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diff --git a/12309-0.txt b/12309-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0be2430 --- /dev/null +++ b/12309-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8690 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12309 *** + +LOVE AFFAIRS +OF THE COURTS OF EUROPE + +BY + +THORNTON HALL, F.S.A., + +Barrister-at-Law, + +Author of "Love romancies of the Aristocracy", +"Love intrigues of Royal Courts", etc., etc. + + + + + + +TO + +MY COUSIN, + +LENORE + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAP + +I. A COMEDY QUEEN +II. THE "BONNIE PRINCE'S" BRIDE +III. THE PEASANT AND THE EMPRESS +IV. A CROWN THAT FAILED +V. A QUEEN OF HEARTS +VI. THE REGENT'S DAUGHTER +VII. A PRINCESS OF MYSTERY +VIII. THE KING AND THE "LITTLE DOVE" +IX. THE ROMANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL SWEDE +X. THE SISTER OF AN EMPEROR +XI. A SIREN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY +XII. THE CORSICAN AND THE CREOLE +XIII. THE ENSLAVER OF A KING +XIV. AN EMPRESS AND HER FAVOURITES +XV. A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CINDERELLA +XVI. BIANCA, GRAND DUCHESS OF TUSCANY +XVII. RICHELIEU, THE ROUÉ +XVIII. THE INDISCRETIONS OF A PRINCESS +XIX. THE INDISCRETIONS OF A PRINCESS--_continued_ +XX. THE LOVE-AFFAIRS OF A REGENT +XXI. A DELILAH OF THE COURT OF FRANCE +XXII. THE "SUN-KING" AND THE WIDOW +XXIII. A THRONED BARBARIAN +XXIV. A FRIEND OF MARIE ANTOINETTE +XXV. THE RIVAL SISTERS +XXVI. THE RIVAL SISTERS--_continued_ +XXVII. A MISTRESS OF INTRIGUE +XXVIII. AN ILL-FATED MARRIAGE +XXIX. AN ILL-FATED MARRIAGE--_continued_ + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + +BIANCA CAPELLO BONAVENTURA GRAND DUCHESS OF TUSCANY + +CATHERINE THE SECOND OF RUSSIA + +COUNT GREGORY ORLOFF + +DESIRÉE CLARY + +JOSEPHINE DE BEAUHARNAIS, EMPRESS (BY PRUD'HON) + +LOLA MONTEZ, COUNTESS OF LANDSFELD + +LUDWIG I., KING OF BAVARIA + +FRANCESCO I., GRAND DUKE OF TUSCANY + +CAROLINE OF BRUNSWICK, WIFE OF GEORGE IV + + + + +LOVE AFFAIRS OF THE COURTS OF EUROPE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A COMEDY QUEEN + + +"It was to a noise like thunder, and close clasped in a soldier's +embrace, that Catherine I. made her first appearance in Russian +history." + +History, indeed, contains few chapters more strange, more seemingly +impossible, than this which tells the story of the maid-of-all-work--the +red-armed, illiterate peasant-girl who, without any dower of beauty or +charm, won the idolatry of an Emperor and succeeded him on the greatest +throne of Europe. So obscure was Catherine's origin that no records +reveal either her true name or the year or place of her birth. All that +we know is that she was cradled in some Livonian village, either in +Sweden or Poland, about the year 1685, the reputed daughter of a +serf-mother and a peasant-father; and that her numerous brothers and +sisters were known in later years by the name Skovoroshtchenko or +Skovronski. The very Christian name by which she is known to history +was not hers until it was given to her by her Imperial lover. + +It is not until the year 1702, when the future Empress of the Russias +was a girl of seventeen, that she makes her first dramatic appearance on +the stage on which she was to play so remarkable a part. Then we find +her acting as maid-servant to the Lutheran pastor of Marienburg, +scrubbing his floors, nursing his children, and waiting on his resident +pupils, in the midst of all the perils of warfare. The Russian hosts had +for weeks been laying siege to Marienburg; and the Commandant, unable to +defend the town any longer against such overwhelming odds, had announced +his intention to blow up the fortress, and had warned the inhabitants to +leave the town. + +Between the alternatives of death within the walls and the enemy +without, Pastor Glück chose the latter; and sallying forth with his +family and maid-servant, threw himself on the mercy of the Russians who +promptly packed him off to Moscow a prisoner. For Martha (as she seems +to have been known in those days) a different fate was reserved. Her red +lips, saucy eyes, and opulent figure were too seductive a spoil to part +with, General Shérémétief decided, and she was left behind, a by no +means reluctant hostage. + +Peter's soldiers, now that victory was assured, were holding high revel +of feasting and song and dancing. They received the new prisoner +literally with open arms, and almost before she had wiped the tears from +her eyes, at parting from her nurslings, she was capering gaily to the +music of hautboy and fiddle, with the arm of a stalwart soldier round +her waist. + +"Suddenly," says Waliszewski, "a fearful explosion overthrew the +dancers, cut the music short, and left the servant-maid, fainting with +terror, in the arms of a dragoon." + +Thus did Martha, the "Siren of the Kitchen," dance her way into Russian +history, little dreaming, we may be sure, to what dizzy heights her +nimble feet were to carry her. For a time she found her pleasure in the +attentions of a non-commissioned officer, sharing the life of camp and +barracks and making friends by the good-nature which bubbled in her, and +which was always her chief charm. When her sergeant began to weary of +her, she found a humble place as laundry-maid in the household of +Menshikoff, the Tsar's favourite, whose shirts, we are told, it was her +privilege to wash; and who, it seems, was by no means insensible to the +buxom charms of this maid of the laundry. At any rate we find +Menshikoff, when he was spending the Easter of 1706 at Witebsk, writing +to his sister to send her to him. + +But a greater than Menshikoff was soon to appear on the scene--none +other than the Emperor Peter himself. One day the Tsar, calling on his +favourite, was astonished to see the cleanliness of his surroundings and +his person. "How do you contrive," he asked, "to have your house so well +kept, and to wear such fresh and dainty linen?" Menshikoff's answer was +"to open a door, through which the sovereign perceived a handsome girl, +aproned, and sponge in hand, bustling from chair to chair, and going +from window to window, scrubbing the window-panes"--a vision of industry +which made such a powerful appeal to His Majesty that he begged an +introduction on the spot to the lady of the sponge. + +The most daring writer of fiction could scarcely devise a more romantic +meeting than this between the autocrat of Russia and the red-armed, +bustling cleaner of the window-panes, and he would certainly never have +ventured to build on it the romance of which it was the prelude. What it +was in the young peasant-woman that attracted the Emperor it is +impossible to say. Of beauty she seems to have had none--save perhaps +such as lies in youth and rude health. + +We look at her portraits in vain to discover a trace of any charm that +might appeal to man. Her pictures in the Romanof Gallery at St +Petersburg show a singularly plain woman with a large, round +peasant-face, the most conspicuous feature of which is a hideously +turned-up nose. Large, protruding eyes and an opulent bust complete a +presentment of the typical household drudge--"a servant-girl in a German +inn." But Peter the Great, who was ever abnormal in all his tastes and +appetites, was always more ready to make love to a woman of the people +than to the most beautiful and refined of his Court ladies. His standard +of taste, as of manners, has not inaptly been likened to that of a Dutch +sailor. + +But whatever it was in the low-born laundry-woman that attracted the +Tsar of Russia, we know that this first unconventional meeting led to +many others, and that before long Catherine (for we may now call her by +the name she made so famous) was removed from his favourite's household +and installed in the Imperial harem where, for a time at least, she +seems to have shared her favours indiscriminately between her old master +and her new--"an obscure and complaisant mistress"--until Menshikoff +finally resigned all rights in her to his sovereign. + +When Catherine took up her residence in her new home, Waliszewski tells +us, "her eye shortly fell on certain magnificent jewels. Forthwith, +bursting into tears, she addressed her new protector: 'Who put these +ornaments here? If they come from the other one, I will keep nothing but +this little ring; but if they come from you, how could you think I +needed them to make me love you?'" + +If Catherine lacked physical graces, this and many another story prove +that she had a rare gift of diplomacy. She had, moreover, an unfailing +cheerfulness and goodness of heart which quickly endeared her to the +moody and capricious Peter. In his frequent fits of nervous irritability +which verged on madness, she alone had the power to soothe him and +restore him to sanity. Her very voice had a magic to arrest him in his +worst rages, and when the fit of madness (for such it undoubtedly was) +was passing away she would "take his head and caress it tenderly, +passing her fingers through his hair. Soon he grew drowsy and slept, +leaning against her breast. For two or three hours she would sit +motionless, waiting for the cure slumber always brought him, until at +last he awoke cheerful and refreshed." + +Thus each day the Livonian peasant-woman took deeper root in the heart +of the Emperor, until she became indispensable to him. Wherever he went +she was his constant companion--in camp or on visits to foreign Courts, +where she was received with the honours due to a Queen. And not only +were her presence and her ministrations infinitely pleasant to him; her +prudent counsel saved him from many a blunder and mad excess, and on at +least one occasion rescued his army from destruction. + +So strong was the hold she soon won on his affection and gratitude that +he is said to have married her secretly within three years of first +setting eyes on her. Her future and that of the children she had borne +to him became his chief concern; and as early as 1708, when he was +leaving Moscow to join his army, he left behind him a note: "If, by +God's will, anything should happen to me, let the 3000 roubles which +will be found in Menshikoff's house be given to Catherine Vassilevska +and her daughter." + +But whatever the truth may be about the alleged secret marriage, we know +that early in 1712, Peter, in his Admiral's uniform, stood at the altar +with the Livonian maid-servant, in the presence of his Court officials, +and with two of her own little daughters as bridesmaids. The wedding, we +are told, was performed in a little chapel belonging to Prince +Menshikoff, and was preceded by an interview with the Dowager-Empress +and his Princess sisters, in which Peter declared his intention to make +Catherine his wife and commanded them to pay her the respect due to her +new rank. Then followed, in brilliant sequence, State dinners, +receptions, and balls, at all of which the laundress-bride sat at her +husband's right hand and received the homage of his subjects as his +Queen. + +Picture now the woman who but a few years earlier had scrubbed Pastor +Glück's floors and cleaned Menshikoff's window-panes, in all her new +splendours as Empress of Russia. The portraits of her, in her +unaccustomed glories, are far from flattering and by no means +consistent. "She showed no sign of ever having possessed beauty," says +Baron von Pöllnitz; "she was tall and strong and very dark, and would +have seemed darker but for the rouge and whitening with which she +plastered her face." + +The picture drawn by the Margravine of Baireuth is still less +attractive: "She was short and huddled up, much tanned, and utterly +devoid of dignity or grace. Muffled up in her clothes, she looked like a +German comedy-actress. Her old-fashioned gown, heavily embroidered with +silver, and covered with dirt, had been bought in some old-clothes shop. +The front of her skirt was adorned with jewels, and she had a dozen +orders and as many portraits of saints fastened all along the facings of +her dress, so that when she walked she jingled like a mule." + +But in the eyes of one man at least--and he the greatest in all +Russia--she was beautiful. His allegiance never wavered, nor indeed did +that of his army, which idolised her to a man. She might have no boudoir +graces, but at least she was the typical soldier's wife, and cut a brave +figure, as she reviewed the troops or rode at their head in her uniform +and grenadier cap. She shared all the hardships and dangers of +campaigns with a smile on her lips, sleeping on the hard ground, and +standing in the trenches with the bullets whistling about her ears, and +men dropping to right and left of her. + +Nor was there ever a trace of vanity in her. She was as proud of her +humble origin as if she had been cradled in a palace. To princes and +ambassadors she would talk freely of the days when she was a household +drudge, and loved to remind her husband of the time when his Empress +used to wash