Produced by David Widger
Written by Herself
Being the Historic Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV.
The King Takes Luxembourg Because It Is His Will.—Devastation of the
Electorate of Treves.—The Marquis de Louvois.—His Portrait.—The
Marvels Which He Worked.—The Le Tellier and the Mortemart.—The King
Destines De Mortemart to a Colbert.—How One Manages Not to Bow.—The
Dragonades.—A Necessary Man.—Money Makes Fat.—Meudon.—The Horoscope.
This journey to Flanders did not keep the King long away from hiscapital. And, withal, he made two fine and rich conquests, short as thespace of time was. The important town of Luxembourg was necessary tohim. He wanted it. The Marechal de Crequi invested this place with anarmy of thirty thousand men, and made himself master of it at the end ofa week.
Immediately after the King marched to the Electorate of Treves, which hadbelonged, he said, to the former kingdom of Austrasia. He had no troublein mastering it, almost all the imperial forces being in Hungary,Austria, and in those cantons where the Ottomans had called for them. Thetown of Treves humbly recognised the King of France as its lord andsuzerain. Its fine fortifications were levelled at once, and ourvictories were, unhappily, responsible for the firing, pillage, anddevastation of almost the whole Electorate. For the Duke of Crequi,faithful executor of the orders of Louvois, imagined that a sovereign isonly obeyed when he proves himself stern and inflexible.
In the first years of my favour, the Marquis de Louvois enjoyed my entireconfidence, and, I must admit, my highest esteem. Independently of hismanners, which are, when he wishes, those of the utmost amiability, Iremarked in him an industrious and indefatigable minister, an intelligentman, as well instructed in the mass as in details; a mind fertile inresources, means, and expedients; an administrator, a jurist, atheologian, a man of letters and of affairs, an artist, an agriculturist,a soldier.
Loving pleasure, yet knowing how to despise it in favour of the needs ofthe State and the care of affairs, this minister concentrated in his ownperson all the other ministries, which moved only by his impulse andguiding hand.
Did the King, followed by his whole Court, arrive in fearful weather bythe side of some vast and swollen river, M. de Louvois, alighting fromhis carriage, would sweep the horizon with a single glance. He woulddesignate on the spot the farms, granaries, mills, and chateaux necessaryto the passage of a fastidious king on his travels. A general repast,appropriate and sufficient, issued at his voice as it had been from thebowels of the earth. An abundance of mattresses received provisionallythe more or less delicate forms, stretched out in slumber or fatigue. Andin the depth of the night, by the light of a thousand flaring torches, avast bridge, constructed hastily, in spite of wind and rain, permittedthe royal carriage and the host of other vehicles to cross the stream,and find on the further bank succulent dishes and voluptuous apartments.
This prodigious energy, which created results by pulverising obstacles,had rendered the minister not only agreeable but precious to a youngsovereign, who, unable to tolerate delays and resistance, desired in allthings to attain and succeed. The King, without looking too closely atthe means, loved the results which were the consequences of such ag