Charles of Lorraine fell violently in love with Marianne Pajot, whom he met at the “Luxembourg” when visiting Madame d’Orleans, his sister.  She was “so fair, so modest, so virtuous, and so witty” that he did not hesitate to offer her his hand; and they were man and wife so far as legal formalities could make them when the Monarch (Louis XIV.) intervened.  Charles had by a recent treaty made Louis his heir.  This threatened no obstacle to his union, since a clause in the marriage contract barred all claims to succession on the part of the children who might be born of it.  But “Madame” resented the mesalliance; she joined her persuasions with those of the Minister le Tellier; and the latter persuaded the young King, not absolutely to prevent the marriage, but to turn it to account.  A paper was drawn up pledging the Duke to fresh concessions, and the bride was challenged in the King’s name to obtain his signature to it.  On this condition she was to be recognized as Duchess with all the honours due to her rank; failing this, she was to be banished to a convent.  The alternative was offered to her at the nuptial banquet, at which le Tellier had appeared—­a carriage and military escort awaiting him outside.  She emphatically declined taking part in so disgraceful a compact:[125] and after doing her best to allay the Duke’s wrath (which was for the moment terrible), calmly allowed the Minister to lead her away, leaving all the bystanders in tears.  A few days later Marianne returned the jewels which Charles had given her, saying, it was not suitable that she should keep them “since she had not the honour of being his wife.”  He seems to have resigned her without farther protest.

De Lassay was much impressed by this occurrence, though at the time only ten years old.  He too conceived an attachment for Marianne Pajot, and married her, being already a widower, at the age of twenty-three.  Their union, dissolved a few years later by her death, was one of unclouded happiness on his part, of unmixed devotion on hers; and the moral dignity by which she had subjugated this somewhat weak and excitable nature was equally attested by the intensity of her husband’s sorrow and by its transitoriness.  The military and still more amorous adventures of the Marquis de Lassay make him a conspicuous figure in the annals of French Court life.  He is indirectly connected with our own through a somewhat pale and artificial passion for Sophia Dorothea, the young Princess of Hanover, whose husband became ultimately George I. Mr. Browning indicates the later as well as earlier stages of de Lassay’s career; he only follows that of the Duke of Lorraine into an imaginary though not impossible development.  Charles had shown himself a being of smaller spiritual stature than his intended wife; and it was only too likely, Mr. Browning thinks, that the diamonds which should have graced her neck soon sparkled on that of some venal beauty whose challenge to his admiration proceeded from the opposite pole of womanhood.  Nevertheless he feels kindly towards him.  The nobler love was not dishonoured by the more ignoble fancy, since it could not be touched by it.  Duke Charles was still faithful as a man may be.