The White and the Gold (55 page)

Close to the Quai des Célestines lived the Sieur de Neuville, who had one child, a daughter of sixteen named Anne de la Grange-Trianon. She was a lively little beauty, a slender girl with fine dark eyes and the most charming manners. As though these advantages had not been deemed sufficient, she had as well an audacity of wit which made her quite irresistible when she was young and kept her one of the most-sought-after women in fashionable France to the end of her days. The young soldier took one look at this vivacious charmer and fell deeply in love. He went at once to the Sieur de Neuville and begged permission to address his attentions to her. The father seems to have been well enough disposed to the idea at first, for Frontenac attacked him with the methods he had learned in siege warfare, planting his storming ladders of persuasion and swarming over the paternal battlements. As the girl’s father was a widower, however, he had placed his only child in the charge of Madame Bouthillier, the wife of Leon Bouthillier, who had been chancellor to Gaston d’Orléans, the brother of Louis XIII. She was a woman of hard practical sense and not to be won over to such a match for her pretty ward. She went most thoroughly into the finances of the Buade family and found that they lacked the resources to make this handsome and imperious soldier a suitable match for the lovely Anne.

The father behaved with small resolution. He had been won over at first by the vigor of Frontenac’s campaign and he realized that his daughter returned in some degree at least the sentiments of her suitor. He temporized but in the end allied himself with the unbending Madame Bouthillier and refused his consent. Most suitors would have accepted this decision as final and given up. But Frontenac was made of sterner stuff. He did not give up. Instead he started on
an illicit courtship, employing all the usual methods, no doubt: sending notes to his lady through the instrumentality of servants, watching for her at church, and following her home at a respectful distance, perhaps stepping beyond these limits of decorum and arranging meetings where he could pour into her far from unwilling ear the story of his devotion.

There was in Paris at this time a church called St. Pierre aux Boeufs which disregarded all the usual rules imposed on matrimonial candidates. It was, in fact, the Gretna Green of Paris, and the priests in charge exercised the right to perform marriages without publication of banns and even without the consent of parents.

One day in October 1648, Louis de Buade and Anne de la Grange-Trianon appeared at the church of St. Pierre aux Boeufs and were made man and wife. The radiant pair pledged their vows without the consent or knowledge of the bride’s family. Her father was furious when he learned of it and indulged in many threats. Being a man of easy temper, however, he did not harden his heart permanently. Before long he was on easy terms again with this ardent soldier who had thus taken another citadel by surprise attack. The Sieur de Neuville was a proud and happy grandfather when the union resulted in the birth of a son who was given the name of François Louis.

The birth of this unfortunate child was not to be accepted as proof that the marriage was proving a happy one. The bride who had been so gently reared was as adverse to the monotony of domesticity as the soldier who had donned armor at the age of fifteen. She craved the excitements of court life, the intrigues, the witty chatter of the salons, to a life of simple wedded bliss. Frontenac had fallen out of love also. With full mutual consent they concluded their union had been a mistake and that the best thing they could do was to acknowledge it by going their separate ways.

The poor little son who had been ushered into the brittle and corrupt world of the seventeenth century through this mutual error was placed in the charge of a nurse in the village of Chion, and here he died at a very early age, although one report says he grew up to be a soldier and was killed fighting in the French Army. One thing is clear, that he never enjoyed a mother’s loving care nor benefited by paternal guidance. The young wife left her husband almost immediately and, through the influence of Madame Bouthillier, joined the household of the daughter of Gaston d’Orléans. The willful and
sprightly Anne became almost immediately the favorite of her royal mistress, who was popularly called La Grande Mademoiselle.

Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier, was a first cousin of Louis XIV. Her father, the King’s uncle, was a horrible beast who led his friends into conspiracies in his interest and then abandoned them to the block with a grimace and a jig step. He had been married to the greatest heiress in France, and so the one child born to them, who had grown up to almost Amazonian proportions, was also a wealthy woman in her own right.

