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UNDERSTANDING
DISTILLATION USING
COLUMN PROFILE MAPS
UNDERSTANDING
DISTILLATION USING
COLUMN PROFILE MAPS

DANIEL BENEKE
MARK PETERS
DAVID GLASSER
DIANE HILDEBRANDT

Centre of Material and Process Synthesis (COMPS)

University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg, South Africa
Copyright # 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as
permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior
written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per copy fee to
the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750 8400,
fax (978) 750 4470, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission
should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken,
NJ 07030, (201) 748 6011, fax (201) 748 6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permission.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts
in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or
completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of
merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Beneke, Daniel, 1985
Understanding distillation using column profile maps / Daniel Beneke, Mark Peters, David Glasser,
Diane Hildebrandt, Centre of Material and Process Synthesis (COMPS), University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978 1 118 14540 1 (cloth)
1. Distillation Simulation methods. 2. Distillation apparatus Design and construction. I. Title.
TP156.D5B46 2013
660’.28425 dc23
2012023640
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS

PREFACE xiii
NOMENCLATURE AND ABBREVIATIONS xix
ABOUT THE AUTHORS xxiii

1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Context and Significance / 1
1.2 Important Distillation Concepts / 4
1.2.1 A Typical Column / 5
1.2.2 Complex Columns / 6
1.2.3 Vapor Liquid Equilibrium / 7
1.3 Summary / 12
References / 12

2 FUNDAMENTALS OF RESIDUE CURVE MAPS 15

2.1 Introduction / 15
2.2 Batch Boiling / 16
2.3 The Mass Balance Triangle (MBT) / 17
2.4 The Residue Curve Equation / 19
2.4.1 Derivation / 19
2.4.2 Approximation to Equilibrium / 20

v
vi CONTENTS

2.5 Residue Curve Maps / 21

2.5.1 Constant Relative Volatility Systems / 21
2.5.2 Nonideal Systems / 24
2.5.3 Numerical Integration / 24
2.6 Properties of Residue Curve Maps / 25
2.6.1 Separation Vector Field / 25
2.6.2 Stationary Points / 26
2.6.3 Isotherms / 29
2.6.4 Other Properties of RCMs / 30
2.7 Applicability of RCMs to Continuous Processes / 30
2.7.1 Total Reflux Columns / 30
2.7.2 Infinite Reflux Columns / 33
2.7.3 Bow-Tie Regions / 35
2.7.4 Column Sequencing at Infinite Reflux / 38
2.8 Limitations of RCMs / 39
2.8.1 Applications / 39
2.9 Residue Curve Maps: The Bigger Picture / 40
2.9.1 Extending the Axes / 40
2.9.2 Discontinuity / 43
2.9.3 Thermodynamic Models in Negative Space / 43
2.9.4 Use of Negative Compositions / 44
2.10 Summary / 46
References / 47

3 DERIVATION AND PROPERTIES OF COLUMN PROFILE MAPS 48

3.1 Introduction / 48
3.2 The Column Section (CS) / 49
3.3 The Difference Point Equation (DPE) / 51
3.3.1 The Generalized CS / 51
3.3.2 Constant Molar Overflow / 52
3.3.3 Material Balances / 52
3.4 Column Profile Maps / 54
3.4.1 Constant Relative Volatility Systems / 55
3.4.2 Nonideal Systems / 59
3.5 The Effect of CPM Parameters / 61
3.5.1 The Net Flow (D) / 61
3.5.2 The Difference Point (XD) / 62
3.5.3 The Reflux Ratio (RD) / 66
 CONTENTS vii

3.6 Properties of Column Profile Maps / 67

3.6.1 The Relationship Between RCMs and CPMs / 67
3.6.2 Vector Fields / 68
3.6.3 Pinch Points / 69
3.6.4 Isotherms / 71
3.6.5 Transformed Triangles / 72
3.7 Pinch Point Loci / 75
3.7.1 Analytical Solutions / 75
3.7.2 Graphical Approach / 79
3.8 Some Mathematical Aspects of CPMs / 80
3.8.1 Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors / 80
3.8.2 Nature of Pinch Points / 83
3.9 Some Insights and Applications of CPMs / 84
3.9.1 Column Stability / 85
3.9.2 Node Placement / 87
3.9.3 Sharp Splits / 88
3.10 Summary / 89
References / 89

4 EXPERIMENTAL MEASUREMENT OF COLUMN PROFILES 91

4.1 Introduction / 91
4.2 The Rectifying Column Section / 92
4.2.1 The Batch Analogy / 92
4.2.2 Experimental Setup and Procedure / 94
4.2.3 Experimental Results / 96
4.3 The Stripping Column Section / 98
4.4 Validation of Thermodynamic Models / 103
4.5 Continuous Column Sections / 105
4.5.1 Apparatus / 106
4.5.2 Experimental Results / 112
4.5.3 Temperature Inversion / 113
4.6 Summary / 114
References / 115

5 DESIGN OF SIMPLE COLUMNS USING COLUMN

PROFILE MAPS 116
5.1 Introduction / 116
5.2 Absorbers and Strippers / 117
viii CONTENTS

5.2.1 Absorption Towers / 118

5.2.2 Stripping Towers / 124
5.2.3 Discussion / 128
5.3 Simple Column Design / 128
5.3.1 External Mass Balance / 128
5.3.2 Internal Mass Balance: Column Section Interaction / 130
5.3.3 Finite Reflux Design / 132
5.3.4 Design Offshoots / 137
5.4 Azeotropic Systems / 141
5.5 Constant Relative Volatility Systems / 145
5.5.1 Minimum Reflux Design Using TTs / 145
5.5.2 Design Using Eigenvectors / 153
5.6 Summary / 154
References / 155

