Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Volume 05Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de
History
Memoirs of Louis XIV and His Court and of the Regency — Volume 05
Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, duc de
France -- Court and courtiers; France -- History -- Louis XIV, 1643-1715; France -- History -- Regency, 1715-1723
Unfortunately, De Bar, who had found the precious document, and who had
presented it to Cardinal de Bouillon, was arrested and put in prison a
short time after this, charged with many forgeries. This event made some
stir, and caused suspicion to fall upon the document, which was now
attentively examined through many new spectacles. Learned men
unacquainted with the Bouillons contested it, and De Bar was so pushed
upon this point, that he made many delicate admissions. Alarm at once
spread among the Bouillons. They did all in their power to ward off the
blow that was about to fall. Seeing the tribunal firm, and fully
resolved to follow the affair to the end, they openly solicited for De
Bar, and employed all their credit to gain his liberation. At last,
finding the tribunal inflexible, they were reduced to take an extreme
resolution. M. de Bouillon admitted to the King, that his brother,
Cardinal de Bouillon, might, unknown to all of them, have brought forward
facts he could not prove. He added, that putting himself in the King's
hands, he begged that the affair might be stopped at once, out of
consideration for those whose only guilt was too great credulity, and too
much confidence in a brother who had deceived them. The King, with more
of friendship for M. de Bouillon than of reflection as to what he owed by
way of reparation for a public offence, agreed to this course.
De Bar, convicted of having fabricated this document, by his own
admission before the public tribunal, was not condemned to death, but to
perpetual imprisonment. As may be believed, this adventure made a great
stir; but what cannot be believed so easily is, the conduct of the
Messieurs Bouillon about fifteen months afterwards.
At the time when the false document above referred to was discovered,
Cardinal de Bouillon had commissioned Baluze, a man much given to
genealogical studies, to write the history of the house of Auvergne.
In this history, the descent, by male issue; of the Bouillons from the
Counts of Auvergne, was established upon the evidence supplied by this
document. At least, nobody doubted that such was the case, and the world
was strangely scandalised to see the work appear after that document had
been pronounced to be a forgery. Many learned men and friends of Baluze
considered him so dishonoured by it, that they broke off all relations
with him, and this put the finishing touch to the confusion of this
affair.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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