It was just before the civil war known as the Fronde that the Comtesse de Frontenac joined the household of the young duchess. Monsieur Gaston was in the excitement, of course, intriguing against his nephew and Cardinal Mazarin, and as ready as ever to betray anyone who might be drawn in to his assistance. La Grande Mademoiselle was the first to fly to his aid. She went to Orléans and captured it almost singlehanded by having a gate broken through and being carried across the moat in the arms of a very muddy waterman. The second to enter through this break in the gate was the twenty-year-old Comtesse de Frontenac. The latter took a prominent part in everything that followed, reviewing troops on horseback and making plans with her mistress; and having, no doubt, all the excitement she had always craved so much.

It is not surprising that the Amazonian duchess became very much attached to the lively young comtesse, but she did not have any liking or regard for Frontenac. His assurance angered her, being so full of it herself, and his gasconades, uttered in praise of himself and all his possessions, filled her with scorn.

Frontenac, freed of the care of a wife, had acquired a small estate known as Isle Savar on the River Indre. Its chief advantage lay in the fact that it was close to Blois. That picturesque medieval city, standing up so high above the Loire that the old quarter had to be approached by steep flights of stone steps, was a favorite resort of the people of the court. A huge chateau belonging to the dukes of Orléans stood on the crest, to which Gaston had added a comfortable wing. His tall daughter liked to reside there with her ladies in waiting, including the Comtesse de Frontenac. On one of her visits she was entertained at Isle Savary and came away amazed at the arrogance
of its owner. “He affected to hold court,” she confided to her notes, which were published after her death, “and acted as if everybody owed duty to him.” He was full of plans for improving the place and enraged La Grande Mademoiselle by enlarging on his ideas to the exclusion of all the things she wanted to talk about herself. They were good plans, too, except for the fact, which everyone understood, that he lacked the means to carry them out.

It may have been due to the dislike that the willowy princess conceived for the self-assured Frontenac that she began to lose her affection for his wife. It may instead have been a proof that she shared to some extent her father’s willingness to desert friends. Whatever the reason, the relations between them became strained, culminating in accusations of ingratitude showered on the head of the unhappy comtesse. The King’s cousin finally dismissed the disconsolate Anne from her service.

The comtesse proceeded then to get herself established on a basis which gave her freedom to live as she desired. There was in Paris a large building which had once been the residence of Sully, Henry IV’s minister. It was now called the Arsenal but was used for the housing of people of the court. It was deemed a great privilege to be among the occupants, and Madame de Frontenac was lucky enough to receive the right to assume a handsome suite of rooms there. She moved in at once, taking a favorite companion with her, one Mademoiselle d’Outrelaise, who also had much liveliness and charm. They established a salon which drew all the great people and the wits of the court. They remained there for the balance of their lives and were so much admired that they became known as
Les Divines
. The comtesse lived for nine years after the death of her husband in New France.

Little is known of the middle years of Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac. He was occasionally seen at court. As his habit of living beyond his means had depleted his resources, he was no longer able to keep up appearances properly; although it is on record that his admiration for the opposite sex remained unimpaired. His services as a soldier were no longer in demand and he seems to have languished in obscurity and idleness. This made him acutely unhappy, for his temperament called for a field in which to display his mastery and his talents.

A chance to serve came to him in 1669, when Venice became embroiled with the Turks who had invaded the island of Crete. The
Turkish armies had encamped around the city of Candia and, despite the care with which Venice had fortified that old city, it was in grave danger of succumbing. The Venetians felt they needed an experienced French officer to command the forces holding out so bravely against the Ottoman attacks. Turenne, to whom they applied, had a sincere regard for the soldierly qualities of Frontenac and recommended that the command be confided to him. This was done, and the Gascon soldier, thus summoned from obscurity, went gladly to assume his impossible task. He found Candia so vigorously beleaguered by the troops of the Grand Vizier Achmet that nothing remained but to fight on grimly in the hope of securing favorable terms. This purpose was achieved and the allied forces were permitted to evacuate the city, taking with them all their guns and supplies. Frontenac had handled the defense with such bravery and skill that he emerged with his reputation enhanced.