shirts for his favourite. "Though, no doubt, you have other +laundresses about you," she wrote to him once, "the old one never +forgets you." + +The letters that passed between this oddly assorted couple, if couched +in terms which could scarcely see print in our more restrained age, are +eloquent of affection and devotion. To Peter his kitchen-Queen was +"friend of my Heart," "dearest Heart," and "dear little Mother." He +complains pathetically, when away with his army, "I am dull without +you--and there is nobody to take care of my shirts." When Catherine once +left him on a round of visits, he grew so impatient at her absence that +he sent a yacht to bring her back, and with it a note: "When I go into +my rooms and find them deserted, I feel as if I must rush away at once. +It is all so empty without thee." + +And each letter is accompanied by a present--now a watch, now some +costly lace, and again a lock of his hair, or a simple bunch of dried +flowers, while she returns some such homely gift as a little fruit or a +fur-lined waistcoat. On both sides, too, a vein of jocularity runs +through the letters, as when Catherine addresses him as "Your +Excellency, the very illustrious and eminent Prince-General and Knight +of the crowned Compass and Axe"; and when Peter, after the Peace of +Nystadt, writes: "According to the Treaty I am obliged to return all +Livonian prisoners to the King of Sweden. What is to become of thee, I +don't know." To which she answers, with true wifely (if affected) +humility: "I am your servant; do with me as you will; yet I venture to +think you won't send _me_ back." + +Quite idyllic, this post-nuptial love-making between the great Emperor +and his low-born Queen, who has so possessed his heart that no other +woman, however fair, could wrest it from her. And in her exalted +position of Empress she practised the same diplomatic arts by which she +had won Peter's devotion. Politics she left severely alone; she turned a +forbidding back on all attempts to involve her in State intrigues, but +she was ever ready to protect those who appealed to her for help, and to +use her influence with her husband to procure pardon or lighter +punishment for those who had fallen under his displeasure. + +Nor did she forget her poor relations in Livonia. One brother, a +postillion, she openly acknowledged, introduced to her husband, and +obtained a liberal pension for him; and to her other brothers and +sisters she sent frequent presents and sums of money. More she could not +well do during her husband's lifetime, but when she in turn came to the +throne, she brought the whole family--postillion, shoemaker, +farm-labourer and serf, their wives and families--to her capital, +installed them in sumptuous apartments in her palaces, decked them in +the finest Court feathers, and gave them large fortunes and titles of +nobility. + +When the Tsar's quarrel with his eldest son came to its tragic +_dénouement_ in Alexis' death, her own son became heir presumptive to +the throne of Russia. And thus the chain that bound Peter to his Empress +received its completing link. It only remained now to place the crown +formally on the head of the mother of the new heir, and this supreme +honour was hers in the month of May, 1729. + +Wonderful tales are told of the splendours of Catherine's coronation. No +existing crown was good enough for the ex-maid-of-all-work, so one of +special magnificence was made by the Court jewellers--a miracle of +diamonds and pearls, crowned by a monster ruby--at a cost of a million +and a half roubles. The Coronation gown, which cost four thousand +roubles, was made at Paris; and from Paris, too, came the gorgeous coach +with its blaze of gold and heraldry, in which the Tsarina made her +triumphal progress through the streets of the capital from the Winter +Palace. The culminating point of this remarkable ceremony came when, +after Peter had placed the crown on his wife's head, she sank weeping at +his feet and embraced his knees. + +Catherine, however, had not worn her crown many months when she found +herself in considerable danger of losing not only her dignities but even +her liberty. For some time, it is said, she had been engaged in a +liaison with William Mons, a handsome, gay young courtier, brother to a +former mistress of the Tsar. The love affair had been common knowledge +at the Court--to all but Peter himself, and it was accident that at last +opened his eyes to his wife's dishonour. One moonlight night, so the +story is told, he chanced to enter an arbour in the palace gardens, and +there discovered her in the arms of her lover. + +His vengeance was swift and terrible. Mons was arrested the same night +in his rooms, and dragged fainting into the Tsar's presence, where he +confessed his disloyalty. A few days later he was beheaded, at the very +moment when the Empress was dancing a minuet with her ladies, a smile on +her lips, whatever grief was in her heart. The following day she was +driven by her husband past the scaffold where her lover's dead body was +exposed to public view--so close, in fact, that her dress brushed +against it; but, without turning her head, she kept up a smiling +conversation with the perpetrator of this outrage on her feelings. + +Still not content with his revenge, Peter next placed the dead man's +head, enclosed in a bottle of spirits of wine, in a prominent place in +the Empress's apartments; and when she still smilingly ignored its +horrible proximity, his anger, hitherto repressed, blazed forth +fiercely. With a blow of his strong fist he shattered a priceless +Venetian vase, shouting, "Thus will I treat thee and thine"--to which +she calmly responded, "You have broken one of the chief ornaments of +your palace; do you think you have increased its charm?" + +For a time Peter refused to be propitiated; he would not speak to his +wife, or share her meals or her room. But she had "tamed the tiger" many +a time before, and she was able to do it again. Within two months she +had won her way back into full favour, and was once more the Tsar's +dearest _Katiérinoushka._ + +A month later Peter was dead, carrying his love for his peasant-Empress +to the grave, and Catherine was reigning in his stead, able at last to +conduct her amours openly--spending her nights in shameless orgies with +her lovers, and leaving the rascally Menshikoff to do the ruling, until +death brought her amazing career to an end within sixteen months of +mounting her throne. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE "BONNIE PRINCE'S" BRIDE + + +In the pageant of our history there are few more attractive figures than +that of "Bonnie Prince Charlie," the "yellow-haired laddie" whose blue +eyes made a slave of every woman who came under their magic, and whose +genial, unaffected manners turned the veriest coward into a hero, ready +to follow him to the death in that year of ill-fated romance, "the +forty-five." + +The very name of the "Bonnie Prince," the hope of the fallen Stuarts, +the idol of Scotland--leading a forlorn hope with laughter on his lips, +now riding proudly at the head of his rabble army, now a fugitive +Ishmael among the hills and caves of the Highlands, but ever the last to +lose heart--has a magic still to quicken the pulses. That later years +proved the idol's feet to be of clay, that he fell from his pedestal to +end his days an object of contempt and derision, only served to those +who knew him in the pride of his youth to mingle pity with the glamour +of romance that still surrounds his name. + +In the year 1772, when this story opens, Charles Edward, Count of +Albany, had already travelled far on the downward road that led from +the glory of Prestonpans to his drunkard's grave. A pitiful pensioner of +France, who had known the ignominy of wearing fetters in a French +prison, a social outcast whose Royal pretensions were at best the +subject of an amused tolerance, the "laddie of the yellow hair" had +fallen so low that the brandy bottle, which was his constant companion +night and day, was his only solace. + +Picture him at this period, and mark the pathetic change which less than +thirty years had wrought in the Stuart "darling" of "the forty-five," +when many a proud lady of Scotland would have given her life for a smile +from his bonnie face. A middle-aged man with dropsy in his limbs, and +with the bloated face of the drunkard; "dull, thick, silent-looking +lips, of purplish red scarce redder than the skin; pale blue eyes +tending to a watery greyness, leaden, vague, sad, but with angry +streakings of red; something inexpressibly sad, gloomy, helpless, +vacant, and debased in the whole face." + +Such was this "Young Chevalier" when France took it into her head to +make a pawn of him in the political chess-game with England. As a man he +was beneath contempt; as a "King"--well, he was a _Roi pour rire_; but +at least the Royal House he represented might be made a useful weapon +against the arrogant Hanoverian who sat on his father's throne. That +rival stock must not be allowed to die out; his claims might weigh +heavily some day in the scale between France and England. Charles Edward +must marry, and provide a worthier successor to his empty honours. + +And thus it was that France came to the exiled Prince with the +seductive offer of a pretty bride and a pension of forty thousand crowns +a year. The besotted Charles jumped at the offer; left his brandy +bottle, and, with the alacrity of a youthful lover, rushed away to woo +and win the bride who had been chosen for him. + +And never surely was there such a grotesque wooing. Charles was a +physical wreck of fifty-two; his bride-elect had only seen nineteen +summers. The daughter of Prince Gustav Adolf of Stolberg and the +Countess of Horn, Princess Louise was kin to many of the greatest houses +in Europe, from the Colonnas and Orsinis to the Hohenzollerns and +Bruces. In blood she was thus at least a match for her Stuart +bridegroom. + +She had spent some years in the seclusion of a monastery, and had +emerged for her undesired trip to the altar a young woman of rare beauty +and charm, with glorious brown eyes, the delicate tint of the wild rose +in her dimpled cheeks, a wealth of golden hair, and a figure every line +and movement of which was instinct with beauty and grace. She was a +fresh, unspoilt child, bubbling with gaiety and the joy of life, and her +dainty little head was full of the romance of sweet nineteen. + +Such then was the singularly contrasted couple--"Beauty and the Beast" +they were dubbed by many--who stood together at the altar at Macerata on +Good Friday of the year 1772--the bridegroom, "looking hideous in his +wedding suit of crimson silk," in flaming contrast to the virginal white +of his pretty victim. It needed no such day of ill-omen as a Friday to +inaugurate a union which could not have been otherwise than +disastrous--the union of a beautiful, romantic girl eager to exploit the +world of freedom and of pleasure, and a drink-sodden man old enough to +be her father, for whom life had long lost all its illusions. + +It is true that for a time Charles Edward was drawn from his bottle by +the lure of a pretty and winsome wife, who should, if any power on earth +could, have made a man again of him. She laughed, indeed, at his maudlin +tales of past heroism and adventure in love and battle; to her he was a +plaster hero, and she let him know it. She was "mated to a clown," and a +drunken clown to boot--and, well, she would make the best of a bad +bargain. If her husband was the sorriest lover who ever poured +thick-voiced flatteries into a girl-wife's ears, there were others, +plenty of them, who were eager to pay more acceptable homage to her; and +these men--poets, courtiers, great men in art and letters--flocked to +her _salon_ to bask in her beauty and to be charmed by her wit. + +After all, she was a Queen, although she wore no crown. She had a Court, +although no Royalties graced it. From the Pope to the King of France, no +monarch in Europe would recognise her husband's kingship. But at such +neglect, the offspring of jealousy, of course, she only smiled. She +could indeed have been moderately happy in her girlish, light-hearted +way, if her husband had not been such an impossible person. + +As for Charles Edward, he soon wearied of a bride who did nothing but +laugh at him, and who was so ready to escape from his obnoxious presence +to the company of more congenial admirers. He returned to his brandy +bottle, and alternated between a fuddled brain and moods of wild +jealousy. He would not allow his wife to leave the door without his +escort; if she refused to accompany him, he turned the key in her +bedroom door, to which the only access was through his own room. + +He took her occasionally to the theatre or opera, his brandy bottle +always making a third for company. Before the performance was half +through he was snoring stertorously on the couch which he insisted on +having in his box; and, more