He had often at his side a Spaniard by the name of Yturri whom I had known during my ambassadorship in Madrid, as has been related. At a time when everyone else scarcely ever advanced an opinion except to have his merit noticed, he had that quality, very rare actually, of putting all his own merit into making the Count’s shine, helping him in his researches, in his dealings with booksellers, even in matters of the table, finding no task too tedious so long as it spared the Count one, his own task being, if one may say so, only to listen and make Montesquiou’s statements resound far and wide, just as those disciples did whom the ancient sophists were accustomed to have always with them, as is evident from the writings of Aristotle and the discourses of Plato. This Yturri had kept the fiery manner of his countrymen, who make a fuss over anything at all, for which Montesquiou chid him very often and very amusingly, to the merriment of all and of Yturri himself first of all, who apologized, laughing at the heatedness of his race, yet took care not to do anything about it, since everyone liked him that way. He was an expert in antique objects, of which knowledge many people took advantage to go see him and consult him about them, even in the retirement our two hermits had resorted to, located, as I have said, in Neuilly, close to the house of M. the Duc d’Orléans.
Those whom Montesquiou invited were very few and very select, only the best and the greatest, but not always the same ones, and this was done expressly, since he played very much at being king, offering favors and disgraces to the point of shameful injustice, but all this was supported by such well-known merit, that others overlooked it in him, but some however were invited very faithfully and very regularly, and one was almost always certain of finding them at his house when he hosted an entertainment, like the Duchesse Mme de Clermont-Tonnerre of whom much will be spoken later on, who was the daughter of Gramont, granddaughter of the famous secretary of state, sister of the Duc de Guiche, who was very much inclined, as we have seen, toward mathematics and painting, and Mme Greffulhe, who was a Chimay, of the famous princely house of the counts of Bossut. Their name is Hennin-Liétard and I have already spoken about the Prince de Chimay, on whom the Elector of Bavaria had the Golden Fleece bestowed by Charles II and who became my son-in-law, thanks to the Duchesse Sforze, after the death of his first wife, daughter of the Duc de Nevers. He was no less attached to Mme de Brantes, daughter of Cessac, of whom it has already been spoken quite often and who will return many times in the course of these Memoirs, and to the Duchesses de la Roche-Guyon and de Fezensac. I have spoken enough of these Montesquious, about their amusing fancy of being descended from Pharamond, as if their antiquity were not great enough and well-known enough not to need to scribble fables, and also about the Duc de la Roche-Guyon, eldest son of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld and ward of his two charges, of the strange present he received from M. the Duc d’Orléans, of his nobility at avoiding the trap that the shrewd villainy of the first president of Mesmes set for him and of the marriage of his son with Mlle de Toiras. One also very often saw there Mme de Noailles, wife of the eldest brother of the Duc d’Ayen, today the Duc de Noailles, whose mother is La Ferté. But I will have occasion to speak of her at greater length as the woman of the finest poetic genius her time has seen, who renewed, and one might even say enlarged, the miracle of the famous Mme de Sévigné. Everyone knows that what I say of her is pure fair-mindedness, it being well enough known by everyone what terms I came to with the Duc de Noailles, nephew of the cardinal and husband of Mlle d’Aubigné, niece of Mme de Maintenon, and I have gone on enough in its place about his intrigues against me to the point of making himself along with Canillac an advocate to the state councillors against people of quality, his skill at deceiving his uncle the cardinal, in criticizing the chancellor Daguesseau, in courting Effiat and the Rohans, in lavishly pouring the enormous pecuniary graces of M. the Duc d’Orléans onto the Comte d’Armagnac to have him marry his daughter, after having failed to snare the eldest son of the Duc d’Albret for her. But I have spoken too much of all that to return to it, of his dark schemes concerning Law, and of the matter of the gemstones, and also of the conspiracy of the Duc and Duchesse du Maine. Quite otherwise, and of quite a different breed, was Mathieu de Noailles, who married the woman in question here, and whom her talent has made famous. She was the daughter of Brancovan, reigning prince of Wallachia, which they call there Hospodar, and had as much beauty as genius. Her mother was a Musurus, which is the name of a very noble family, one of the foremost in Greece, made illustrious by numerous and distinguished ambassadorships and by the friendship of one of those Musuruses with the famous Erasmus. Montesquiou had been the first to speak of her verses. Duchesses went often to listen to his own, at Versailles, at Sceaux, at Meudon, and in the past few years women in town have been imitating them by a familiar strategy, and they invite actors over who recite them, with the aim of attracting one of those ladies, many of whom would go to the house of the Great Nobleman rather than abstain from applauding them there. There was always some recitation in his house at Neuilly, and also the concourse of the most famous poets as well as of the most respectable people and the best company, and on his part, to everyone, and in front of the objects of his house, always a flood of discourse, in that language so peculiar to him that I have described, at which everyone continually marveled.
