Drawing Room
The Duchesse de Berri
By RIGAUD.
Half-Length: Oval.
(Hair Dressed High. White and Gold Boddice. Blue Velvet Mantle, lined with Ermine.)
Born, 1694. Died, 1719. Marie Louise, daughter of Philip, second Duke of Orleans, afterwards Regent, by Mademoiselle de Blois, daughter of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan. This marriage, which had been determined on by the King, was not only strongly opposed, by the Duchess of Orleans, his mother, but Philip himself, then Duc de Chartres, was repugnant to the mésalliance. He was at length overruled by the commands of his father, and the King his uncle, and proceeded to break the announcement of his engagement to the proud German Princess his mother, who congratulated the fiancé with a blow. One son and five daughters were born to Philip, the second of whom, Marie Louise, married in 1710 the Duc de Berri, third son to the Dauphin, and consequently grandson to Louis XIV. He was a handsome Prince, full of endearing and sterling qualities, but his education had been shamefully neglected, and on this point he was most sensitive. It made him shy of society, and fearful of speaking in public, and on one occasion he was subjected to terrible mortification. At the general Treaty of Peace, when it was settled that the crowns of France and Spain should never devolve on the same person, the Dukes of Orleans and Berri proceeded to the Parliament House to attend to some necessary formalities, on the occasion of the death of the Duc de Bourgogne, and the Duc de Berri found himself compelled to speak. After stammering and stuttering for some time he entirely broke down, and retired in confusion. Relating the circumstance to a friend, he was said to have shed tears of mortification, bitterly complaining at the same time of the manner in which his education had been neglected for the express purpose of keeping him in the background. “J’avois,” said he, “autant de disposition [for learning] que les autres; on ne m’apprit qu’à chasser, on n’a cherché qu’à m’abattre.” In spite of these disadvantages the Duc de Berri was very popular, and is said to have won all hearts, save that of the ill-conditioned Princess whose outward charms had subjugated him. Even at an early age Marie Louise d’Orléans laid herself open to the tongue of scandal, and had been censured for habits of intemperance. On finding there was a chance of making a brilliant marriage she changed her whole line of conduct, and persuaded every one, including the wary Madame de Maintenon, that she was a reformed character. But no sooner was the marriage consummated than the young Duchess threw off the mask, and returned to all her evil ways. In nowise touched by the kindness and devotion of her husband, she thwarted him on every occasion, and delighted to turn him into ridicule, which was easy in the case of one so diffident and sensitive. But even his forbearance had a limit; her conduct disgraced them both, and one day, maddened by jealousy and the insolence of his wife’s Chamberlain, he sought the advice of his trusty friend, the Duc de St. Simon.
St. Simon spoke strongly on the subject, urging the Duc de Berri to seek redress from the King, and strengthening his counsel by producing a correspondence that had fallen into his hands, between the Duchess and the aforesaid chamberlain. These letters left no doubt of their guilt: in one of them the lady proposed to elope, but her lover refused on the plea that the step would not be conducive to his advancement in life. The Duc de Berri, in conformity with his friend’s advice and his own convictions, determined to carry the correspondence to Rambouillet where Louis XIV. was then staying; but unfortunately his movements were not sufficiently prompt. The Duchess discovered that her husband and the Duc de St. Simon had been closeted together for some time over some animated and highly confidential business; it was not difficult to guess the subject, and no sooner had the Duc de Berri started, than she leaped into her coach, and pursuing him with all haste, broke into the Royal presence just in time to find the King examining the contents of the fatal correspondence. A scene of disgraceful violence and altercation ensued, and so exasperating and shameless was the language of the Duchess, that the hitherto indulgent and forbearing husband raised his heavy riding boot and with one kick sent his wife spinning into the arms of Madame de Maintenon. The King, whose dignity was outraged on all sides, lifted his cane to strike the unhappy Prince, but he had already withdrawn, full of shame at the violence into which he had been betrayed. As for the Duchess, no sooner had she recovered from the shock, than without a word to her sovereign, or Madame de Maintenon, she left the room in a paroxysm of rage. “It is true,” she said afterwards to one of her ladies, “that I have sustained no bodily injury, but the mark will ever remain here,” placing her hand upon what, by courtesy, she called her heart. It undoubtedly remained in her memory; the Duke apologised, and she pretended to be appeased; a reconciliation was patched up, and at a wolf hunt held by the King in the Forest of Marly, the Duc de Berri, who was passionately fond of the sport, rode hard and well. He was suffering from intense thirst when he fell in with his wife’s coach, and riding up asked anxiously if she could supply him with a draught of any kind. The Duchess smiled benignly, and drew from the pocket of the carriage a beautiful little case containing a bottle in which she said she always carried some excellent Ratafia in the event of over-fatigue. The unsuspecting man raised it to his lips and drained the last drop with many expressions of gratitude. The Duchess smiled again: “It is fortunate we met,” she said; and the heavy coach rolled on. In a few hours the Duke was taken ill, and after four days of suffering he expired on May 4th, 1714, at the early age of 28. As in the case of Madame no one doubted the existence of poison, and at first, public opinion was so violent against the Duke of Orleans that he had a narrow escape of his life from the fury of the mob, at the funeral of his son-in-law. Later evidence, however, seemed but too strong against the guilty wife, although the matter was gradually hushed up, as in those days the art of poisoning had become a fashionable pastime. The Duchess did not long survive her victim; she gave herself up to excesses of all kinds, and concluded her ill-spent life of 24 years in 1719.
In some letters of “Madame, veuve de Monsieur,” the first Duke of Orleans, the Princess of Bavaria to whom allusion has already been made, we are told that the Duchesse de Berri at the time of her death was undoubtedly married clandestinely to Captain de Rious, whose portrait Madame paints in the most unflattering terms as remarkable for his ugliness, in spite of which he was a great favourite with the ladies. He was absent on duty with the regiment the Duchess had bought for him at the time of her death. Madame goes on to say: “Pour se tirer de l’embarras que pouvoit lui donner une oraison funêbre, on a pris le parti de n’en point faire du tout.” Apparently a prudent decision. The same authority states that the Duchesse de Berri had grown very large and florid, (and that she often jested on the change in her own appearance), which would account for her looking twice her real age in this picture.