hall) vol.4 #20 (Sep 1843).
Part I.
The usually quiet Convent of Chelles was all astir. The spacious gardens were deserted; the chapel was untenanted: and mysterious whispers and apprehensive looks were to be met on all sides. Blent with the fear, however, there might be read upon the faces of the excited sisterhood a certain restless and fidgetty enjoyment, common to monastic communities, when some extraordinary incident breaks for a brief interval through the monotony of their ordinary existence. To the cowled and cloistered inmates of a religious house, even trifles are of extreme importance, from the paucity of events of which their mode of life is susceptible, and which naturally tends to invest every variation of feeling and action with a factitious consequence and an exaggerated value. It was, therefore, not extraordinary that, on the morning of which we are about to write, the pious ladies of Chelles were all excitement; and that the leaven of worldly interests was causing among them a fermentation of spirit, strangely at variance with their usual placidity.
The convent in question was one of high repute during the reign of Louis XVI., for sanctity and order; and its lady abbess was the pious and high-born Madame de la Porte, the paternal aunt of Armand Charles de la Porte, Marquis de la Meillerage, who, on the occasion of his marriage with Hortense, niece and heiress to the celebrated Cardinal Mazarin, became duke of that name: and it is to these ladies, and their friend, the Countess de Courcelles, that we are about to introduce our readers.
The holy superior sat in a large roomy chair, covered with purple serge, and her feet rested upon a prayer-cushion of the same material. She was tall and comely; save that her figure had lost somewhat of its roundness from the ascetic nature of her life. The snowy coif sat smoothly over her high, calm forehead, and was folded closely along her cheeks, making a strong white line upon their sallow surface. Her eyes were large and dark, and were surrounded by a circle of black shadow, which gave to them a peculiar and unpleasant expression, generally negatived by the sweetness of her smile, and the low melody of her voice; but there still were moments when the old proud feeling of high birth and exalted station called forth flashes of haughtiness from those deep eyes, to which the scornful curve of her well-moulded mouth responded in a manner not to be misunderstood. These were, however, infrequent; for as all within the walls of Chelles were subservient to her will and pleasure, there was little occasion for a personal assertion of superiority. It was only when her convent became the temporary asylum of some lady of quality—either a voluntary guest, escaping for a time from the dissipations of the court, or the greater ennui of her provincial château; or a refractory wife, sister, or daughter, constrained for awhile by some offended relative to sojourn beneath conventual rule, in expiation of a real or imaginary fault—that these demonstrations were called forth; and when these took place, there was not a nun in the community who did not feel that, until the storm had subsided, she should, in the event of any indiscretion or negligence, have to render an account rather to the proud Countess de la Porte than to the meek Abbess of Chelles.
In figure, we have remarked that the superior was tall and stately; and if the coif well became her lofty forehead, the cape of snow-white linen appeared no less seemly on the graceful shoulders over which it was worn; while the thick "discipline" of black cord, beneath which were gathered the ample folds of her robe, supported the rosary of ebony, the crucifix, and the reliquary, which are the holy and only medium of conventual coquetry.
Beside the abbess stood a slight, fair woman, with auburn ringlets flowing over her shoulders, light grey eyes, a nose slightly rétroussé, and a mouth which looked as though it had been made only for jests and smiles. Time had scarcely touched her; and she seemed as if sorrow had no part in her existence; but there was about her a graceful fulness of outline, and an assured composure of manner, which betrayed that girlhood had long passed away. Such was Madame de Courcelles, at the period of which we write; and as she stood beside the abbess in the elaborate négligée then in vogue at court, she formed as perfect a contrast to the holy superior of Chelles as can well be imagined. She had just put up a playful prayer for pardon, having been detected in one of the harmless but childish espiégleries with which, during her sojourn at Chelles, she delighted in mystifying and tormenting some of the more rigid of the sisterhood, and was listening with an air of mock penitence to the calm rebuke of the abbess.