But every coin has its other side. This man of unrivalled qualities, in whom the brilliant and the profound were equally prominent, this man, who could have been called delightful, who could be listened to for hours to the amusement both of others and of himself, since he laughed loudly at what he said as if he were both author and performer, to their benefit, this man had one vice: he was just as thirsty for enemies as he was for friends. Insatiable for the latter, he was relentless for the former, if one can put it that way, since after a few years had gone by, it was the same ones in whom he had lost all interest. He always needed someone to hate, to pursue, to persecute on the pretext of the most trifling remark — thus he was the terror of Versailles, since he did not in the least restrain his voice, which he employed to hurl the most grievous, biting, unjust remarks at whoever was not to his liking, as when he very clearly proclaimed about Diane de Peydan de Brou, esteemed widow of the Marquis de Saint-Paul, that it was just as unfortunate for paganism as it was for Catholicism that she was named after both Diana and Saint Paul. His choice of words always took people by surprise and made them tremble. Having spent his youth among the highest society, and his maturity among the poets, and having liked both circles equally, he feared no one and lived in a solitude that he made ever more austere by each former friend that he chased away. He was one of the close friends of Mme Straus, daughter and widow respectively of the famous musicians Halévy and Bizet, wife of Emile Straus, lawyer for a major charity; her admirable retorts are remembered by everyone. Her face had kept all its charm and would have been enough even without her intellect to attract all those who crowded round her. She is the one who, once in the Chapel of Versailles where she had her pew, when M. de Noyon whose language was always so affected and unnatural asked her if the music they were listening to didn’t strike her as octagonal, replied, “My dear sir, I was just about to say the same thing!”—as if answering someone who had uttered in front of everyone something that came naturally to mind.
One could fill a whole book if one recounted all that has been said by her and that should not be forgotten. Her health had always been delicate. She had taken advantage of this early on to dispense with the Marlys and the Meudons, so went to pay court to the King only very rarely, whereupon she was always received alone and with great consideration. People were astonished by the fruits and mineral waters she made use of all the time, without any liqueurs, or chocolate, and which had drowned her stomach; Fagon had not wanted to acknowledge this since his reputation was already dwindling. He called “charlatans” all those who prescribe remedies or who had not been received into the Faculty of Medecine; because of such notions he drove away a Swiss who could have cured her. In the end, as her stomach had lost the habit for strong food, and her body for sleep and long walks, she turned this fatigue into a distinction. Mme the Duchesse de Bourgogne came to see her and did not want to be shown beyond the first room. She received duchesses sitting down, who came to visit her just the same, since she was such a delight to listen to. Montesquiou never failed to visit her; he was also highly regarded by Mme Standish, his cousin, who came to that parvulo at Saint-Cloud, being the friend of longest standing of any to be admitted, and the one closest to the Queen of England, and most cherished by her; all the women there did not give way to her as should have been the case but was not, thanks to the incredible ignorance of M. the Duc d’Orléans, who thought little of her since her name was Standish, whereas in fact she was the daughter of Escars, of the house of Pérusse, granddaughter of Brissac; she was one of the greatest ladies in the kingdom as well as one of the most beautiful, and had always lived in the choicest society, of which she was the supreme elixir. M. the Duc d’Orléans also did not know that H. Standish was the son of a Noailles, of the branch of the Marquis of Arpajon. M. d’Hinnisdal had to tell him this. So we had at this parvulo the very remarkable scandal of Prince Murat, on a folding chair, next to the King of England. The stir that created resounded far beyond Saint-Cloud. Those who had the good of the State at heart felt its foundations being undermined; the King, so unversed in the reckoning of births and precedence, but understanding the stain inflicted on his crown by the weakness of having destroyed the highest dignity of the kingdom, attacked Comte A. de La Rochefoucauld on this subject in conversation, who was better versed in this history than anyone and who, ordered to reply by his master, who was also his friend, was not afraid to do so in terms that were so clear and so distinct that he was heard by the entire salon, where however a lively game of lans-quenet was being noisily played. He declared that, though much attached to the greatness of his house, he did not believe that this attachment blinded him or made him conceal anything from anyone, when he found that he was — not to say more — as great a lord as Prince Murat; nonetheless he had always given precedence to the Duc de Gramont and would continue to do so. At which the king forbade Prince Murat under any circumstance from taking anything higher than the title of Highness, or crossing the throne room. The only one who could claim this right was Achille Murat, because he owns sovereign prerogatives in Mingrelia, which is a State bordering territories of the Czar. But he was as simple as he was brave, and his mother, so well-known for her writings, whose charming mind he had inherited, had quickly understood that the substantial reality of his situation among those Muscovites was less than in the more-than-princely house that was hers, since she was the daughter of the Duc de Rohan-Chabot.