6 DESIGN OF COMPLEX COLUMNS USING COLUMN

PROFILE MAPS 157
6.1 Introduction / 157
6.2 Distributed Feed Addition / 158
6.2.1 Column Section Breakdown / 158
6.2.2 The Effect on the Reflux Ratio (RD) / 159
6.2.3 The Effect on the Difference Point (XD) / 160
6.2.4 Feasible Designs / 162
6.2.5 Potential Benefits and Limitations / 166
6.2.6 Discussion / 173
6.3 Sidestream Withdrawal / 175
6.3.1 Refluxes and Difference Points / 176
6.3.2 Preliminary Design Considerations / 177
6.3.3 Design Procedure / 180
6.4 Thermally Coupled Columns: Side Rectifiers and
Strippers / 184
6.4.1 Column Section Breakdown / 185
6.4.2 Degrees of Freedom / 186
6.4.3 Difference Points / 186
6.4.4 Refluxes and Net Flow / 187
6.4.5 General Design Procedure / 190
6.4.6 Design with Transformed Triangles / 193
6.5 Summary / 205
References / 205
 CONTENTS ix

7 DESIGN OF FULLY THERMALLY COUPLED COMPLEX

COLUMNS USING COLUMN PROFILE MAPS 206
7.1 Introduction / 206
7.2 A Simplified Infinite Reflux Case / 208
7.2.1 All CSs at Infinite Reflux / 208
7.2.2 Overall Infinite Reflux / 213
7.3 General Petlyuk Design / 216
7.3.1 Degree of Freedom Analysis and Variable Selection / 217
7.3.2 Net Flow Patterns / 218
7.3.3 Difference Point Behavior and Placement / 223
7.3.4 Reflux Ratios / 228
7.3.5 Properties of Variables in F-Space / 230
7.3.6 Feasibility Conditions / 234
7.3.7 Putting it all Together / 236
7.4 Sharp Split Petlyuk Design Using TTs / 240
7.4.1 Feasibility Criteria Using TTs / 240
7.4.2 Design Implications / 245
7.5 Insights into Kaibel Column Design / 250
7.5.1 Structure and CS Breakdown / 252
7.5.2 Similarities to the Petlyuk / 252
7.5.3 Net Flow Patterns / 253
7.5.4 Sharp Split Constraints / 256
7.6 Summary / 258
References / 259

8 REACTIVE DISTILLATION DESIGN USING COLUMN

PROFILE MAPS 261
8.1 Introduction / 261
8.2 Simple Reactive Distillation / 262
8.2.1 Extending the Residue Curve Map / 262
8.2.2 Characteristics of the Reaction Vector Field / 265
8.2.3 Overall Reactive Distillation Vector Field / 266
8.2.4 Simple Reactive Distillation Design / 269
8.2.5 Zero-Order Reactions An Interesting Analogy / 273
8.3 Reactive Column Sections / 275
8.3.1 Definition / 275
8.3.2 The Reactive Difference Point Equation / 276
8.3.3 RCS Transition / 281
x CONTENTS

8.3.4 Conserved Moles and Low Reaction Heat A Simplified

Case / 284
8.3.5 Column Design / 285
8.3.6 Column Stability / 292
8.4 Summary / 293
References / 294

9 APPLICATION OF COLUMN PROFILE MAPS TO ALTERNATIVE

SEPARATION PROCESSES: MEMBRANE PERMEATION 296
9.1 Introduction / 296
9.2 Membrane Permeation / 297
9.3 Generalized Membrane Column Sections / 299
9.4 Theory / 299
9.4.1 Membrane Column Sections / 299
9.4.2 The Difference Point Equation for an MCS / 300
9.4.3 Permeation Modeling / 301
9.4.4 Properties of the MDPE / 303
9.5 MCS Profiles: Total Reflux / 304
9.5.1 Operating Conditions / 304
9.5.2 Mathematics / 304
9.5.3 Membrane Residue Curve Map / 304
9.6 Column Section Profiles: Finite Reflux / 306
9.6.1 Operating Conditions / 306
9.6.2 Mathematics / 307
9.6.3 Membrane Column Profile / 308
9.6.4 Pinch Point Loci / 308
9.6.5 Analysis of Column Profile / 309
9.6.6 Pinch Points / 311
9.6.7 Further Column Profiles / 312
9.6.8 Variations in XD and rD / 312
9.7 Conclusions / 314
9.8 Example: Design of Hybrid Systems Using Distillation-Membrane
Processes / 315
9.8.1 Introduction / 315
9.8.2 The Methanol/Butene/MTBE System / 316
9.8.3 Design of a Hybrid Configuration / 318
9.8.4 Conclusion / 325
References / 326
 CONTENTS xi

10 CONCLUDING REMARKS 328

10.1 Overall Conclusions / 328
10.2 Limitations / 329
10.3 Extensions and the Way Forward / 330
References / 330

APPENDIX A: DODS SOFTWARE PACKAGE 331

APPENDIX B: NRTL PARAMETERS AND ANTOINE COEFFICIENTS 345

INDEX 349
PREFACE

BACKGROUND

The Centre of Materials and Process Synthesis (COMPS) was founded in 1998 by
Professors Hildebrandt, Glasser, and Moys as a research group within the University
of the Witwatersrand that would provide a platform for interaction between
university expertise and industry. With the initiative being to reduce financial
dependence of research on grant-awarding foundations, COMPS was set up as a
channel to enhance scientific expertise through consulting, corporate training, and
process development with industry. This endeavor has proven to be extremely
beneficial to the research output of the group, at one time supporting as many as
40 graduate students, mostly supervised by Professors Hildebrandt and Glasser.
The group has been at the forefront of several key areas of the field of process
engineering, including reaction engineering and the attainable region, comminution,
biosystems, Fischer Tropsch synthesis, process synthesis, and of course separation
synthesis.
This book is a culmination of approximately 15 years of research in the field of
separation synthesis from the COMPS team. Many graduate students have passed
through COMPS’ doors during these times that have made valuable contributions to
the work presented in this book. In particular, Simon Holland and Michaela Vrey
developed much of the early work and fundamentals of what is now known as
column profile maps (CPMs), which forms the heart of this book. These maps are
thought to be a new take on distillation, allowing a designer the freedom to design
virtually any distillation structure. The refined form of the work that is presented in
this book is the result of countless research meetings, arguments, debates, and
scribbling. Through all of this, however, all that have been involved with the work