often than not, was borne to his carriage +for the journey home helplessly drunk. And this within the first year of +his wedded life. + +If any woman had excuse for seeking elsewhere the love she could not +find in her husband it was Louise of Albany. There were dames in plenty +in Rome (where they were now living) who, not content with devoted +husbands, had their _cisibeos_ to play the lover to them; but Louise +sought no such questionable escape from her unhappiness. Her books and +the clever men who thronged her _salon_ were all the solace she asked; +and under temptation such as few women of that country and day would +have resisted, she carried the shield of a blameless life. + +From Rome the Countess and her husband fared to Florence in 1774; and +here matters went from bad to worse. Charles was now seldom sober day +or night; and his jealousy often found expression in filthy abuse and +cowardly assaults. Hitherto he had been simply disgusting; now he was a +constant menace, even to her life. She lived in hourly fear of his +brutality; but in her darkest hour sunshine came again into her life +with the coming of Vittorio Alfieri, whose name was to be linked with +hers for so many years. + +At this time Alfieri was in the very prime of his splendid manhood, one +of the handsomest and most fascinating men in all Europe. Some four +years older than herself, he was a tall, stalwart, soldierly man, +blue-eyed and auburn-haired, an aristocrat to his finger-tips, a daring +horseman, a poet, and a man of rare culture--just the man to set any +woman's heart a-flutter, as he had already done in most of the capitals +of the Continent. + +He was a spoilt child of fortune, this Italian poet and soldier, a man +who had drunk deep of the cup of life, and to whom all conquests came +with such fatal ease that already he had drained life dry of its +pleasures. + +Such was the man who one autumn day in the year 1777 came into the +unhappy life of the Countess of Albany, still full of the passions and +yearnings of youth. It was surely fate that thus brought together these +two young people of kindred tastes and kindred disillusions; and we +cannot wonder that, of that first meeting, Alfieri should write, "At +last I had met the one woman whom I had sought so long, the woman who +could inspire my ambition and my work. Recognising this, and prizing so +rare a treasure, I gave myself up wholly to her." + +Those were happy days for the Countess that followed this fateful +meeting--days of sweet communion of twin souls, hours of stolen bliss, +when they could dwell apart in a region of high and ennobling thoughts, +while the besotted husband was sleeping off the effects of his drunken +orgies in the next room. To Alfieri, Louise was indeed "the anchor of +his life," giving stability to his vacillating nature, and inspiring all +that was best and noblest in him; while to her the association with this +"splendid creature," who so thoroughly understood and sympathised with +her, was the revelation of a new world. + +Thus three happy years passed; and then the crisis came. One night the +Prince, in a mood of drunken madness, inflamed by jealousy, attacked his +wife, and, after severely beating her, flung her down on her bed and +attempted to strangle her. This was the crowning outrage of years of +brutality. She could not, dared not, spend another day with such a +madman. At any cost she must leave him--and for ever. + +When morning came, with Alfieri's assistance, the plan of escape was +arranged. In the company of a lady friend--and also of her husband, now +scared and penitent, but fearing to let her out of his sight--she drove +to a neighbouring convent, ostensibly to inspect the nuns' needlework. +On reaching her destination she ran up the convent steps, entered the +building, and the door was slammed and bolted behind her in the very +face of Charles Edward, who had followed as fast as his dropsical legs +would carry him up the steps. The Prince, blazing at such an outrage, +hammered fiercely at the door until at last the Lady Abbess herself +showed her face at the grating, and told him in no ambiguous words that +he would not be allowed to enter! His wife had come to her for +protection; and if he had any grievance he had better appeal to the Duke +of Tuscany. + +Thus ended the tragic union of the "Bonnie Prince" and his Countess. +Emancipation had come at last; and, while Louise was now free to devote +her life to her beloved Alfieri, her brutal husband was left for eight +years to the company of his bottle and the ministrations of his natural +daughter, until a drunkard's grave at Frascati closed over his mis-spent +life. The pity and the tragedy of it! + +Louise of Albany and her poet-lover were now free to link their lives at +the altar--but no such thought seems to have entered the head of either. +They were perfectly happy without the bond of the wedding-ring, of which +the Countess had such terrible memories; and together they walked +through life, happy in each other and indifferent to the world's +opinion. + +Now in Florence, now in Rome; living together in Alsace, drifting to +Paris; and, when the Revolution drove them from the French capital, +seeking refuge in London, where we find the uncrowned Queen of England +chatting amicably with the "usurper" George in the Royal box at the +opera--always inseparable, and Louise always clinging to the shreds of +her Royal dignity, with a throne in her ante-room, and "Your Majesty" +on her servants' lips. Thus passed the careless, happy years for +Countess and poet until, in 1803, Alfieri followed the "Bonnie Prince" +behind the veil, and left a desolate Louise to moan amid her tears, +"There is no more happiness for me." + +But Louise was not left even now without the solace of a man's love, +which seemed as indispensable to her nature as the air she breathed. +Before Alfieri had been many months in his Florence tomb his place by +the Countess's side had been taken by François Xavier Fabre, a +good-looking painter of only moderate gifts, whose handsome face, +plausible tongue, and sunny disposition soon made a captive of her +middle-aged heart. At the time when Fabre came thus into her life Madame +la Comtesse had passed her fiftieth birthday--youth and beauty had taken +wings; and passion (if ever she had any--for her relations with Alfieri +seem to have been quite platonic) had died down to its embers. + +But a man's companionship and homage were always necessary to her, and +in Fabre she found her ideal cavalier. Her _salon_ now became more +popular even than in the days of her young wifehood. It drew to it all +the greatest men in Europe, men of world-wide fame in statesmanship, +letters, and art, all anxious to do homage to a woman of such culture +and with such rare gifts of conversation. + +That she was now middle-aged, stout and dowdy--"like a cook with pretty +hands," as Stendhal said of her--mattered nothing to her admirers, many +of whom remembered her in the days of her lovely youth. She was, in +their eyes, as much a Queen as if she wore a crown; and, moreover, she +was a woman of magnetic charm and clever brain. + +And thus, with her books and her _salon_ and her cavalier, she spent the +rest of her chequered life until the end came one day in 1824; and her +last resting-place was, as she wished it to be, by the side of her +beloved Alfieri. In the Church of Santa Croce, in Florence, midway +between the tombs of Michael Angelo and Machiavelli, the two lovers +sleep together their last sleep, beneath a beautiful monument fashioned +by Canova's hands--Louise, wife of the "Bonnie Prince" (as we still +choose to remember him) and Vittorio Alfieri, to whom, to quote his own +words, "she was beyond all things beloved." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE PEASANT AND THE EMPRESS + + +Many an autocrat of Russia has shown a truly sovereign contempt for +convention in the choice of his or her favourites, the "playthings of an +hour"; and at least three of them have carried this contempt to the +altar itself. + +Peter, the first, as we have seen, offered a crown to Martha Skovronski, +a Livonian scullery-maid, who succeeded him on the throne; the second +Catherine gave her hand as well as her heart to Patiomkin, the gigantic, +ill-favoured ex-sergeant of cavalry; and Elizabeth, daughter of Peter +and his kitchen-Queen, proved herself worthy of her parentage when she +made Alexis Razoum, a peasant's son, husband of the Empress of Russia. +You will search history in vain for a story so strange and romantic as +this of the great Empress and the lowly shepherd's son, whom her love +raised from a hovel to a palace, and on whom one of the most amorous and +fickle of sovereign ladies lavished honours and riches and an unwavering +devotion, until her eyes, speaking their love to the last, were closed +in death. + +It was in the humblest hovel of the village of Lemesh that Alexis +Razoum drew his first breath one day in 1709. His father, Gregory +Razoum, was a shepherd, who spent his pitiful earnings in drink--a man +of violent temper who, in his drunken rages, was the terror not only of +his home but of the entire village. His wife and children cowered at his +approach; and on more than one occasion only accident (or Providence) +saved him from the crime of murder. On one such occasion, we are told, +the child Alexis, who from his earliest years had a passion for reading, +was absorbed in a book, when his father, in ungovernable fury, seized a +hatchet and hurled it at the boy's head. Luckily, the missile missed its +mark, and Alexis escaped, to find refuge in the house of a friendly +priest, who not only gave him shelter and protection, but taught him to +write, and, above all, to sing--little dreaming that he was thus paving +the way which was to lead the drunken shepherd's lad to the dizziest +heights in Russia. For the boy had a beautiful voice. When he joined the +choir of his village church, people flocked from far and near to listen +to the sweet notes that soared, pure and liquid as a nightingale's song, +above the rest. "It was," all declared, "the voice of an angel--and the +face of an angel," for Alexis was as beautiful in those days as any +child of picture or of dreams. + +One day a splendidly dressed stranger chanced to enter the Lemesh church +during Mass--none other than Colonel Vishnevsky, a great Court official, +who was on his way back to Moscow from a diplomatic mission; and he +listened entranced to a voice sweeter than any he had ever heard. The +service over, he made the acquaintance of the young chorister, +interviewed his guardian, the "good Samaritan" priest, and persuaded him +to allow the boy to accompany him to the capital. Thus the shepherd's +son took weeping farewell of the good priest, of his mother, and of his +brothers and sisters; and a few weeks later the Empress and her ladies +were listening enchanted to his voice in the Imperial choir at +Moscow--but none with more delight than the Princess Elizabeth, daughter +of Peter the Great, to whom Alexis' beauty appealed even more strongly +than his sweet singing. + +Elizabeth, true daughter of her father, had already, young as she was, +counted her lovers by the score--lovers chosen indiscriminately, from +Royal princes to grooms and common soldiers. She was already sated with +the licence of the most dissolute Court of Europe, and to her the young +Cossack of the beautiful face and voice, and rustic innocence, opened a +new and seductive vista of pleasure. She lost her heart to him, had him +transferred to her own Court as her favourite singer, and, within a few +years, gave him charge of her purse and her properties. + +The shepherd's son was now not only lover-elect, but principal +"minister" to the daughter of an Emperor, who was herself to wear the +Imperial crown. And while Alexis was thus luxuriating amid the splendour +of a Court, he by no means forgot the humble relatives he had left +behind in his native village. His father was dead; his mother was +reduced for a time to such a depth of destitution that she had to beg +her bread from door to door. His sisters had found husbands for +themselves in their own rank; and the favourite of an Imperial Princess +had for brothers-in-law a tailor, a weaver, and a shepherd. When news +came to Alexis of his mother's destitution he had sent her a sum of +money sufficient to install her in comfort as an innkeeper: the first of +many kindnesses which were to work a startling transformation in the +fortunes of the Razoum family. + +Events now hurried quickly. The Empress Anna died, and was succeeded on +the throne by the infant Ivan, her grand-nephew, who had been Emperor +but a few months when, in 1741, a _coup d'état_ gave the crown to +Elizabeth, mistress of the Lemesh peasant. Alexis was now husband in all +but name of the Empress of all the Russias; honours and riches were +showered on him; he was General, Grandmaster of the Hounds, Chief +Gentleman of the