Immediately behind Madame de Courcelles, bending over a tapestry-frame, apparently busied in painful thought, and utterly unobservant of the scene going forward so near her, sat a third lady, so eminently beautiful, that the eye which once rested upon her could with difficulty be withdrawn. The noble Roman outline of her face was seen to great advantage at the moment in which we have brought her under the attention of our readers. Her eyes were of that deep and peculiar blue, which in moments of emotion almost darken into black, while in those of repose they possess the liquid softness in which the soul appears to swim in the atmosphere of its own purity; large, full, and exquisitely shaped, when they met those of the person to whom she spoke, it seemed as though the gazer could look far into their depths: but still there was no passion in their expression; they were remarkable rather for thoughtfulness and intellect than for tenderness or coquetry. Her nose was fine, and delicately chiselled, and gave a haughtiness to her beauty, which was softened into « new charm by the graceful melody of her voice, the ringing joyousness of her laugh, and the softness of the lovely mouth whence it escaped. Her complexion was of the most exquisite fairness; and the bloom which flushed and faded upon her cheek was so pure and delicate, that it gave an ethereal character to her whole appearance. Her hair, which was as black and bright as jet, was swept smoothly back from her forehead, and folded in a score of heavy braids, which were collected into a mass on the summit of her small and graceful head, where they were confined by bodkins of pearl. Her shape, perfect in itself, had lost somewhat of its charm, from her distaste to all conventional and coercive modes of dress, which had induced an habitual carelessness, and given a freedom to her figure, that had tended to increase its size, although it had failed in injuring its symmetry, otherwise than by detracting from the appearance of height, which her really lofty figure must, under other circumstances, have conveyed. As she sat that morning in the convent-parlour, busied with her embroidery, she was enveloped in a douillette of satin damask, elaborately wrought in coloured silks upon a ground of white, and girt about her waist by a thick gold cord and tassels, while her sleeves, in the Oriental style, were closed only to the elbow, whence they fell back in ample folds, and revealed arms so beautiful that they would have been the worship of a statuary.
This was the Duchesse de Mazarin; the celebrated, witty, amiable, and unfortunate Hortense Mancini; the heiress of a cardinal, and the wife of a madman; who, not contented with dissipating in idle and vicious follies the colossal fortune which had formed her dowry, and with rendering her life a torment from his causeless jealousy, and his equally senseless paroxysms of exacting and selfish passion, had completed the measure of his injustice, tyranny, and ingratitude, by a base endeavour to defame the fair character of the high-born woman who had been the architect of his fortunes, and the victim of his caprice.
When about to reside for a time in Alsace, in 1667, where he menaced the duchess with Brissac and the bastions, alleging that she ever preferred her own ease and amusement to his comfort, and feigning to believe that she would make an incorrect use of the freedom of which she was so fond, he even carried his tyranny so far as to discharge, without her knowledge or sanction, a waiting-woman, to whom she was much attached—an incautious and ill-judged proceeding, which induced her friends to dissuade her from bearing him company during his absence from Paris; his temper at the time giving so poor a promise for the future, when distance from her family would render her unable to appeal to them tor protection.
Her affection not only chilled, but revolted, and her pride at once wounded and aroused, Madame de Mazarin resolved to be guided by this advice; but, determined at the same time that her husband should not have the triumph of asserting that she had given him cause for the jealousy which he felt or feigned by her residence at court, or in the hotel of any of the ministers, where she must necessarily be brought into constant contact with all that was noble and distinguished in the capital, she resigned the choice of her temporary abode to the duke, who, when he became assured that her resolution was definitively taken, and that neither threat nor persuasion would induce her to bear him company, at length left her free either to establish herself at the Hotel de Conti, to which he knew that she was peculiarly averse from association, or to retire to the Convent of Chelles, of which his aunt was abbess—an alternative that she at once accepted, having no repugnance to place herself under the observation of her husband's kinswoman, although prepared to meet in her a rigid censor, already prejudiced in her disfavour.