xiii
xiv PREFACE

have found it to be stimulating, exciting, and thought provoking, and the authors
hope that this has been transferred to the reader.
The origin of our research into column profile maps began (inadvertently) due to a
project initiated by John Marriot from Sasol. The project was to look at the design
and optimization of divided wall columns. We originally started trying to simulate
these columns on Aspen Plus1 and found that we could not get converged designs
easily (or even at all!). We went back to the drawing board and developed code to
model a section of the column. Simon Holland worked on this as a graduate student
for his M.Sc. Every week his supervisors, Professors David Glasser and Diane
Hildebrandt, would meet with the separations research group and Simon would show
his plots where his liquid composition profiles predicted negative mole fractions!
David and Diane disbelieved his results and sent him back week after week to check
his code it was obviously wrong! After some months, seeing Simon’s predicting
negative mole fractions in the liquid composition (again) and after him claiming
(again) that there was no fault in his code, Diane sat down one evening to prove to
Simon why his code had to be wrong, and indeed found that there was no
mathematical reason why mole fractions had to stay positive. After drawing
many triangles and mixing and separation vectors, it eventually dawned on us
that there was a beautiful geometry sitting behind the column profiles, and further
more that Simon’s code was, in fact, correct.
We eventually were able to answer the question that was posed to us initially,
namely, the design and optimization of divided wall columns, and indeed were able
to answer many other interesting and important questions in the field of separations.
We are very grateful to John Marriot and Sasol for inadvertently setting us on this
exciting and important area of research.

TARGET AUDIENCE

This book has been written from the point of view that the student/reader is familiar
with basic distillation and vapor liquid equilibrium concepts. The material is
suitable for use in chemical engineering curriculums as an advanced undergraduate,
or a graduate level course. COMPS has used and adapted some of this material for
these purposes as well as for industrial short courses, and the feedback has been
largely positive. We have found that engineers with a more industrial background
also find the concepts and ideas expressed in the book enlightening. There are many
instructive examples and tutorials on problem solving, and many of them include use
of the DODS software package. This too is a useful learning tool.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

The authors hope that with this book the reader is comfortable with the design of a
variety of distillation columns. We have attempted to include and present solutions
for many of the most prevalent problems encountered in academic and industrial
xvi PREFACE

software package. This package has been developed specifically for this book and
should assist the reader in understanding sometimes complex behavior quicker. In
all, there are five subcomponents of the package:

(1) DODS-ProPlot (A Profile Plotting tool that allows one to construct CPMs
and find pinch points)
(2) DODS-SiCo (A tool for designing Simple Columns)
(3) DODS-DiFe (A tool for designing Distributed Feed columns)
(4) DODS-SiSt (A tool for designing Side Strippers)
(5) DODS-SiRe (A tool for designing Side Rectifiers).

The DODS package is fairly intuitive and easy to use once the fundamental
concepts of each package are grasped. In Appendix A, a manual is provided that
gives the user instructions on how the DODS package should be installed and
operated.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book comprises of the work and ideas of many talented researchers who
have worked at COMPS, without whom this manuscript would not have been
possible. Specifically we, the authors, would like to mention, chapter by chapter,
the following persons who were involved with the original development of
the work:

 Chapter 3: Simon Holland, Michaela Vrey

 Chapter 4: Tsepho Modise, Jean Mulopo, Cameron Wilson
 Chapter 6: Simon Holland, Chan Yee Ma
 Chapter 7: Simon Holland, Ronald Abbas
 Chapter 8: Jean Mulopo

Furthermore, the authors would like to thank the following graduate and post-
doctoral students for their patience, suggestions, and discussions, all of which have
contributed to writing a clear manuscript: Emmanuel Kasese, Naadhira Seedat,
Edmund Bono, Celestin Sempuga, Chan Yee Ma, and Neil Stacey. A very special
thanks to Dr. Brendon Hausberger for his valuable contributions in making certain
that the message we are trying to convey is unambiguous and concise. We would also
like to thank Darryn Peters for his contributions in the preparation of the cover
artwork, as well as the editing of every figure within the book.
Several organizations have supported this work financially, both directly and
indirectly, and we are grateful to them. These include the University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, The National Research Foundation
(NRF) of South Africa, Sasol Technology, the South African Research Chair
 PREFACE xvii

Initiative (SARChI) for Sustainable Process Engineering, and the Technology and
Human Resources for Industry Programme (THRIP).

DANIEL BENEKE
MARK PETERS
DAVID GLASSER
DIANE HILDEBRANDT

Johannesburg, South Africa

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ugly reminders about their persons and dress.
 A great many new streets and houses were added to the city. The
increase in the number of public vehicles rendered the streets very
noisy, while the filth of the ways was indescribable; but this did not
hinder women from walking in velvet slippers, or pages and lackeys
from wearing bright, gold-laced scarlet livery.
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the streets; the rage for gambling was boundless, and the cardinal-
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tables.
Yet Paris was fair and brilliant to the eye when Maria Théresa
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Spanish woman. She wore a mantle of violet velvet embroidered
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The fierce light that beats upon the lives of kings and queens was
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as such there have been unions more disastrous. If love played no
great part in it, at least the king was true to the dignity and a certain
gentle courtesy and good-nature underlying the pomp and
extravagant display with which he was pleased to surround himself;
and Maria Théresa’s record of a queen’s life bears no startling
evidence of unhappiness or discontent—something indeed to the
contrary.
 CHAPTER XV

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gown—Louise de la Vallière—How the Mice Play when the Cat’s Away
—“Pauvre Scarron”—An Atrocious Crime.

