mind
recollections of the broken sword, the refusal in the Bastille of the
post of captain of the guards, and made his Majesty look upon Lauzun as a
man who no longer knew himself, who had suborned Mademoiselle until he
had been within an inch of marrying her, and of assuring to himself
immense wealth; finally, as a man, very dangerous on account of his
audacity, and who had taken it into his head to gain the devotion of the
troops by his magnificence, his services to the officers, and by the
manner in which he had treated them during the Flanders journey, making
himself adored. They made him out criminal for having remained the
friend of, and on terms of great intimacy with, the Comtesse de Soissons,
driven from the Court and suspected of crimes. They must have accused
Lauzun also of crimes which I have never heard of, in order to procure
for him the barbarous treatment they succeeded in subjecting him to.

Their intrigues lasted all the year, 1671, without Lauzun discovering
anything by the visage of the King, or that of Madame de Montespan. Both
the King and his mistress treated him with their ordinary distinction and
familiarity. He was a good judge of jewels (knowing also how to set them
well), and Madame de Montespan often employed him in this capacity. One
evening, in the middle of November, 1671, he arrived from Paris, where
Madame de Montespan had sent him in the morning for some precious stones,
and as he was about to enter his chamber he was arrested by the Marechal
de Rochefort, captain of the guards.

Lauzun, in the utmost surprise, wished to know why, to see the King or
Madame de Montespan--at least, to write to them; everything was refused
him. He was taken to the Bastille, and shortly afterwards to Pignerol,
where he was shut up in a low-roofed dungeon. His post of captain of the
body-guard was given to M. de Luxembourg, and the government of Berry to
the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, who, at the death of Guitz, at the passage
of the Rhine, 12th June, 1672, was made grand master of the wardrobe.

It may be imagined what was the state of a man like Lauzun, precipitated,
in a twinkling, from such a height to a dungeon in the chateau of
Pignerol, without seeing anybody, and ignorant of his crime. He bore up,
however, pretty well, but at last fell so ill that he began to think
about confession. I have heard him relate that he feared a fictitious
priest, and that, consequently, he obstinately insisted up