Bedchamber, and lord of large estates yielding regal +revenues. + +But all his grandeur was powerless to spoil the man, who still remained +the simple peasant who, so many years earlier, had left his low-born +mother with streaming eyes. His great ambition now was to share his +good-fortune with her. She must exchange her village inn for the +luxuries and splendours of a palace. And thus it was that one day a +splendid carriage, with gay-liveried postillions, dashed up to the door +of the Lemesh inn and carried off the simple peasant woman, her youngest +son, Cyril, and one of her daughters, to the open-mouthed amazement of +the villagers. At the entrance to the capital she was received by a +magnificently attired gentleman, in whom she failed to recognise her son +Alexis, until he showed her a birthmark on his body. + +Picture now the peasant-woman sumptuously lodged in the Moscow palace, +decked in all the finery of silks and laces and jewels, receiving the +respectful homage of high Court officials, caressed and petted by an +Empress, while her splendid son looks smilingly on, as proud of his +cottage-mother as if she were a Princess of the Blood Royal. That the +innkeeper was not happy in her gilded cage, that her thoughts often +wandered longingly to her cronies and the simple life of the village, is +not to be wondered at. + +It was all very well for such a fine gentleman as her son, Alexis; but +for a poor, simple-minded woman like herself--well, she was too old for +such a transplanting. And we can imagine her relief when, on the removal +of the Court to St Petersburg, she was allowed to bring her visit to an +end and to return to her inn with wonderful stories of all she had seen. +Her son and daughter, however, elected to remain. As for Cyril, a +handsome youth, almost young enough to be his brother's son, he was +quick to win his way into the favour of the Empress. Before he had been +many months at Court he was made a Count and Gentleman of the +Bedchamber. He was given for bride a grand-niece of Elizabeth; and at +twenty-two he was Viceroy of the Ukraine, virtual sovereign of a kingdom +of his own, with his peasant-mother, who declined to share his palace, +comfortably installed in a modest house near his gates. + +Cyril, in fact, was to his last day as unspoiled by his unaccustomed +grandeur as his brother Alexis. Each was ready at any moment to turn +from the obsequious homage of nobles to hobnob with a peasant friend or +relative. How utterly devoid of false pride Alexis was is proved by the +following anecdote. One day when, in company with the Empress, he was +paying a visit to Count Löwenwolde, he rushed from Elizabeth's side to +fling his arms round the neck of one of his host's footmen. "Are you +mad, Alexis?" exclaimed the Empress, in her astonishment. "What do you +mean by such senseless behaviour?" "I am not mad at all," answered the +favourite. "He is an old friend of mine." + +But although no man ever deposed the shepherd from the first place in +Elizabeth's favour, it must not be imagined that he was her only lover. +The daughter of the hot-blooded Peter and the lusty scullery wench had +always as great a passion for men as the second Catherine, who had +almost as many favourites in her boudoir as gowns in her wardrobes. She +had her lovers before she was emancipated from the schoolroom; and not +the least favoured of them, it is said, was her own nephew, Peter the +Second, whom she would no doubt have married if it had been possible. + +She turned her back on one great alliance after another, preferring her +freedom to a wedding-ring that brought no love with it; and she found +her pleasure alike among the gentlemen of the Court and among her own +servants. In the long list of her favourites we find a General +succeeded by a Sergeant; Boutourlin, the handsome courtier, giving place +to Lialin, the sailor; and Count Shouvalov retiring in favour of +Voytshinsky, the coachman. Thus one liaison succeeded another from +girlhood to middle-age--indeed long after she had passed the altar. But +through all these varying attachments her heart remained constant to her +shepherd-lover, to whom she was ever the devoted wife, and, when he was +ill, the tenderest of nurses. To please him, she even accompanied him on +a visit to his native village, smiling graciously on his humble friends +of other days, and partaking of the hospitality of the poorest +cottagers; while on all who had befriended him in the days of his +obscurity she lavished her favours. + +Of one man who had been thus kind she made a General on the spot; the +friendly priest was given a highly paid post at Court; high rank in the +army was given to many of his humble relatives; and a husband was found +for a favourite niece in Count Ryoumin, the Chancellor's son. + +As for Alexis himself, nothing was too good for him. Although he had +probably never handled a gun in his life she made him Field-Marshal and +head of her army; and, at her request, Charles VII. dubbed him Count of +the Holy Roman Empire, a distinction which Gregory Orloff in later years +prized more than all the honours Catherine II. showered on him; while +the estates of which she made him lord were a small kingdom in +themselves. Alexis, the shepherd's son, was now, beyond any question, +the most powerful man in Russia. If he would, he might easily have +taken the sceptre from the yielding hands of the Empress and played the +autocrat, as Patiomkin played it under similar circumstances in later +years. But Alexis cared as little for power as for rank and wealth. He +smiled at his honours. "Fancy," he said, with his hearty laugh, "a +peasant's son, a Count; and a man who ought to be tending sheep, a +Field-Marshal!" + +When courtly genealogists spread before him an elaborate family-tree, +proving that he sprang from the princely stock of Bogdan, with many a +Grand Duke of Lithuania among his lineal ancestors, he laughed loud and +long at them for their pains. "Don't be so ridiculous," he said. "You +know as well as I that my parents were simple peasants, honest enough, +but people of the soil and nothing else. If I am Count and Field-Marshal +and Viceroy, I owe it all to the good heart of your Empress and mine, +whose humble servant I am. Take it away, and let me hear no more of such +foolery." + +Such to the last was the unspoiled, child-like nature of the man who so +soon was to be not merely the first favourite but husband of an Empress. +Probably Alexis would have lived and died Elizabeth's unlicensed lover +had it not been for the cunning of the cleverest of her Chancellors, +Bestyouzhev, who saw in his mistress's infatuation for her peasant the +means of making his own position more secure. Elizabeth was still a +young and attractive woman, who might pick and choose among some of the +most eligible suitors in Europe for a sharer of her throne; for there +were many who would gladly have played consort to the good-looking +autocrat of Russia. + +Such a husband, especially if he were a strong man, might seriously +imperil the Chancellor's position; might even dispense with him +altogether. On the other hand, he was high in the favour of the +shepherd's son, who had such a contempt for power, and who thus would be +a puppet in his hands. Why not make him husband in name as well as in +fact? It was, after all, an easy task the Chancellor thus set himself. +Elizabeth was by no means unwilling to wear a wedding-ring for the man +who had loved her so loyally and so long; and any difficulties she might +raise were quickly disposed of by her father-confessor, who was +Bestyouzhev's tool. Thus it came to pass that one day Elizabeth and +Alexis stood side by side before the village altar of Perovo; and the +words were spoken which made the shepherd's son husband of the Empress. +The secrecy with which the ceremony was performed was but a fiction. All +the world knew that Alexis Gregorovitch was Emperor by right of wedlock, +and flocked to pay homage to him in his new and exalted character. + +He now had sumptuous apartments next to those of his wife; he sat at her +right hand on all State occasions; he was her shadow everywhere; and +during his frequent attacks of gout the Empress ministered to him night +and day in his own rooms with the tender devotion of a mother to a +child. Two children were born to them, a son and a daughter, the latter +of whom, after a life of strange romance and vicissitude, ended her +days in a loathsome dungeon of the fortress of Saints Peter and Paul, +the victim of Catherine II.'s vengeance--miserably drowned, so one story +goes, by an inundation of her cell. + +On Elizabeth's death, in the year 1762, her husband was glad to retire +from the Court in which he had for so long played so splendid a part. +"None but myself," he said, "can know with what pleasure I leave a +sphere to which I was not born, and to which only my love for my dear +mistress made me resigned. I should have been happier far with her in +some small cottage far removed from the gilded slavery of Court life." +He was happy enough now leading the peaceful life of a country gentleman +on one of his many estates. + +Catherine II. had mounted the throne of Russia--the Empress who, +according to Masson, had but two passions, which she carried to the +grave--"her love of man, which degenerated into libertinage; and her +love of glory, which degenerated into vanity." A woman with the brain of +a man and the heart of a courtesan, Catherine's fickle affection had +flitted from one lover to another, until now it had settled on Gregory +Orloff, the handsomest man in her dominions, whom she was more than half +disposed to make her husband. + +This was a scheme which commended itself strongly to her Chancellor, +Vorontsov. There was a most useful precedent to lend support to it--the +alliance of the Empress Elizabeth with a man of immeasurably lower rank +than Catherine's favourite; but it was important that this precedent +should be established beyond dispute. Thus it was that one day, when +Count Alexis was poring over his Bible by his country fireside, +Chancellor Vorontsov made his appearance with ingratiating words and +promises. Her Majesty, he informed the Count, was willing to confer +Imperial rank on him in return for one small favour--the possession of +the documents which proved his marriage to her predecessor, Elizabeth. + +On hearing the request, the ex-shepherd rose, and, with words of quiet +scorn, refused both the request and the proffered honour. "Am not I," he +said, "a Count, a Field-Marshal, a man of wealth? all of which I owe to +the kindness of my dear, dead mistress. Are not such honours enough for +the peasant's son whom she raised from the mire to sit by her side, that +I should purchase another bauble by an act of treachery to her memory? + +"But wait one moment," he continued; and, leaving the room, he returned +carrying a small bundle of papers, which he proceeded to examine one by +one. Then, collecting them, he placed the bundle in the heart of the +fire, to the horror of the onlooking Chancellor; and, as the flames were +reducing the precious documents to ashes, he said, "Go now and tell +those who sent you, that I never was more than the slave of my august +benefactress, the Empress Elizabeth, who could never so far have +forgotten her position as to marry a subject." + +Thus with a lie on his lips--the last crowning evidence of loyalty to +his beloved Queen and wife--Alexis Razoum makes his exit from the stage +on which he played so strangely romantic a part. A few years later his +days ended in peace at his St Petersburg palace, with the name he loved +best, "Elizabeth," on his lips. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +A CROWN THAT FAILED + +Henri of Navarre, hero of romance and probably the greatest King who +ever sat on the throne of France, had a heart as weak in love as it was +stout in war. To his last day he was a veritable coward before the +battery of bright eyes; and before Ravaillac's dagger brought his career +to a tragic end one May day in the year 1610 he had counted his +mistresses to as many as the years he had lived. + +But of them all, fifty-seven of them--for the most part lightly coming +and lightly going--only one ever really reached his heart, and was +within measurable distance of a seat on his throne--the woman to whom he +wrote in the hey-day of his passion, "Never has man loved as I love you. +If any sacrifice of mine could purchase your happiness, how gladly I +would make it, even to the last drop of my life's blood." + +Gabrielle d'Estrées who thus enslaved the heart of the hero, which +carried him to a throne through a hundred fights and inconceivable +hardships, was cradled one day in the year 1573 in Touraine. From her +mother, Françoise Babou, she inherited both beauty and frailness; for +the Babou women were famous alike for their loveliness and for a virtue +as facile even as that of Marie Gaudin, the pretty plaything of François +I., who left François' arms to find a husband in Philip Babou and thus +to transmit her charms and frailty to Gabrielle. + +Her father, Antoine, son of Jean d'Estrées, a valiant soldier under five +kings, was a man of pleasure, who drank and sang his way through life, +preferring Cupid to Mars and the _joie de vivre_ to the call of duty. It +is perhaps little wonder that Antoine's wife, after bearing seven +children to her husband, left him to find at least more loyalty in the +Marquess of Tourel-Alégre, a lover twenty years younger than herself. + +Thus it was that, deserted by her mother, and with a father too addicted +to pleasure to spare a thought for his children, Gabrielle grew to +beautiful girlhood under the care of an aunt--now living in the family +château in Picardy, now in the great Paris mansion, the Hotel d'Estrées; +and with so little guidance from precept or example that, in later +years, she and her six sisters and brothers were known as the "Seven +Deadly Sins." + +In Gabrielle at least there was little that was vicious. She was an +irresponsible little creature, bubbling over with mischief and gaiety, +eager to snatch every flower of pleasure that caught her eyes; a dainty +little fairy with big blue "wonder" eyes, golden hair, the sweetest +rosebud of a mouth, ready to smile or to pout as the mood of the moment +suggested, with soft round baby cheeks as delicately flushed as any +rose. + +Such was Gabrielle d'Estrées on the verge of young womanhood when Roger +de Saint-Larry, Duc de Bellegarde, the King's grand equerry, and one of +the handsomest young men in France, first set eyes on her in the château +of Coeuvres; and, as was inevitable, lost his heart to her at first +sight. When he rode away two days later, such excellent use had he made +of his opportunities, he left a very happy, if desolate maiden behind; +for Gabrielle had little power to resist fascinations which had made a +conquest of many of the fairest ladies at Court. + +When Bellegarde returned to Mantes, where Henri was still struggling for +the crown which was so soon to be his, he foolishly gave the King of +Navarre such a rapturous account of the young beauty of Picardy and his +conquest that Henri, already weary of the faded charms of Diane +d'Audouins, his mistress, promptly left his soldiering and rode away to +see the lady for himself, and to find that Bellegarde's raptures were +more than justified. + +Gabrielle, however, flattered though she was by such an honour as a +visit from the King of Navarre, was by no means disposed to smile on the +wooing of "an ugly man, old enough to be my father." And indeed, Henri, +with all the glamour of the hero to aid him, was but a sorry rival for +the handsome and courtly Bellegarde. Now nearing his fortieth year, with +grizzled beard, and skin battered and lined by long years of hard +campaigning, the future King of France had little to appeal to the +romantic eyes of a maid who counted less than half his years; and the +King in turn rode away from the Coeuvres Castle as hopelessly in love +as Bellegarde, but with much less encouragement to return. + +But the hero of Ivry and a hundred other battles was no man to submit to +defeat in any lists; and within a few weeks Gabrielle was summoned to +Mantes, where he told her in decisive words that he loved her, and that +no one, Bellegarde or any other, should share her with him. "Indeed!" +she exclaimed, with a defiant toss of the head, "I will be no man's +slave; I shall give my heart to whom I please, and certainly not to any +man who demands it as a right." And within an hour she was riding home +fast as her horse could gallop. + +Henri was thunderstruck at such defiance. He must follow her at once and +bring her to reason; but, in order to do so, he must risk his life by +passing through the enemy's lines. Such an adventure, however, was after +his own heart; and disguising himself as a peasant, with a bundle of +faggots on his shoulder, he made his way safely to Coeuvres, where he +presented himself, a pitiable spectacle of rags and poverty, to be +greeted by his lady with shouts of derisive laughter. "Oh dear!" she +gasped between her paroxysms of mirth, "what a fright you look! For +goodness' sake go and change your clothes." But though the King obeyed +humbly, Gabrielle shut herself in her room and declined point-blank to +see him again. + +Such devotion, however, expressed in such fashion, did not fail in its +appeal to the romantic girl; and when, a little later, Gabrielle visited +the Royalist army then besieging Chartres, it was a much more pliant +Gabrielle who listened to the King's wooing and whose eyes brightened at +his stories of bravery and danger. Henri might be old and ugly, but he +had at least a charm of manner, a frank, simple manliness, which made +him the idol of his soldiers and in fact of every woman who once came +under its spell. And to this charm even Gabrielle, the rebel, had at +last to submit, until Bellegarde was forgotten, and her hero was all the +world to her. + +The days that followed this slow awaking were crowded with happiness for +the two lovers; when Gabrielle was not by her King's side, he was +writing letters to her full of passionate tenderness. "My beautiful +Love," "My All," "My Trueheart"--such were the sweet terms he lavished +on her. "I kiss you a million times. You say that you love me a thousand +times more than I love you. You have lied, and you shall maintain your +falsehood with the arms which you have chosen. I shall not see you for +ten days, it is enough to kill me." And again, "They call me King of +France and Navarre--that of your subject is much more delightful--you +have much more cause for fearing that I love you too much than too +little. That fault pleases you, and also me, since you love it. See how +I yield to your every wish." + +Such were the letters--among the most beautiful ever penned by +lover--which the King addressed to his "Menon" in those golden days, +when all the world was sunshine for him, black as the sky was still with +the clouds of war. And she returned love for love; tenderness for +passion. When he was lying ill at St Denis, she wrote, "I die of fear. +Tell me, I implore you, how fares the bravest of the brave. Give me +news, my cavalier; for you know how fatal to me is your least ill. I +cannot sleep without sending you a thousand good nights; for I am the +Princess Constancy, sensible to all that concerns you, and careless of +all else in the world, good or bad." + +Through the period of stress and struggle that still separated Henri +from the crown which for nearly twenty years was his goal, Gabrielle was +ever by his side, to soothe and comfort him, to chase away the clouds of +gloom which so often settled on him, to inspire him with new courage and +hope, and, with her diplomacy checking his impulses, to smooth over +every obstacle that the cunning of his enemies placed in his path. + +And when, at last, one evening in 1594, Henri made his triumphal entry +into Paris, on a grey horse, wearing a gold-embroidered grey habit, his +face proud and smiling, saluting with his plume-crowned hat the cheering +crowds, Gabrielle had the place of honour in front of him, "in a +gorgeous litter, so bedecked with pearls and gems that she paled the +light of the escorting torches." + +This was, indeed, a proud hour for the lovers which saw Henri acclaimed +at "long last" King of France, and his loyal lady-love Queen in all but +name. The years of struggle and hardship were over--years in which Henri +of Navarre had braved and escaped a hundred deaths; and in which he had +been reduced to such pitiable straits that he had often not known where +his next meal was to come from or where to find a shirt to put on his +back. + +Gabrielle was now Marquise de Monceaux, a title to which her Royal lover +later added that of Duchesse de Beaufort. Her son, César, was known as +"Monsieur," the title that would have been his if he had been heir to +the French throne. All that now remained to fill the cup of her ambition +and her happiness was that she should become the legal wife of the King +she loved so well; and of this the prospect seemed more than fair. + +Charming stories are told of the idyllic family life of the new King; +how his greatest pleasure was to "play at soldiers" with his children, +to join in their nursery romps, or to take them, like some bourgeois +father, to the Saint Germain fair, and return loaded with toys and boxes +of sweetmeats, to spend delightful homely evenings with the woman he +adored. + +But it was not all sunshine for the lovers. Paris was in the throes of +famine and plague and flood. Poverty and discontent stalked through her +streets, and there were scowling and envious eyes to greet the King and +his lady when they rode laughing by; or when, as on one occasion we read +of, they returned from a hunting excursion, riding side by side, "she +sitting astride dressed all in green" and holding the King's hand. + +Nor within the palace walls was it all a bed of roses for Gabrielle; for +she had her enemies there; and chief among them the powerful Duc de +Sully, her most formidable rival in the King's affection. Sully was not +only Henri's favourite minister; he was the Jonathan to his David, the +man who had shared a hundred dangers by his side, and by his devotion +and affection had found a firm lodging in his heart. + +Between the minister and the mistress, each consumed with jealousy of +the other, Henri had many a bad hour; and the climax came when de Sully +refused to pass the extravagant charges for the baptism of the +Marquise's second son, Alexander. Gabrielle was indignant and appealed +angrily and tearfully to the King, who supported his minister. "I have +loved you," he said at last, roused to wrath, "because I thought you +gentle and sweet and yielding; now that I have raised you to high +position, I find you exacting and domineering. Know this, I could better +spare a dozen mistresses like you than one minister so devoted to me as +Sully." + +At these harsh words, Gabrielle burst into tears. "If I had a dagger," +she exclaimed, "I would plunge it into my heart, and then you would find +your image there." And when Henri rushed from the room, she ran after +him, flung herself at his feet, and with heart-breaking sobs, begged for +forgiveness and a kind word. Such troubles as these, however, were but +as the clouds that come and go in a summer sky. Gabrielle's sun was now +nearing its zenith; Henri had long intended to make her his wife at the +altar; proceedings for divorce from his wife, Marguerite de Valois, were +running smoothly; and now the crowning day in the two lives thus +romantically linked was at hand. + +In the month of April, 1599, Gabrielle and Henri were spending the last +ante-nuptial days together at Fontainebleau; the wedding was fixed for +the first Sunday after Easter, and Gabrielle was ideally happy among her +wedding finery and the costly presents that had been showered on her +from all parts of France--from the ring Henri had worn at his Coronation +and which he was to place on her finger at the altar, to a statue of the +King in gold from Lyons, and a "giant piece of amber in a silver casket +from Bordeaux." + +Her wedding-dress was a gorgeous robe of Spanish velvet, rich in +embroideries of gold and silver; the suite of rooms which was to be hers +as Queen was already ready, with its splendours of crimson and gold +furnishing. The greatest ladies in France were now proud to act as her +tire-women; and princes and ambassadors flocked to Fontainebleau to pay +her homage. + +The last days of Holy Week it had been arranged that she should spend in +devotion at Paris, and Henri was her escort the greater part of the way. +When they parted on the banks of the Seine they wept in each other's +arms, while Gabrielle, full of nameless forebodings, clung to her lover +and begged him to take her back to Fontainebleau. But with a final +embrace he tore himself away; and with streaming eyes Gabrielle +continued her journey, full of fears as to its issue; for had not a seer +of Piedmont told her that the marriage would never take place; and other +diviners, whom she had consulted, warned her that she would die young, +and never call Henri husband? + +Two days later Gabrielle heard Mass at the Church of St Germain +l'Auxerrois; and on returning to the Deanery, her aunt's home, became +seriously ill. She grew rapidly worse; her sufferings were terrible to +witness; and on Good Friday she was delivered of a dead child. To quote +an eye-witness, "She lingered until six o'clock in very great pain, the +like of which doctors and surgeons had never seen before. In her agony +she tore her face, and injured herself in other parts of her body." +Before dawn broke on the following day she drew her last breath. + +When news of her illness reached the King, he flew to her swift as his +horse could carry him, only to meet couriers on his way who told him +that Madame was already dead; and to find, when at last he reached St +Germain l'Auxerrois, the door of the room in which she lay barred +against him. He could not take her living once more into his arms; he +was not allowed to see her dead. + +Henri was as a man who is mad with grief; he was inconsolable.. None +dared even to approach him with words of pity and comfort. For eight +days he shut himself in a black-draped room, himself clothed in black; +and he wrote to his sister, "The root of my love is dead; there will be +no Spring for me any more." Three months later he was making love to +Gabrielle's successor, Henriette d'Entragues! + +Thus perished in tragedy Gabrielle d'Estrées, the creature of sunshine, +who won the bravest heart in Europe, and carried her conquest to the +very foot of a throne. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +A QUEEN OF HEARTS + +If ever woman was born for love and for empire over the hearts of men it +was surely Jeanne Bécu, who first opened her eyes one August day in the +year 1743, at dreary Vaucouleurs, in Joan of Arc's country, and who was +fated to dance her light-hearted way through the palace of a King to the +guillotine. + +Scarcely ever has woman, born to such beauty and witchery, been cradled +less auspiciously. Her reputed father was a scullion, her mother a +sempstress. For grandfather she had Fabien Bécu, who left his +frying-pans in a Paris kitchen to lead Jeanne Husson, a fellow-servant, +to the altar. Such was the ignoble strain that flowed in the veins of +the Vaucouleurs beauty, who five-and-twenty years later was playfully +pulling the nose of the fifteenth Louis, and queening it in his palaces +with a splendour which Marie Antoinette herself never surpassed. + +From her sordid home Jeanne was transported at the age of six to a +convent, where she spent nine years in rebellion against rules and +punishments, until "the golden head emerged at last from black woollen +veil and coarse unstarched bands, the exquisite form from shapeless, +hideous robe, the perfect little feet from abominable yellow shoes," to +play first the rôle of lady's maid to a wealthy widow, and, when she +wearied (as she quickly did) of coiffing hair, to learn the arts of +millinery. + +"Picture," says de Goncourt, "the glittering shop, where all day long +charming idlers and handsome great gentlemen lounged and ogled; the +pretty milliner tripping through the streets, her head covered by a big, +black _calèche_, whence her golden curls escaped, her round, dainty +waist defined by a muslin-frilled pinafore, her feet in little +high-heeled, buckled shoes, and in her hand a tiny fan, which she uses +as she goes--and then imagine the conversations, proposals, replies!" + +Such was Jeanne Bécu in the first bloom of her dainty beauty, the +prettiest grisette who ever set hearts fluttering in Paris streets; with +laughter dancing in her eyes, a charming pertness at her red lips, grace +in every movement, and the springtide of youth racing through her veins. + +When Voltaire first saw her portrait, he exclaimed, "The original was +fashioned for the gods." And we cannot wonder, as we look on the +ravishing beauty of the face that wrung this eloquent tribute from the +cold-blooded cynic--the tender, melting violet of the eyes, with their +sweeping brown lashes, under the exquisite arch of brown eyebrows, the +dainty little Greek nose, the bent bow of the delicious tiny mouth, the +perfect oval of the face, the complexion "fair and fresh as an +infant's," and a glorious halo of golden hair, a dream of fascinating +curls and tendrils. + +It was to this bewitching picture, "with the perfume and light as of a +goddess of love," that Jean du Barry, self-styled Comte, adventurer and +roué, succumbed at a glance. But du Barry's tenure of her heart, if +indeed he ever touched it at all, was brief; for the moment Louis XV. +set eyes on the ravishing girl he determined to make the prize his own, +a superior claim to which the Comte perforce yielded gracefully. + +Thus, in 1768, we find Jeanne Bécu--or "Mademoiselle Vaubarnier," as she +now called herself--transported by a bound to the Palace of Versailles +and to the first place in the favour of the King, having first gone +through the farce of a wedding ceremony with du Barry's brother, +Guillaume, a husband whom she first saw on the marriage morning, and on +whom she looked her last at the church door. + +Then followed for the maid of the kitchen a few years of such Queendom +and splendour as have seldom fallen to the lot of any lady cradled in a +palace--the idolatrous worship of a King, the intoxication of the power +that only beauty thus enshrined can wield, the glitter of priceless +jewels, rarest laces, and richest satins and silks, the flash of gold on +dinner and toilet-table, an army of servants in sumptuous liveries, the +fawning of great Court ladies, the courtly flatteries of princes--every +folly and extravagance that money could purchase or vanity desire. + +Six years of such intoxicating life and then--the end. Louis is lying on +his death-bed and, with fear in his eyes and a tardy penitence on his +lips, is saying to her, "Madame, it is time that we should part." And, +indeed, the hour of parting had arrived; for a few days later he drew +his last wicked breath, and Madame du Barry was under orders to retire +to a convent. But her grief for the dead King was as brief as her love +for him had been small; for within a few months, we find her installed +in her beautiful country home, Lucienne, ready for fresh conquests, and +eager to drain the cup of pleasure to the last drop. Nor was there any +lack of ministers to the vanity of the woman who had now reached the +zenith of her incomparable charms. + +Among the many lovers who flocked to the country shrine of the widowed +"Queen," was Louis, Duc de Cossé, son of the Maréchal de Brissac, who, +although Madame du Barry's senior by nine years, was still in the prime +of his manhood--handsome as an Apollo and a model of the courtly graces +which distinguished the old _noblesse_ in the day of its greatest pride, +which was then so near its tragic downfall. + +De Cassé had long been a mute worshipper of Louis' beautiful "Queen," +and now that she was a free woman he was at last able to pay open homage +to her, a homage which she accepted with indifference, for at the time +her heart had strayed to Henry Seymour, although in vain. The woman +whose beauty had conquered all other men was powerless to raise a flame +in the breast of the cold-blooded Englishman; and, realising this, she +at last bade him farewell in a letter, pathetic in its tender dignity. +"It is idle," she wrote, "to speak of my affection for you--you know it. +But what you do not know is my pain. You have not deigned to reassure +me about that which most matters to my heart. And so I must believe that +my ease of mind, my happiness, are of little importance to you. I am +sorry that I should have to allude to them; it is for the last time." + +It was in this hour of disillusion and humiliation that she turned for +solace to de Cossé, whose touching constancy at last found its reward. +It was not long before friendship ripened into a love as ardent as his +own; and for the first time this fickle beauty, whose heart had been a +pawn in the game of ambition, knew what a beautiful and ennobling thing +true love is. + +Those were halcyon days which followed for de Cossé and the lady his +loyalty had won; days of sweet meetings and tender partings--of a union +of souls which even death was powerless to dissolve. When they could not +meet--and de Cossé's duties often kept him from her side--letters were +always on the wing between Lucienne and Paris, letters some of which +have survived to bring their fragrance to our day. + +Thus the lover writes, "A thousand thanks, a thousand thanks, dear +heart! To-day I shall be with you. Yes, I find my happiness is in being +loved by you. I kiss you a thousand times! Good-bye. I love you for +ever." In another letter we read, "Yes, dear heart, I desire so ardently +to be with you--not in spirit, my thoughts are ever with you, but +bodily--that nothing can calm my impatience. Good-bye, my darling. I +kiss you many and many times with all my heart." The curious may read at +the French Record Office many of these letters written in a bold, +flowing hand by de Cossé in the hey-day of his love. The paper is +time-stained, the ink is faded; but each sentence still palpitates with +the passion that inspired it a century and a quarter ago. + +And with this great love came new honours for de Cossé. His father's +death made him Duc de Brissac, head of one of the greatest houses in +France, owner of vast estates. He was appointed Governor of Paris and +Colonel of the King's own body-guard. He had, in fact, risen to a +perilous eminence; for the clouds of the great Revolution were already +massing in the sky, and the _sans-culotte_ crowds were straining to be +at the throats of the cursed "aristos," and to hurl Louis from his +throne. Brissac (as we must now call him) was thus an object of special +hatred, as of splendour, standing out so prominently as representative +of the hated _noblesse_. + +Other nobles, fearful of the breaking of the storm, were flying in +droves to seek safety in England and elsewhere. But when the Governor of +Paris was urged to fly, he answered proudly, "Certainly not. I shall act +according to my duty to my ancestors and myself." And, heedless of his +life, he clung to his duty and his honour, presenting a smiling face to +the scowls of hatred and envy, and spending blissful hours at Lucienne +with the woman he loved. + +Nor was she any less conscious of her danger, or less indifferent to it. +She also had become a target of hatred and scarcely veiled threats. +Watchful eyes marked every coming and going of Brissac's messengers +with their missives of love; it was discovered that Brissac's +aide-de-camp, whose life they sought, was in hiding in her house; that +she was supplying the noble emigrants with money. The climax was reached +when she boldly advertised a reward of two thousand louis for a clue to +the jewellery of which burglars had robbed her--jewels of which she +published a long and dazzling list, thus bringing to memory the days +when the late King had squandered his ill-gotten gold on her. + +The Duc, at last alarmed for her--never for himself--begged her either +to escape, or, as he wrote, to "come quickly, my darling, and take every +precaution for your valuables, if you have any left. Yes, come, and your +beauty, your kindness and magnanimity. I am ashamed of it, but I feel +weaker than you. How should I feel otherwise for the one I love best?" + +But already the hour for flight had passed. The passions of the mob were +breaking down the barriers that were now too weak to hold them in check; +the Paris streets had their first baptism of blood, prelude to the +deluge to follow; hideous, fierce-eyed crowds were clamouring at the +gates of Versailles; and de Brissac was soon on his way, a prisoner, to +Orleans. + +The blow had fallen at last, suddenly, and with crushing force. When +"Louis Hercule Timoleon de Cossé-Brissac, soldier from his birth," was +charged before the National High Court with admitting Royalists into the +Guards, he answered: "I have admitted into the King's Guards no one but +citizens who fulfilled all the conditions contained in the decree of +formation": and no other answer or plea would he deign to his accusers. + +From his Orleans prison, where he now awaited the inevitable end, he +wrote daily to his beloved lady; and every day brought him a tender and +cheering letter from her. On 11th August, 1792, he writes: "I received +this morning the best letter I have had for a long time past; none have +rejoiced my heart so much. Thank you for it. I kiss you a thousand +times. You indeed will have my last thought. Ah, my darling, why am I +not with you in a wilderness rather than in Orleans?" + +A few days later news reached Madame du Barry that her lover, with other +prisoners, was to be brought from Orleans to Paris. He would thus +actually pass her own door; she would at least see him once again, under +however tragic conditions. With what leaden steps the intervening hours +crawled by! Each sound set her heart beating furiously as if it would +choke her. Each moment was an agony of anticipation. At last she hears +the sound of coming feet. She flies to the window, piercing the dark +night with straining eyes. The sound grows nearer, a tumult of trampling +feet and hoarse cries. A mob of dark figures surges through her gates, +pours riotously up the steps and through the open door. In the hall +there is a pandemonium of cries and oaths; the door of her room is burst +open, and something is flung at her feet. She glances down; and, with a +gasp of unspeakable horror, looks down on the severed head of her lover, +red with his blood. + +The _sans-culottes_ had indeed taken a terrible revenge. They had +fallen in overwhelming numbers on the prisoners and their escort; the +soldiers had fled; and de Brissac found himself the centre of a mob, the +helpless target of a hundred murderous blows. With a knife for sole +weapon he fought valiantly, like the brave soldier he was, until a +cowardly blow from behind felled him to the ground. "Fire at me with +your pistols," he shouted, "your work will the sooner be over." A few +moments later he drew his last gallant breath, almost within sight of +the house that sheltered his beloved. + + * * * * * + +United in life, the lovers were not long to be divided. "Since that +awful day," Madame du Barry wrote to a friend, "you can easily imagine +what my grief has been. They have consummated the frightful crime, the +cause of my misery and my eternal regrets--my grief is complete--a life +which ought to have been so grand and glorious! Good God, what an end!" + +Thus cruelly deprived of all that made life worth living, she cared +little how soon the end came. "I ask nothing now of life," she wrote, +"but that it should quickly give me back to him." And her prayer was +soon to be granted. A few months after that night of horrors she herself +was awaiting the guillotine in her cell at the conciergerie. + +In vain did an Irish priest who visited her offer to secure her escape +if she would give him money to bribe her jailers. "No," she answered +with a smile, "I have no wish to escape. I am glad to die; but I will +give you money willingly on condition that you save the Duchesse de +Mortemart." And while Madame de Mortemart, daughter of the man she +loved, was making her way to safety under the priest's escort, Jeanne du +Barry was being led to the scaffold, breathing the name of the man she +had loved so well; and, however feeble the flesh, glad to follow where +he had led the way. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE REGENT'S DAUGHTER + + +Many unwomanly women have played their parts in the drama of Royal +Courts, but scarcely one, not even those Messalinas, Catherine II. of +Russia and Christina of Sweden, conducted herself with such a shameless +disregard of conventionality as Marie Louise Elizabeth d'Orléans, known +to fame as the Duchesse de Berry, who probably crowded within the brief +space of her years more wickedness than any woman who was ever cradled +in a palace. + +It is said that this libertine Duchesse was mad; and certainly he would +be a bold champion who would try to prove her sanity. But, apart from +any question of a disordered brain, there was a taint in her blood +sufficient to account for almost any lapse from conventional standards +of pure living. Her father was that Duc d'Orléans who shocked the none +too strait-laced Europe of two centuries ago by his orgies; her +grandfather was that other Orleans Duke, brother of Louis XIV., whose +passion for his minions broke the heart of his English wife, the Stuart +Princess Henriettta; and she had for mother one of the daughters of +Madame de Montespan, light-o'-love to _le Roi Soleil_. + +The offspring of such parents could scarcely have been normal; and how +far from normal Marie Louise was, this story of her singular life will +show. When her father, the Duc de Chartres, took to wife Mademoiselle de +Blois, Montespan's daughter, there were many who significantly shrugged +their shoulders and curled their lips at such a union; and one at least, +the Duc's mother, Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine, was +undisguisedly furious. She refused point-blank to be present at the +nuptials, and when her son, fresh from the altar, approached her to ask +her blessing, she retorted by giving the bridegroom a resounding slap on +the face. + +Such was the ill-omened opening to a wedded life which brought nothing +but unhappiness with it and which gave to the world some of the most +degenerate women (in addition to a son who was almost an idiot) who have +ever been cradled. + +The first of these degenerates was Marie Elizabeth, who was born one +August day in the year 1695, and who from her earliest infancy was her +father's pet and favourite. His idolatry of his first-born child, +indeed, is one of the most inscrutable things in a life full of the +abnormal, and in later years afforded much material for the tongue of +scandal. He was inseparable from her; her lightest wish was law to him; +he nursed her through her childish illnesses with more than the devotion +of a mother; and, as she grew to girlhood, he worshipped at the shrine +of her young beauty with the adoration of a lover and put her charms on +canvas in the guise of a pagan goddess. + +The Duc's affection for his daughter, indeed, was so extravagant that +it was made the subject of scores of scurrilous lampoons to which even +Voltaire contributed, and was a delicious morsel of ill-natured gossip +in all the _salons_ and cabarets of Paris. At fifteen the princess was +already a woman--tall, handsome, well-formed, with brilliant eyes and +the full lips eloquent of a sensuous nature. Already she had had her +initiation into the vices that proved her undoing; for in a Court noted +for its free-living, she was known for her love of the table and the +wine-bottle. + +Such was the Duc's eldest daughter when she was ripe for the altar and +became the object of an intrigue in which her scheming father, the Royal +Duchesses, the Duc de Saint-Simon, the King himself, and the Jesuits all +took a part, and the prize of which was the hand of the young Duc de +Berry, a younger son of the Dauphin, the grandson of King Louis. + +Over the plotting and counterplotting, the rivalries and jealousies +which followed, we must pass. It must suffice to record that the King's +consent was at last won by the Orleans faction; Madame de Maintenon was +persuaded to smile on the alliance; and, one July day, the nuptials of +the Duc de Berry and the Orleans Princess were celebrated in the +presence of the Royal family and the Court. A regal supper followed; +and, the last toast drunk, the young couple were escorted to their room +with all the stately, if scarcely decent, ceremonial which in those days +inaugurated the life of the newly-wedded. + +Seldom has there been a more singular union than this of the Duc +d'Orléans' prodigal daughter with the almost imbecile grandson of the +French King. The Duc de Berry, it is true, was good to look upon. Tall, +fair-haired, with a good complexion and splendid health, he was +physically, at twenty-four, no unworthy descendant of the great Louis. +He had, too, many amiable qualities calculated to win affection; but he +was mentally little better than a clown. His education had been +shamefully neglected; he had been suppressed and kept in the background +until, in spite of his manhood, he had all the shyness, awkwardness and +dullness of a backward child. + +As he himself confessed to Madame de Saint-Simon, "They have done all +they could to stifle my intelligence. They did not want me to have any +brains. I was the youngest, and yet ventured to argue with my brother. +Afraid of the results of my courage, they crushed me; they taught me +nothing except to hunt and gamble; they succeeded in making a fool of +me, one incapable of anything and who will yet be the laughing-stock of +everybody." + +Such was the weak-kneed husband to whom was now allied the most +precocious, headstrong young woman in all France; who, although still +short of her sixteenth birthday, was a past-mistress of the arts of +pleasure, and was now determined to have her full fling at any cost. She +had been thoroughly spoiled by her too indulgent father, who was even +then the most powerful man in France after the King; and she was in no +mood to brook restraint from anyone, even from Louis himself. + +The pleasures of the table seem now to have absorbed the greater part +of her life. Read what her grandmother, the Princess Palatine, says of +her: "Madame de Berry does not eat much at dinner. How, indeed, can she? +She never leaves her room before noon, and spends her mornings in eating +all kinds of delicacies. At two o'clock she sits down to an elaborate +dinner, and does not rise from the table until three. At four she is +eating again--fruit, salad, cheese, etc. She takes no exercise whatever. +At ten she has a heavy supper, and retires to bed between one and two in +the morning. She likes very strong brandy." And in this last sentence we +have the true secret of her undoing. The Royal Princess was, even tat +this early age, a confirmed dipsomaniac, with her brandy bottle always +by her side; and was seldom sober, from rising to retiring. + +To such a woman, a slave to the senses, a husband like the Duc de Berry, +unredeemed by a vestige of manliness, could make no appeal. She wanted +"men" to pay her homage; and, like Catherine of Russia, she had them in +abundance--lovers who were only too ready to pay court to a beautiful +Princess, who might one day be Queen of France. For the Dauphin was now +dead; his eldest son, the Duc de Bourgogne, had followed him to the +grave a few months later. Prince Philip had renounced his right to the +French crown when he accepted that of Spain; and, between her husband +and the throne there was now but one frail life, that of the +three-year-old Duc d'Anjou, a child so delicate that he might easily not +survive his great-grandfather, Louis, whose hand was already relaxing +its grasp of the sceptre he had held so long. + +On the intrigues with which this Queen _in posse_ beguiled her days, it +is perhaps well not to look too closely. They are unsavoury, as so much +of her life was. Her lovers succeeded one another with quite bewildering +rapidity, and with little regard either to rank or good-looks. One +special favourite of our Sultana was La Haye, a Court equerry, whom she +made Chamberlain, and who is pictured by Saint-Simon as "tall, bony, +with an awkward carriage and an ugly face; conceited, stupid, +dull-witted, and only looking at all passable when on horseback." + +So infatuated was the Duchesse with her ill-favoured equerry that +nothing less would please her than an elopement to Holland--a proposal +which so scared La Haye that, in his alarm, he went forthwith to the +lady's father and let the cat out of the bag. "Why on earth does my +daughter want to run away to Holland?" the Due exclaimed with a laugh. +"I should have thought she was having quite a good enough time here!" +And so would anyone else have thought. + +And while his Duchesse was thus dallying with her multitude of lovers +and stupefying herself with her brandy bottle, her husband was driven to +his wits' end by her exhibitions of temper, as by her infidelities. In +vain he stormed and threatened to have her shut up in a convent. All her +retort was to laugh in his face and order him out of her apartment. +Violent scenes were everyday incidents. "The last one," says +Saint-Simon, "was at Rambouillet; and, by a regrettable mishap, the +Duchesse received a kick." + +The Duc's laggard courage was spurred to fight more than one duel for +his wife's tarnished fame. Of one of these sorry combats, Maurepas +writes, "Her conduct with her father became so notorious that His Grace +the Duc de Berry, disgusted at the scandal, forced the Duc d'Orléans to +fight a duel on the terrace at Marly. They were, however, soon +separated, and the whole affair was hushed up." + +But release from such an intolerable life was soon coming to the +ill-used Duc. One day, when hunting, he was thrown from his horse, and +ruptured a blood-vessel. Fearful of alarming the King, now near the end +of his long life, he foolishly made light of his accident, and only +consented to see a doctor when it was too late. When the doctors were at +last summoned he was a dying man, his body drained of blood, which was +later found in bowls concealed in various parts of his bedroom. With his +last breath, he said to his confessor, "Ah, reverend father, I alone am +the real cause of my death." + +Thus, one May day in 1714, the Duchesse found herself a widow, within +four years of her wedding-day; and the last frail barrier was removed +from the path of self-indulgence and low passions to which her life was +dedicated. When, with the aged King's death in the following year, her +father became Regent of France, her position as daughter of the virtual +sovereign was now more splendid than ever; and before she had worn her +widow's weeds a month, she had plunged again, still deeper, into +dissipation, with Madame de Mouchy, one of her waiting-women, as chief +minister to her pleasures. + +It was at this time, before her husband had been many weeks in his +grave, that the Comte de Riom, the last and most ill-favoured of her +many lovers, came on the scene. Nothing but a perverted taste could +surely have seen any attraction in such a lover as this grand-nephew of +the Duc de Lauzun, of whom the austere and disapproving Palatine Duchess +draws the following picture: "He has neither figure nor good-looks. He +is