The return of St Evrémond brought about the restoration of the old

pleasant Monday and Friday réunions of the rue des Tournelles—
whose regularity so many untoward events had greatly and for so
long interfered with.
Ninon could afford to dispense with the less interesting society of
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very cordial hand had ever been extended to her; while the cultured,
refined Bohemianism of her salon was probably more acceptable to
many of her distinguished friends. They at all events gathered there
numerously. Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld, ever faithful to the
beautiful Duchesse de Longueville; Condé; the brilliant society
doctor of his day and memoir writer, Guy Patin; Monsieur de la
Châtre, also a chronicler of his period; Monsieur de Villarceaux,
Corneille, whose tragedy of Œdipus brought him back in high-
heaped measure the success which had waned since the production
of The Cid, so greatly that he had nearly lost heart for dramatic work;
Molière—these two the brightest and best-beloved stars of Ninon’s
firmament. Monsieur Voiture was now no more. His empty niche was
filled by Boileau, who introduced to her his young friend, Racine.
Occasionally, by kind permission only of Madame de la Sablière,
came la Fontaine. Among the ladies of her company were Madame
de la Fayette, the authoress of Zaïde and of the Princesse de
Clèves; Madame Deshoulières, called “the French Calliope”; and, as
healing Time’s wings now and again bring, it was Molière himself
who effected pleasant relations once more with Julie de Rambouillet,
now Duchesse de Montausier; Madeleine de Scudéri, the
distinguished précieuse, held aloof.
On Wednesdays the Scarrons received their friends, most of those
the same as Ninon’s. Françoise had now long been the wife of
Scarron, and his wit and her beauty attracted a numerous company.
The brother of Françoise had not mended his ways. He was still the
ne’er-do-well result of his miserable bringing up; yet there was
something not to dislike, even something of a soul of good in
d’Aubigné’s evil. The poor crippled poet and his wife were happy in
their union. Scarron had indeed but two faults to find in his Françoise
—one of them to wit, that she devoted herself too closely to him, at
the sacrifice of health and spirits. She had copied all his Roman
Comique for him in her beautiful handwriting, and Scarron, noting
that she looked pale and fatigued, begged Ninon to take her about a
little with her into the gaieties of life.
Scarron’s chronic ailments had not affected his appetite; possibly
amusement being necessarily very restricted for him, his naturally
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that his wife went ever in fear of his indigestions, and when he
suggested that she would be so much better for occasional
absences from home, Ninon did not ascribe it to pure and simple
anxiety for Françoise, but also to his seizing a better chance for
eating three times as much as was good for him. Her vigilance in this
particular was the other defect he perceived in her. The desired
opportunity, however, soon presented itself.
Monsieur Fouquet, the powerful superintendent of finance, was a
friend of Ninon—that and nothing more—and one day he confided to
her that he had fallen in love with the daughter of the maître d’hôtel
of the Duc d’Orléans, and desired to ask her hand in marriage. He
hoped, in fact believed, that she was not indifferent to him; but to
make certain, he asked Ninon, such an adept in the tender passion,
as he said, to watch her at the great fête he was about to give at his
magnificent estate at Vaux. It was to be on a superb scale. All the
Court, with all the Upper Ten, were invited guests. They were to
appear in masquerade costume. Ninon, holding that the good turn
Monsieur Fouquet sought of her, merited his ever generous
consideration, asked him to allow her to bring a lady friend with her
to the fête; this favour he accorded with great pleasure, and Ninon
delightedly informed Madame Scarron that she was the chosen
friend. Equally delighted, Madame Scarron selected her fancy
costume; it was that of a Normandy shepherdess, and confectioned
with all the good taste of Françoise. The tunic was of yellow cloth,
with Venice point undersleeves, her collarette was of Flemish lace,
and Ninon lent her some of her diamonds wherewith to adorn her
ribbon-tied crook. Ninon’s costume was composed of pearl-grey
satin, trimmed with silver lace stitched with rose-coloured silk, an
apron of black velvet, and a cap plumed with crimson feathers.
With many instructions to Nanon Balbien, the maid-servant, to
take good care of her master, and to keep a close eye on him at
meal-time, Madame Scarron drove away in the coach with Ninon to
Vaux, where they duly arrived.
Le Nôtre, the royal gardener, had received orders to construct a
splendid ballroom in the middle of the park, and, in the depths of
winter though it was, he achieved a triumph of gorgeous
magnificence. Orange trees were massed within the huge tent, and
flowers of every hue were brought together from every hothouse and
possible quarter, to render the scene a veritable fairyland, glowing in
the thousand lamps depending from the gilded chains winding amid
the sheeny foliage.
But who has not heard of that fête, the ill-omened thing that
brought its lavish giver disaster? Among the guests—named indeed
first on the list of the invited—was she whom Fouquet sought to
honour, perhaps even for whom he organised the entertainment—
Louise de la Vallière; and among the male masquers dancing vis-à-
vis to her, murmuring low as they met, was one habited as an old
man in a dressing-gown, domino sort of cloak, who was, in sooth,
but a young man, the king, Louis XIV. It was not the first dawning of
their love that night at Vaux. Already, at a ball at the Louvre, Louis
had given her a rose, one that was incomparable for sweet perfume
and loveliness. Innocent or politically guilty, it was all one for the
great superintendent of finance. He had dared to love the woman
Louis loved, and the doom of Fouquet was sealed.
And the merry going out of Ninon and her friend also found a
mournful coming in; for when they arrived in Paris next morning and
Françoise alighted from the coach, Nanon hurried to the door to
meet her. “Ah, mademoiselle—madame!” she cried, with a face wild
with distress and terror, “he is dying! he is dying!—my poor master!”
“Bonte divine! how did it come about?” asked the two ladies in a
breath.
Nothing more simple. The master, to begin with, immediately on
the departure of Ninon and his wife for Vaux, had despatched Nanon
with a note to his good-for-nothing brother-in-law. D’Aubigné, having
read the note, said that it was all right, and he would come and pass
the evening with Monsieur Scarron. Nanon, thus feeling herself free
also to enjoy an evening out like the rest, spent it with Jean Claude,
a young man cousin of hers; but when at a fairly decent hour she
returned home, an appalling picture met her eyes. On the table
prepared for supper, lay, or stood as might be, seven empty bottles,
the bones of a capon on the empty plates, with the crumbs of two
Chartres pasties, and an empty Strasburg goose pot, also well
cleared, madame’s brother under the table, and Monsieur Scarron
lying back in his wheel-chair, waxen-white, speechless, but
convulsed with a hiccough, a terrible hiccough that had never
ceased all night, Nanon said.
“Fly for a doctor!” cried Ninon.
And one of grave and profoundly calm aspect appeared, and
proceeded to examine his unconscious patient’s condition; then he
shook his head. “He is a dead man,” he said.
 “Ah, quick, Nanon! Quick to the rue de l’Arbre Sec, for Doctor Guy
Patin.”
“What!” cried the doctor, with almost a yell of horror, “the foe to
antimony! I would sooner see the devil himself!” and he fled; for the
battle of antimony was at fierce pitch just then. As a medicinal agent
it was opposed by the medical profession to such an extent, that the
Parliament of Paris forbade its use; although already many of the
profession were as strongly in its favour. Meanwhile Ninon sprinkled
the face and hands of the sick man with cold water. He opened his
eyes and recognised the two.
“Ah!” murmured he, “what a delicious supper. In this world, I fear, I
shall never have another like it.”
“We have sent for Guy Patin. He will cure you.”
“Guy Patin?—yes, he is a grand creature; but, ah!”—and the
hiccough, which had momentarily ceased, recommenced. “Well,
people don’t die of a hiccough, I suppose,” went on Scarron—alas!
for the mistake!—“but that goose, and the pasty, how excellent they
were! Take your pen, dearest Françoise—it is indigestion—yes, but
one of rhymes—till Guy Patin comes. I will see what rhyming will do
for me—some good, surely, for my rhymes shall be of Ninon. Take
your pen, Françoise, and write.”
And as well as she could for her tears, the poor wife wrote
Scarron’s swan’s-song in praise of Ninon. “Well, are they
detestable?” he asked then, between the never-ceasing convulsion
of hiccoughs. “No matter. I have rhymed—on my deathbed—for it is
useless to deceive myself—I—I die.” One last convulsion, that shook
his whole distorted frame, seized him, and he fell back dead.
Then from the depths of the room loomed a dishevelled figure. It
was d’Aubigné. “Dead!” he murmured, leaning over the corpse of his
boon companion. “Well, he ate—all—and I—drank all. De
profundis”—and he shuffled out.
Guy Patin entered, but all was of no avail now for “le pauvre
Scarron,” as he called himself.
 No ordinary character of a man was the first husband of Françoise
d’Aubigné, the woman he so sincerely loved and admired, so
disinterestedly loved, that he would, had she desired, have denied
himself the happiness of living in her society—for he had offered her
the choice of placing her en pension in a convent at the expense of
his own scanty incomings. Driven from his rights as a child, gifted
with great wit and talent, and a generous kindliness, he was beloved
by a large circle of friends. First the victim of cruel, iniquitous neglect,
oftentimes his own enemy, the crosses of life never blighted the gifts
of his intellect, or, it may be added, of his industry. In straitened
conditions touching on absolute poverty, the gaieté du cœur of Paul
Scarron never forsook him, and if he could have lived a while longer,
for his own sake, as he certainly would for hers for whose future he
was ever anxious—he said with that labouring dying breath, that he
could not have supposed it so easy to make a joke of death.
He had composed his own epitaph long before—
“He who lies sleeping here beneath,
Scant envy but great pity won,
A thousand times he suffered death,
Or ere his life was lost and done.
Oh, Stranger, as you pass, tread light,
Awaken not his slumbers deep,
For this, bethink you’s the first night
That poor Scarron is getting sleep.”

