On the morning of 2 April 1674, despite heavy spring rain, Montespan and Cartet took the little Marquis d’Antin hunting in the mountains. The former captain of the light cavalry and his sergeant enjoyed going into these dense forests which were plentiful with wild boar, or climbing up to the passes to chase bears or the izards that sprang from rock to rock.
Louis-Henri would have liked to teach his son how to kill hares, partridges and game. He wanted to train him for this rough sport that the young boy seemed unwilling to try.
Louis-Antoine preferred to follow his tutor, who took him out into the garden on long walks conducive to lessons of Latin, philosophy and French.
‘Father, may I not go to see Abbé Anselme instead and catch up on my instruction? I’ve fallen behind, you see, because of our stay in Spain …’
‘No, you may not! Here, hold this spear, today no doubt you’ll kill your first young wild boar.’
In the torrential rain, d’Antin, who had not worn children’s clothing since the age of seven, was dressed in a doublet and hose. His muddy feet and wet legs could not get warm, and the black brambles scratched at him and terrified him: he was a marquis better destined to hunt for social promotion in the alcoves of gilded salons.
The father observed his son’s incredible cowardice; at the same time, the boy could be barbarically cruel to the poor village children. When they played hide and seek, he cheated, peering out from under the blindfold. He hit the children, using his noble title as a pretext, for he knew that the little urchins, under orders from their parents, would not dare answer back, and this greatly saddened Louis-Henri. Louis-Antoine displayed a natural inclination to obsequiousness and seemed already to have a talent for cunning. Montespan had a foreboding that his own son, in sharp contrast to himself, would become a model courtier for the very same Louis XIV who persecuted his father and who, from the boy’s earliest childhood, had deprived him of the caresses of a mother … a mother who, it must be said, was anything but sensitive to this wrenching separation.
As they approached the hills swathed with thick forest, Cartet and Montespan could smell the hunt: they breathed it in, heard the sounds, experienced the violence, the necessary cruelty, and Louis-Antoine, trembling, held his little spear in both hands. Suddenly the steward motioned them to be silent and whispered, ‘There’s a female up ahead with her young … I’ll go off to the right to send one of the young ones in your direction …’
This news was greeted by the chattering of Louis-Antoine’s teeth; his father explained to him in a hushed voice, ‘You hold your spear like this … One hand in front, palm turned up, and the other hand behind, palm facing down. When the little wild boar heads straight for you, and is only about two toises away, you take a step forward, bending your knees, and you aim below the head, to strike right at the animal’s chest. You have to make an upward thrust, as if you were tossing hay onto a cart with a pitchfork. You always strike from the bottom up, never the other way round, otherwise you might hurt yourself. And hold your spear firmly so that the beast doesn’t run away with it.’
D’Antin’s knees quivered and knocked together like castanets. When the child heard something rushing towards him amidst the sound of crushed foliage and the cracking of flying twigs, he thought longingly of his history, geography and mathematics lessons with Abbé Anselme.
But now a little fawn wild boar with a black stripe down its back was heading for Louis-Antoine. The animal was about four toises away, and the Gascon’s son took a step back, closed his eyes, and stabbed his spear from top to bottom at random. He felt a violent shock in his shoulders that knocked him over, and when he opened his eyes, he saw that the animal was dragging him along on his stomach whilst he clung desperately to the spear he had rammed through the beast’s cheeks, shouting all the while. There seemed to be an echo in the valley. Louis-Antoine was sliding and crashing about through grasses and brambles and splashing rain, and he screamed at the beast in his little imp’s voice, ‘Stop! Stop!’ His shouts only excited the young wild boar, making it go faster than ever, which in turn made the boy shout even louder. Cartet came running on his bear-like legs, laughing. Astonishingly quick and agile despite weighing nearly a quintal, he soon caught up with the boar and pulled his dagger from his boot. As he was cutting the little boar’s throat, he heard a voice calling.
It was the cook from the chateau wearing only a lace cap in the torrential rain. As she held up her skirt, revealing her ugly stork legs, her entire body steamed with sweat from her mad dash up the steep path, and now she called out, ‘Monsieur de Montespan! Monsieur de Montespan! It’s your mother, Chrestienne de Zamet. She is! She is…’