Dangeau’s Diary, October 1688
3rd.– Monsieur de la Trousse has entered Avignon without any resistance from the garrison, the vice-legate retired. The bishop of Vaison was taken and conducted to Saint Esprit. His papers were seized, and there were found at his residence ten or twelve girls of L’Enfant Jesus, a society of Madame de Mondonville. They had retired there and observed the rules of their society. They were conducted to Nismes. The bishop de Vaison was the intimate friend of Cardinal du Camus, and had been almoner to Cardinal Grimaldy. This will incense the Pope still more, for the bishop of Vaison is his subject, both by his bishopric and by birth.
4th. — We have learnt that the King of England has sent Schalton, who had been his envoy here, to the Tower, because he had, without orders, requested our King to assist him. There is no doubt that the Prince of Orange has a design upon England, and H. B. M. will repent not having accepted the offers which the King made, of sending him forty of his best ships of war.
5th. — The following is the speech of the Prince of Orange, upon taking leave of the States of Holland. “<em>Gentlemen, I bid you adieu for ever. I go either to death or to a throne. If I die, I will die your servant; if I reign, I will live your friend.</em>”
6th. — Madame Anselin, the King’s nurse, has died at Paris. She leaves her family very well provided for.
7th. — The King has promised to furnish vessels to such persons as are desirous of arming against the Dutch. Many people have already offered; several of the courtiers have already contributed money for the necessary equipments.
8th. — The King has ordered Saint-Olon, gentleman in ordinary, to attend upon the nuncio, and not to quit him an instant. The King has caused their money to be returned to all those who had contributed it for the arming against the Dutch. The university assembled in a body this day at the Mathurins. The procureur-general addressed them in a very fine speech, in which he explained to them, very clearly, the rights of the priesthood and of royalty, and, by command of his Majesty, gave them an account of his line of proceeding with the Pope, and the reasons which had obliged him to institute an appeal to the future council. All the university, first by the mouth of their rector, and afterwards by acclamation, replied, that they would support the appeal of the procureur- general, when the King should judge fit, and would give them permission so to do.
10th. — Monsieur de Louvois has informed Rossignol, the King’s decipherer, that his Majesty recollected, that he had asked the favour of one of the auditorships of accounts, that one was now vacant by the death of Monsieur du Guè, and that he would be permitted to treat for it.
11th. — The Prince of Orange admits no catholic officer on board his vessels. The French refugees were asked if they would follow him and La Mouloniere has made out a list of nearly six hundred.
14th. — Monsieur and Madame have opened to day, thirty or forty chests, from Siam, in which they found many very handsome presents. The King of Siam, not having sent them any by the first ambassadors, they had expressed themselves dissatisfied at it.
16th. — Thirty beautiful columns have been brought to Toulon, dug out from the ruins of a magnificent city, discovered some time ago upon the coast of Africa, to the east of Tripolis.
17th. — The King said to-day to the Duc de Villeroi, “Do you not think it very extraordinary that Monsieur de Schomberg, who was born a German, should have naturalised himself a Dutchman, Englishman, Frenchman, and Portuguese?”
21st. — The trench was not in much forwardness at Philipsbourg, on the nights of the 16th and 17th. The besieged have ninety-three pieces of battering cannon, which are rather annoying, and we have very little ground fit for constructing batteries, almost all the whole of it being marshy. Monsieur de Lauzun has set off, to offer his services to the King of England. Saint Victor set off some time ago, with the same object. Monsieur de Lauzun not having much to occupy him in France, has been much commended for his determination. The King has given him permission.
23d. — The King has dispatched a courier to Monseigneur, to forbid his appearing in the trench whither he went too often.
26th. — The appeal of the procureur-general to the future council, has been posted at Rome in several places, and the King has caused it to be added, that the expenses of the war, about to be brought upon Italy through the Pope’s obstinacy, shall be de frayed by the relations of his Holiness, especially by Don Linio Odescalchi, his nephew. The Romans assert, that he has enriched himself very much by the coining of money and the sale of grain. He some time ago purchased the duchy of Sery in the neighbourhood of Castro.
27th. — Monseigneur has sent Messieurs Bouligueux and d’Amanze, to Fort Louis, for having been present at the attack of the hornwork, contrary to the order made by Monseigneur, that volunteers shall only go with the regiments in which they are enrolled. The King has forbidden all the Jesuits in the kingdom, to have any correspondence with their general resident at Rome, with whom his Majesty is dissatisfied.
30th. — Father Taschard, a Jesuit, sets off to morrow with three mandarins, to lay at the Pope’s feet the presents sent him by the King of Siam. He has permission to see the general of the Jesuits, although his Majesty has interdicted all correspondence with him.