A terrible event—that thrilled society, and indeed everyone, with

horror—occurred in the South of France about this time. To the Court
at Paris it struck especially home; inasmuch as the victim of the
fiendish perpetrators of the crime was the Marquise de Castellana, at
the time of her presentation at Versailles. She was then very young.
She brought her husband, a grandson of the Duc de Villars, an
immense fortune, and her beauty was so remarkable as to
distinguish her amid the many beautiful women of the young kings
Court. Louis, indeed, showed her marked attentions, and she was
known as the beautiful Provençale. Very soon, however, the
marquis, who was in the naval service, perished in a shipwreck; and
a crowd of young and titled men flocked around the lovely young
widow as suitors for her hand. Her choice fell on young Lanède,
Marquis de Ganges, and for the first year or so of their married life
they were very happy in their home at Avignon. Then slight
disagreements arose between them. He began to yield to
dissipation, while he accused her of coquetry. More than that he
could not apparently bring against her. He had two brothers, the
Abbé and the Chevalier de Ganges, and both these men fell deeply
in love with their beautiful sister-in-law. In his capacity of a
churchman, the young wife confided many of her thoughts and her
affairs to the abbé. This he used as a tool to influence his brother,
the marquis, as it better suited his own designs, either to ruffle his
anger against her, or to smooth it. Then one day he pleaded his own
passion to her. She repulsed him. The chevalier made a similar
attempt, and was similarly rejected. Furious at this, they made
common cause, and vowed to be revenged on her. First they
attempted to poison her by putting some deadly stuff in her
chocolate, but for some reason the attempt failed. It is thought that
the deadly properties of the poison they used, were nullified by the
milk, and she experienced no more than a passing uneasiness.
Rumours of the attempt began, however, to circulate in Avignon and
the neighbourhood; and the marquis proposed to his wife that they
should go to his castle at Ganges to spend the autumn. She
consented; though with some misgiving. The Castle of Ganges was
a gloomy place surrounded on all sides by sombre avenues and
densely-growing trees. After a short time spent with his wife at
Ganges, the marquis returned to Avignon, leaving her in the care of
his two brothers. A little while previously, a further large inheritance
had fallen in to her, and she had begun to have such suspicions of
the integrity of the family to which she had allied herself, that she
made a will, confiding, in the event of her death, all her property to
her mother, in trust, till her children, of which she had two or three,
should be of age. The abbé and the chevalier, discovering what she
had done, never ceased their endeavours to persuade her to revoke
this will. What successful arguments they could have used to effect
this, it is difficult to conceive—unless they employed threats—and
these possibly they did use; since, after another abortive attempt to
poison her, they one day entered her bedchamber, where she lay
slightly indisposed with some passing ailment. The abbé approached
her with a pistol in one hand and a cup of poison in the other, the
chevalier following with a drawn sword in his hand. “You must die,
madame,” said the abbé, pointing to the three fearful means for
accomplishing the purpose. “The choice of the manner of it is to
you.” The unfortunate woman sprang from her bed, and fell at the
feet of the two men, asking what crime she had committed.
“Choose!” was all the answer.
Resistance was hopeless, and the unhappy lady took the cup of
poison and drank its contents, while the abbé held the pistol at her
breast. Then the two assassins departed from the room, and locking
her in, promised to send her the confessor she begged for.
Directly she was alone she tried to choke back the poison, by
forcing a lock of her hair down her throat; then, clad only in her
nightdress, she clambered to the window and let herself drop to the
ground, lying nearly eight yards below. That the exits and doors were
all watched she had little enough doubt; but by the aid of a servant,
who let her out by a stable door, she gained the fields. The two men
caught sight of her, and pursuing her to a farmhouse where she had
sought refuge, they represented her as a mad-woman, and the
chevalier hunted her from room to room of the house, till he trapped
her in a remote chamber, where he stabbed her with his sword,
dealing two thrusts in the breast, and five in the back, as she turned
in the last endeavour to escape. Part of the sword-blade had
remained in her shoulder, so violent was the blow. The piercing cries
of the unhappy lady now brought a crowd of the people of the
neighbourhood round the place; and among them the abbé, who had
remained without to prevent any effort on her part to escape.
Anxious to see whether she was dead, he presented his pistol at her,
but it missed fire. This drew upon him the attention of the crowd, and
they rushed to capture him; but with a desperate struggle he got
away.
 The marquise lived for nineteen days after this fearful scene; but
all hope of life was gone. The corroding poison had done its fell
work. Her husband was with her in her last moments, and she strove
in her dying agonies to clear him of complicity in the foul murder; but
the evidence against him was too strong, and the Parliament of
Toulouse condemned him to confiscation of his property, degradation
from his rank of nobility, and perpetual banishment. The chevalier
escaped to Malta, where he soon after died, fighting against the
Turks. The abbé fled to Holland, and assuming another name, his
identity was lost. It is said that this horrible crime was but the
prologue to many subsequent iniquitous adventures in which he was
the prime mover. The sentence of being broken on the wheel which
was passed on these two criminals, and was too good for them, they
thus contrived to evade. Their execrable record lives among the long
list of Causes Celébres of the time.[5]
 CHAPTER XVI

A Lettre de Cachet—Mazarin’s dying Counsel—Madame Scarron continues to

Receive—Fouquet’s intentions and what came of them—The Squirrel and the
Snake—The Man in the Iron Mask—An Incommoding Admirer—“Calice cher,
ou le parfum n’est plus”—The Roses’ Sepulchre.

It was in the very presence of the dead Scarron that Ninon was
informed of the danger threatening St Evrémond. A lettre de cachet
had been issued for conveying him to the Bastille, for the offence he
had given in writing some satirical verses on the Peace of the
Pyrenees. St Evrémond was very far from standing alone in his
opinions on this treaty carried through by Mazarin; but he was
unapproachable in the expression of them. Biting invective and
caustic wit at the cardinal’s expense were graven in every line of his
couplets, addressed to the Marquis de Créqui. Nor did the mockery
cease at that point; it ridiculed the royal marriage itself, and the king
was furious. This was the second time that St Evrémond had
incurred the displeasure of Mazarin; on the first occasion, a
reconciliation had been patched up, after a three months’ sojourn for
St Evrémond in the Bastille, but this time he was past forgiveness—
possibly, as it has been surmised, that in addition to the verses, he
had given secret offence to the Court—and it was now but a matter
of tracking St Evrémond to his hiding-place; for he had been warned
of the letter of arrest for shutting him up in the Bastille, probably this
time for the rest of his life. He had found refuge in the convent of the
Capucins du Roule; but already his goods and money were
confiscated, and it was Ninon who carried him, from her own
resources, the necessary notes and gold for his getting away under
cover of the night to Havre, where he arrived safely, and took ship for
Dover, never to return to France.
The Majesty of Louis XIV. was as a thing divine; and the faintest
shadow could not be permitted to cross the glory of that sun he
chose for his double-mottoed device. Cardinal Mazarin, now at the
point of death, renewed his counsel to the young king never to let will
thwart his, but ever to bear the sceptre in his hand—in his own hand
alone. So Mazarin, dealing his parting thrust of revenge on the
queen-regent, died in the castle of Vincennes, unregretted by any,
tolerated of later years, but despised by all. Someone made his
epitaph, whose concluding lines were to the effect that having
cheated and deceived through life, he ended with cheating the devil
himself, since, when he came to fetch away his soul, he found he
had not one.
Madame Scarron, after her husband’s death, decided to live in the
same apartments, in preference to the home which Ninon offered her
in her own house. The widow’s friends obtained for her a pension of
two thousand livres, and she continued the old réunions, and soon
recovered from the loss she had sustained; for Françoise d’Aubigné
was ever distinguished by her calm, equable temperament.
After the fête at Vaux, Monsieur Fouquet, continuing his attentions
to Mademoiselle de la Baume, finally asked her hand in marriage of
her parents. They were well pleased, especially her father. Madame
de la Baume would have seemed more to favour another destiny for
her daughter. The king was enraged on learning the superintendent’s
proposal, but Fouquet braved the royal displeasure, and intended to
take his bride to Holland. So the man proposed; but the Fates had
otherwise disposed. Within a few hours, a letter was brought him; he
broke the seal hurriedly, recognising the beloved handwriting, and
when he had read the letter—but two lines long—he sank back in his
chair as if a thunder-stroke had smitten him.