This was a factor in securing for him the appointment as governor of New France in the year 1672. It was not the kind of post he had wanted, for it amounted almost to exile and the salary was only eight thousand livres a year. But beggars cannot be choosers, and by this time the Buade fortunes had worn very thin indeed. Two factors had stood at first in the way of his selection. A certain Monsieur de Grignan, who had married a daughter of Madame de Sévigné, the famous writer of letters, wanted the appointment very much and proceeded to pull strings to get it. It was clear to the ministry, however, that a man of strength and boldness as well as address was needed in the colony at this juncture; and Frontenac, with all his faults, had these qualities. He was so well suited for the governorship, in fact, that the second objection was overlooked. It is worth telling about if only for the light it throws on one side of the character of the brilliant but somewhat unlucky Gascon.

Louis XIV was now launched on his career as a great lover. When his romance with Louise de la Valliére began to wear thin, the royal eye rested with ardent appreciation on the perfections of one of his spouse’s ladies in waiting, Françoise Athénaïs de Pardaillan, Marquise de Montespan. This opulently beautiful creature, with her golden hair and large blue eyes and voluptuous figure, had been angling for the royal favor with every known wile. In fact, it had been whispered about the court, where every kind of gossip flourished and grew, that in her determination to attract the roving royal eye she had submitted to the Black Mass. This had entailed appearing
at an altar naked and reciting her dark desires to the powers of evil: “I ask for the friendship of the King and Dauphin, may it ever be granted to me; may the Queen be sterile; may the King leave her bed and table for me.” The story of the Black Mass is probably apocryphal, but the fair Athénaïs was detected later in some shady associations. The King had not deserted the royal bed but he had established his fair charmer in rooms above those of the Queen and visited her there every afternoon.

The royal lover may have had one regret in thus surrendering his heart to the blue-eyed siren. It was said in court that she had been partial at an earlier phase of her career to an aging but still handsome and fascinating member of the nobility; none other than Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac. When the infatuation of the King became common knowledge, there was much snickering in corners and discreet singing of a bawdy verse which some wit had composed. It began:

and went on with some ribaldries, ending with the lines,
“Tu n’as que mon teste, Roi, Tu n’as que mon reste.”

Because of this complication it was believed that the King was only too glad to get this one-time favorite of the lovely and willing Montespan as far away as possible; and no other post was as far away as Quebec. This story was generally accepted at the time, but there is small reason to assume that pique would have been allowed to sway the King’s judgment. It is safer to think that the appointment was made on the unquestioned qualifications of Frontenac for the office, the same reasons which caused the shrewd Turenne to select him for the difficult assignment in Crete.

The Comte de Frontenac displayed his mettle on first sighting Quebec. It might have been expected that he would be disillusioned and disturbed by its smallness and complete lack of grandeur. From the deck of the ship it could be seen that the capital of New France lacked the spires and the glistening roofs of impressive cathedrals, the somber but strong castles, the battlemented walks of all old
French towns. It looked drab, crude, a huddle of hastily constructed buildings.

This, then, was a poor setting for a man who had seen life pass him by although he knew that in himself he had the germs of greatness. This appointment was his last chance to retrieve his reputation as a valuable servant of the state and to mend his fortunes. Could either be done in this little outpost?

It had been recognized at Versailles that he must be assisted in making a proper entrance. The King had given him the generous sum of six thousand livres for his equipment and a further grant of nine thousand livres to provide him with a bodyguard of twenty horsemen. The guard preceded him down the gangplank on foot, resplendent in new uniforms. Frontenac had dressed himself with the greatest care. His close-cropped hair, now thin and gray, was completely covered by his well-curled wig. The tapabord hat he was wearing had a brim which turned up off his face and thus showed the costliness of its scarlet silk lining, in keeping with the fineness of its plume. His coat was of levantine cloth, a rich gray, not damasked beyond the severity of good taste. His shoes were of fine gray leather. The curious eyes of the people who had gathered at the docks to catch a glimpse of the new governor must have noted with approval his impeccable attire.