Thus, then, the Duchesse de Mazarin found herself an inmate of Chelles, with the joyous companionship of Madame de Courcelles, whose lively frolics often beguiled her of her weary and painful thoughts, and sometimes even charmed her into a participation of their mirthfulness, while her own high qualities, and scrupulously correct and womanly bearing so won upon the holy abbess, that she became devotedly attached to her beautiful relative, in whose lofty, but gentle nature, cultivated mind, and untiring sweetness of disposition, she read such noble proofs of her proud lineage and her individual worth.
After a residence of six months at Chelles, the duchess learnt, with regret, the return of her lord from Alsace; and was surprised by a visit from him on his route to Paris, when he immediately asserted his authority, by desiring her to discharge two tire-women, who had been placed about her person by the abbess: his only motive for this intrusion on her private arrangements being his displeasure on discovering the affection borne towards her by his aunt, from whom he had expected support in his unreasonable demonstrations.
Satisfied that he could advance no valid reason for the discourtesy, Madame de Mazarin, indignant at the childish tyranny to which he sought to make her subject, distinctly refused compliance; and in revenge for this opposition, he immediately requested the interference of the king to compel the unhappy lady to a change of residence. Louis, probably anxious to oblige him in what he esteemed a trifle, or perhaps desirous to secure himself against the ennui of reiterated solicitations—for he well knew that the duke was most persevering in his caprices—complied without hesitation, greatly to the disgust and me ees of Madame de la Porte, who deeply felt the insult offered to her community by the removal of the duchess, and who bore affectionate and earnest testimony to the virtues and noble qualities of her persecuted charge.
All her eloquence proved unavailing. For only a few days, subsequent to the arrival of the intelligence at Chelles of the approaching departure of the duchess, M. le Premier waited upon Madame de Mazarin, and informed her that she would give pleasure to his majesty, by taking up her abode with the least possible delay in the Convent of St. Mary of the Bastille; and he had no sooner accomplished his errand, than he was succeeded by a lady of the court, attended by six of the king's body-guard, to escort the duchess to her new retreat.
She obeyed without resistance or expostulation. Spirit-stricken, and sick at heart, she took leave of the mortified abbess and her weeping community, and entering the carriage in which Madame de Courcelles and Madame de Toussi were already seated, she drew her veil closely about her, and abandoned herself to her miserable reflections, heedless of the high-bred gossipry of her two companions.
Miserable, in truth, those reflections were; for the past offered her no consolation, and the future no hope: her womanly pride and her womanly tenderness had been alike defied; and she felt that time could never again restore to her the singleness of spirit or the trustfulness of heart with which she had given herself in the spring-tide of her youth and of her loveliness to the man who had been the first to raise against her the finger of suspicion.
On his route to Brittany, to hold a session of the states, Monsieur de Mazarin paid her a visit at St. Mary's, where, having no other, and more rational cause of complaint, he upbraided her violently for wearing patches upon her face and neck, as was then the mode at court, and declared that he would not acquaint her with his motive for seeking her until she had removed them. The duchess calmly, but with firmness, declined believing that, as he alleged, she had committed a sin before her Maker in adopting a fashion which pleased her fancy, and which was essentially harmless; but a weary hour was nevertheless wasted by the imbecile duke on this inconsequent subject before he could sufficiently command his temper to inform her that the motive of his errand was to request of her to accompany him to Brittany. A peremptory refusal on the part of the duchess was the only reply that he could obtain, for, wearied by his inane and tyrannical opposition, his heartless caprices, and the lavish excesses which threatened to leave her son, who should have been one of the richest nobles in France, a pauper-lord, dependent upon his sword for an existence, she had at length resolved to bring her case before the legal authorities, and to sue for a separate maintenance, in order to preserve to herself and her children the still existing remnant of the princely fortune which had been bequeathed to her by the cardinal her uncle.