“Renounce me. Think of me no more. I am not worthy to be the wife of

an honest man.
Louise.”
 It needed no more. Fouquet divined the truth, and he broke into a
storm of invective, and abuse of the king. To silence him, to warn him
of the perils surrounding him, of his many bitter and jealous enemies,
of the clouds of witnesses, false and true, ready and waiting to bring
charges of peculation and misappropriation of finances against him,
was of no avail. The fire of disappointed love consumed him, and he
raged against the despoiler of his happiness. The jealous king,
informed by those who had heard Fouquet’s wild words, had waited
not an instant, and thirty soldiers of the Guard were on the way to
the Hôtel of the Superintendence to arrest him; but warned of their
coming, he made his escape from the house. Too late. Before he
could reach the frontier he was taken; and in the fortress of Pignerol
he spent nineteen years a prisoner, after a protracted trial before a
packed tribunal, and nobly defended by Advocate Pelisson, his
devoted friend, a devotion for which Pelisson suffered long
imprisonment in the Bastille.
The jealousy of Louis in regard to Mademoiselle la Vallière,
however, probably only hastened the fall of the man on whose ruin
Colbert, comptroller-general of finances, and his successor, had long
been determined. On the walls of that magnificent Vaux mansion of
Fouquet’s was painted and carved his crest—a squirrel with the
device, “Quo non ascendam?” This squirrel was pursued by a snake,
and on the arms of Colbert was also a snake.
The lavish extravagance of Fouquet was almost beyond the
bounds of credibility. He stopped before no expenditure for
indulgence of his own pleasure, and in fairness it must be added, for
that of others. Courteous and kindly, intellectually gifted, his open-
handed generosity to men of letters and of talent generally was
boundless. Like our own “great lord cardinal,” “though he was
unsatisfied in getting, yet in bestowing he was most generous,” and
again and again he aided the State with money from his own private
means. It is said that at the fateful entertainment at Vaux, to which
Louis XIV. was invited, each of the nobles found a purse of gold in
his bedchamber, “and,” adds the same writer, “the nobles did not
forget to take it away.” When his disgrace came, it was the great who
deserted him; the people of talent clung throughout to their friend
and benefactor. Colbert, his deadliest foe, artfully instilled into Louis
that it was the ambition of Fouquet to be prime-minister. There is
little doubt that this was true. Colbert’s ambition for the post was not
less.
On his arrest, Fouquet was first sent to the castle of Angers,
thence to Amboise, thence to Moret and Vincennes, then he was
lodged in the Bastille, and finally, on his condemnation, to the
fortress of Pignerol. After a three years’ trial, the advocate-general
demanded that he should be hanged on a gallows purposely erected
in the courtyard of the Palais de Justice, but the votes for his death
were far in the minority, greatly to the fury of Louis and of Colbert.
While abuse, however, and charges of maladministration of the
finances were brought against him, peculation could not in any way
be established. In a generation of time-serving and venality, the
staunch devotion and affection of Fouquet’s friends remained
unchangeable. “Never,” wrote Voltaire, “did a placeman have more
personal friends; never was persecuted man better served in his
misfortunes.”
Madame de Sévigné, who had a warm regard for Fouquet,
expresses her fear in more than one of her letters, that he may be
secretly done to death by poison or by some other means of
Colbert’s devising. His friends suffered cruelly, in many cases, for
their loyalty to him. The gentleman, Monsieur de Roquesante, who
had spoken in favour of him—a Provençal—was banished in the
depths of winter to the chills of Lower Brittany, and the members of
Fouquet’s family were scattered, to find shelter where they could.
At Pignerol, Fouquet was treated with great rigour. Some few
months after his arrival there, a peril of another kind came very near
to him. The lightning of a heavy thunderstorm struck the powder-
magazine of the fortress, and it exploded, burying many in its ruins.
Fouquet, who was standing at the moment in the recess of a
window, remained unhurt. Mystery hangs over the last days of his
life; for while it is said that he died in his captivity at Pignerol, his
friend Gourville states that he was set at liberty before his death.
Voltaire also declares that Fouquet’s daughter-in-law, the Comtesse
de Vaux, confirmed the fact of this to him. Another surmise, and one
that found wide acceptance, is that although he was liberated for a
while, he was rearrested, and that it was he who was the mysterious
individual known as the Man in the Iron Mask.
Human Nature loves a mystery, and would resent being deprived
of this most memorable enigma in modern history, by any
reasonable and certain solution of it, could it be beyond all doubt and
question established. Again and again it has been explained and
explained away, but it is, as Galileo declared of the earth and the
sun: e pur se muove. The Man in the Iron Mask stands the Man in
the Iron Mask—which was, in fact, not of iron, at all, but of stoutly-
lined velvet, as the loups and masks of the time nearly always were
made. Probably this mask was secured by extra strong springs and
fastenings, as mostly was the case for prisoners of distinction, when
they were being conveyed from one place of captivity to another.
Such kind of explanation was afforded to Ninon by the governor of
the Bastille when she discussed the point with him. There was, he
said, no mystery at all in it. Yet the possibility remains that it did not
suit the governor of the grim old prison-house absolutely to lift the
veil covering its secrets, even to Ninon.
It has been contended that it could not have been Fouquet; since
the Iron Mask’s death is recorded in the register of the Bastille,
where he was confined for the last five years of his life in November
1703, and Fouquet, at that date, would have been in extreme old
age, which this prisoner was still short of. Not being Fouquet, was it
Count Matthioli accused of betraying the French Government, in the
matter of putting a French garrison into Casale to defend it against
Spain? Was it the Duke of Monmouth, after all not beheaded in
England? Was it the child of Buckingham, the bitter fruit of his
intrigue with Anne of Austria? Was it the twin brother she was said to
have borne with Louis XIV., as Dumas tells—he who was taken by
d’Artagnan from the Bastille, and placed on the throne of France,
while the other Louis was shut up in his stead, the substitution
remaining undiscovered, so great was the resemblance between the
two—undetected by the queen, Maria Théresa, herself. The
romance is well founded, but even for the great master of romance it
goes far. Was it—No; the mystery, like Sheridan’s quarrel, is “a very
pretty mystery as it stands. We should only spoil it by trying to
explain it.”
Ninon was troubled at this time with an unsatisfactory, rather
casual admirer, Monsieur le Comte de Choiseul, an individual of
whom it was difficult for her to decide whether his pertinacity or his
supreme self-conceit predominated. Monsieur Précourt, the
celebrated dancer, an intimate acquaintance of hers, whom she one
morning invited to breakfast with her, did her the good service of
finally relieving her of de Choiseul’s incommoding presence. The
breakfast was laid for two, and Choiseul, entering, was about to seat
himself, whereupon Précourt claimed the place at table, and
Choiseul, declining to stir, Précourt invited him to adjourn to the
neighbouring boulevard with him, and settle the matter at the sword’s
point. Choiseul replied that he did not fight with mountebanks. That
was as well, Précourt retorted, since they might make him dance;
and the unwelcome one took his hat, went out from the house, and
did not return.
The liaison of Louis with Mademoiselle de la Vallière was now
generally known; and notwithstanding the warning of the disgrace
and banishment of St Evrémond, satirical rhymes began to circulate
at the expense of the royal favourite and her lover Deodatus. How
fortunate he was, said Bussy Rabutin, “in pressing his lips on that
wide beak, which stretched from ear to ear”; and forthwith the poet
found himself lodged in the Bastille.
Physically, the beauty of La Vallière was not flawless. Her mouth
was somewhat large; but it has frequently been said, that somehow
the defect of her lameness only added to the grace of her
movements, which were at once so gentle and dignified, while her
magnificent, dark dreamy eyes and her soft winning smile rendered
her singularly charming; and if Louis ever loved any but himself, it
was Louise de la Vallière, who so passionately loved, not Louis the
king, but the ardent wooer and winner of her heart. There is a story
of the rose-tree from which Louis plucked the rose which he offered
her on that ball night in the Louvre. It had been cultivated by le
Nôtre, the famous gardener of Versailles, and was an object of his
tenderest care; so much cherished, that he was far from pleased
when he saw the king pluck its loveliest blossom for la Vallière. She
regarded the rose-tree which had borne it with the tenderness one
feels for some beloved sentient thing, enlisting le Nôtre’s interest in
it, which in its way was as great as her own; and wherever she went
to spend any length of days, the rose-tree was transported in its box
of earth to the gardens of the palace—Versailles or the Louvre, as it
might be—and for two years the beautiful bush flourished under the
joint care of le Nôtre, and of the king’s beloved mistress. And in her
gentle confidences with Mademoiselle Athénais de Mortemar, the
fiancée of Monsieur le Marquis de Montespan, with whom she was
great friends, she told her the romance of her rose, and how it was
her belief, her superstition—call it what you will—that while it
flourished, Louis’s love would be hers.
And then all at once the rose-tree began to fade. Slowly but surely,
despite all the skill of le Nôtre, rapidly it withered, and he carried a
handful of the earth of the new box, into which he had transplanted
the tree, as a last resource, to a chemist for analysation. Nothing
more simple: vitriol had been poured on the earth, a drop or two at a
time, and the root was corroded to dry threads. And for la Vallière, it
was only left to make a little mausoleum for her rose-tree in the
shadow of a retired thicket round the bosquets of Versailles—a little
crystal globe upon a low marble stand; and within it, in a box
exquisitely enriched with gold filigree, the withered rose-tree, to one
of whose branches was fastened the faded rose, whose petals still
hung together; and thither to the secluded spot every day came la
Vallière to kneel at the tomb of her rose-tree, and kiss the shadowy
souvenir of the love that had faded for ever. Just a few petals left of
its countless leaves, so sweet and glowing once in their crimson
beauty.
And Mademoiselle Athénais de Mortemar’s nuptials with Monsieur
le Marquis de Montespan having been solemnised, the wife was left
by the complaisant husband to become the second mistress of Louis
XIV., and this ere the first was discarded, and Maria Théresa still a
youthful wife. The two children of la Vallière the king legitimised by
Act of Parliament; but soon Louise was seen no more at Court. She
found refuge and rest for weariness and regrets of heart and spirit
within convent walls.
And now Anne of Austria succumbed to the fell disease which had
insidiously attacked her, and she died, and was borne to St Dénis
with great pomp, followed by Louis the king, clad in deepest
mourning.
 CHAPTER XVII

A Fashionable Water-cure Resort—M. de Roquelaure and his Friends—Louis le

Grand—“A Favourite with the Ladies”—The Broken Sword—A Billet-doux—La
Vallière and la Montespan—The Rebukes from the Pulpit—Putting to the Test
—Le Tartufe—The Triumphs of Molière—The Story of Clotilde.

By the advice of Guy Patin, Ninon’s constant friend and medical

adviser, she went to drink the chalybeate waters of Forges les Eaux,
in Picardy. Not that there was the least thing the matter with her;
only, as the wise doctor said, “Prevention was better than cure.”
Besides, well or ailing, everybody of any consequence went there; it
was the thing to do, ever since Anne of Austria had taken a course of
the waters, and a short time after had given birth to the child Louis,
the heir to the throne of France, whose coming had been so long
hoped for.
Time had brought its sorrows to Ninon. It had treated many of the
friends of earlier years with a hand less sparing than its touch on her.
Among those passed away into the sleep of death, was Madame de
Choisy. A great mutual affection had existed between the two
women ever since they had first met, and the severance saddened
Ninon. At Forges, she knew there would be many of her friends and
acquaintance, old and new, and instead of going to spend the spring
days at the Picpus cottage, she yielded to the persuasions of
Madame de Montausier and of Madame de la Fayette, and went to
drink the waters, mingle in its comparatively mild dissipations, and
join in the gay school for scandal for which Forges was as noted as
are the run of hydropathic resorts. It lies some half-way between
Paris and the coast by Dieppe. One of the three springs it contains is
named after the queen, presumably the one which brought Louis the
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