more like an ogre than a man, with his face of greenish yellow. He +has the nose, eyes, and mouth of a Chinaman; he looks, in fact, more +like a baboon than the Gascon he really is. Conceited and stupid, his +large head seems to sit on his broad shoulders, owing to the shortness +of his neck. He is shortsighted and altogether is preternaturally ugly; +and he appears so ill that he might be suffering from some loathsome +disease." + +To this unflattering description, Saint-Simon adds the fact that his +"large, pasty face was so covered by pimples that it looked like one +large abscess.'" Such, then, was the repulsive lover who found favour in +the eyes of the Regent's daughter, and for whom she was ready to discard +all her legion of more attractive wooers. + +With the coming of de Riom, the Duchesse entered on the last and worst +stage of her mis-spent life. Strange tales are told of the orgies of +which the Luxembourg, the splendid palace her father had given her, was +now the scene--orgies in which Madame de Mouchy and a Jesuit, one Father +Ringlet, took a part, and over which the evil de Riom ruled as "Lord of +merry disports." The Duchesse, now sunk to the lowest depths of +degradation, was the veriest puppet in his strong hands, flattered by +his coarse attentions and submitting to rudeness and ridicule such as +any grisette, with a grain of pride, would have resented. + +When these scandalous "carryings-on" at the Luxembourg Palace reached +the Regent's ears and he ventured to read his daughter a severe lecture +on her conduct, she retaliated by snapping her fingers at him and +telling him in so many words to mind his own business. And to the tongue +of scandal that found voice everywhere, she turned a contemptuous ear. +She even locked and barred her palace gates to keep prying eyes at a +safe distance. + +But, although she thus defied man, she was powerless to stay the steps +of fate. Her health, robust as it had been, was shattered by her +excesses; and when a serious illness assailed her, she was horrified to +find death so uncomfortably near. In her alarm she called for a priest +to shrive her; and the Abbé Languet came at the summons to bring her the +consolations of the Church. He refused point-blank, however, to give the +sinner absolution until the palace was purged of the presence of de Riom +and Madame de Mouchy, the arch-partners in her vices. + +To this suggestion the Duchesse, perilous as her condition was, returned +an uncompromising "No!" If the Abbé would not absolve her--well, there +were other priests, less exacting, who would; and one such priest of +elastic conscience, a Franciscan friar, was summoned to her bedside. +Then ensued an unseemly struggle around the dying woman's bed, in which +the Regent, Cardinal Noailles, Madame de Mouchy, and the rival clerics +all played their parts. + +While the obliging friar remained in the room awaiting an opportunity to +administer the last Sacrament, the Abbé and his curates kept watch at +the bedroom door to see that he did no such thing; and thus the siege +lasted for four days and nights until, the patient's crisis over, the +services of the Church were summarily dispensed with. + +With the return of health, the Duchesse's piety quickly evaporated. It +is true that she had had a fright; and, by way of modified penitence, +she vowed to dress herself and her household in white for six months and +also to make a husband of her lover. Within a few weeks, de Riom led the +Regent's daughter to the altar, thus throwing the cloak of the Church +over the licence of the past. + +Now that our Princess was once more a "respectable" woman, she returned +gladly to her old life of indulgence; until the Duchess Palatine +exclaimed in alarm, "I am afraid her excesses in drinking and eating +will kill her." And never was prediction more sure of early fulfilment. +When she was not keeping company with her brandy bottle, she was gorging +herself with delicacies of all kinds, from patties and fricassées to +peaches and nectarines, washed down with copious draughts of iced beer. + +As a last desperate effort to reform her, at the eleventh hour, the +Regent packed de Riom off to his regiment. A few days later, the +Duchesse invited her father to a sumptuous banquet on the terrace at +Meudon, at which, regardless of her delicate health, she ate and drank +more voraciously than ever. The same evening she was taken ill; and +when, on the following Sunday, her mother-in-law, the Duchess, visited +her, she found the patient in a deplorable condition--wasted to a +"shadow" and burning with fever. "She was suffering such horrible pains +in her toes and under the feet," says the Duchess, "that tears came to +her eyes. She looked so very bad that three doctors were called in +consultation. They resolved to bleed her; but it was difficult to bring +her to it, for her pains were so great that the least touch of the +sheets made her shriek." + +A few days later, in the early hours of 17th July, 1719, the Duchesse de +Berry passed away in her sleep. The life which she had wasted with such +shameless prodigality closed in peace; and at the moment when she was +being laid to rest in the Church of St Denis, Madame de Mouchy, blazing +in the dead woman's jewels, was laughing merrily over her +champagne-glass at a dinner-party to which she had invited all the +sharers in the orgies which had made the Palace of the Luxembourg +infamous! + +The moral of this pitifully squandered life needs no pointing out. And +on reviewing it one can only in charity echo the words spoken by Madame +de Meilleraye of another sinner, the Chevalier de Savoie, "For my part, +I believe the good God must think twice before sending one born of such +parents to the nether regions." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +A PRINCESS OF MYSTERY + +In the spring of the year 1772 the fashionable world of Paris was full +of speculation and gossip about a stranger, as mysterious as she was +beautiful, who had appeared from no one knew where, in its midst, and +who called herself the Princess Aly Émettée de Vlodimir. That she was a +woman of rank and distinction admitted of no question. Her queenly +carriage and the graciousness and dignity of her deportment were in +keeping with the Royal character she assumed; but more remarkable than +these evidences of high station was her beauty, which in its brilliance +eclipsed that of the fairest women of Versailles and the Tuileries. + +Tall, with a figure of exquisite modelling and grace, her daintily +poised head crowned with a coronal of golden-brown hair, with a face of +perfect oval, dimpled cheeks as delicately tinted as a rose, her chief +glory lay in her eyes, large and lustrous, which had the singular +quality of changing colour--"now blue, now black, which gave to their +dreamy expression a peculiar, mysterious air." + +Who was she, this woman of beauty and mystery? It was rumoured that she +was a Circassian Princess, "the heroine of strange romances." She was +living luxuriously in a fine house in the most fashionable quarter of +Paris, in company with two German "Barons"--one, the Baron von Embs, who +claimed to be her cousin; the other, Baron von Schenk, who appeared to +play the rôle of guardian. To her _salon_ in the Ile St Louis were +flocking many of the greatest men in France, infatuated by her beauty, +and paying homage to her charms. To a man, they adored the mysterious +lady--from Prince Ojinski and other illustrious refugees from Poland to +the Comte de Rochefort-Velcourt, the Duke of Limburg's representative at +the French Court, and the wealthy old _beau_ M. de Marine, who, it was +said, placed his long purse at her disposal. + +But while the men were thus her slaves, the women tossed their heads +contemptuously at their dangerous rival. She was an adventuress, they +declared with one voice; and great was their satisfaction when, one day, +news came that the Baron von Embs had been arrested for debt and that, +on investigation, he proved to be no Baron at all, but the +good-for-nothing son of a Ghent tradesman. + +The "bubble" had soon burst, and the attentions of the police became so +embarrassing that the Princess was glad to escape from the scene of her +brief triumphs with her cavaliers (Von Embs' liberty having been +purchased by that "credulous old fool," de Marine) to Frankfort, leaving +a wake of debts behind. + +Arrived at Frankfort, the fair Circassian resumed her luxurious mode of +life, carrying a part of her retinue of admirers with her, and making it +known that she was daily expecting a large remittance from her good +friend, the Shah of Persia. And it was not long before, thanks to the +offices of de Rochefort-Velcourt, she had at her feet no less a +personage than Philip, Duke of Limburg, and Prince of the Empire, one of +those petty German potentates who assumed more than the airs and +arrogance of kings. Though his duchy was no larger than an English +county, Philip had his ambassadors at the Courts of Vienna and +Versailles; and though he had neither courtiers, army, nor exchequer, he +lavished his titles of nobility and surrounded himself with as much +state and ceremonial as any Tsar or Emperor. + +But exalted and serene as was His Highness, he was caught as helplessly +in the toils of the Princess Aly as any lovesick boy; and within a week +of making his first bow had her installed in his Castle of Oberstein, +after satisfying the most clamorous of her creditors with borrowed +money. That there might be no question of obligation, the Princess +repaid him with the most lavish promises to redeem his heavily mortgaged +estate with the millions she was daily expecting from Persia, and to use +her great influence with Tsar and Sultan to support his claim to the +Schleswig and Holstein duchies. And that he might be in no doubt as to +her ability to discharge these promises, she showed him letters, +addressed to her in the friendliest of terms by these august personages. + +Each day in the presence of this most alluring of princesses forged new +fetters for the susceptible Duke, until one day she announced to him, +with tears streaming down her pretty cheeks, that she had received a +letter recalling her to Persia--to be married. The crucial hour had +arrived. The Duke, reduced to despair, begs her to accept his own +exalted hand in marriage, vowing that, if she refuses, he will "shut +himself up in a cloister"; and is only restored to a measure of sanity +when she promises to consider his offer. + +When Hornstein, the Duke's ambassador to Vienna, appears on the scene, +full of suspicion and doubts, she makes an equally easy conquest of him. +She announces to his gratified ears her wish to become a Catholic; +flatters him by begging him to act as her instructor in the creed that +is so dear to him; and she reveals to him "for the first time" the true +secret of her identity. She is really, she says, the Princess of Azov, +heiress to vast estates, which may come to her any day; and the first +use she intends to make of her millions is to fill the empty coffers of +the Limburg duchy. + +Hornstein is not only converted; he becomes as ardent an admirer as his +master, the Duke. The Princess takes her place as the coming Duchess of +Limburg, much to the disgust of his subjects, who show their feelings by +hissing when she appears in public. Her hour of triumph has +arrived--when, like a bolt from the blue, an anonymous letter comes to +Hornstein revealing the story of her past doings in several capitals of +Europe, and branding her as an "impostor." + +For a time the Duke treats these anonymous slanders with scorn. He +refuses to believe a word against his divinity, the beautiful, high-born +woman who is to crown his life's happiness and, incidentally, to save +him from bankruptcy. But gradually the poison begins to work, +supplemented as it is by the suspicions and discontent of his subjects. +At last he summons up courage to ask an explanation--to beg her to +assure him that the charges against her are as false as he believes +them. + +She listens to him with quiet dignity until he has finished, and then +replies, with tears in her eyes, that she is not unprepared for +disloyalty from a man who is so obviously the slave of false friends and +of public opinion, but that she had hoped that he would at least have +some pity and consideration for a woman who was about to become the +mother of his child. This unexpected announcement, with its appeal to +his manhood, proves more eloquent than a world of proofs and +protestations. The Duke's suspicions vanish in face of the news that the +woman he loves is to become the mother of his child, and in a moment he +is at her knees imploring her pardon, and uttering abject apologies. He +is now more deeply than ever in her toils, ready to defy the world in +defence of the Princess he adores and can no longer doubt. + +It is at this stage that a man who was to play such an important part in +the Princess's life first crosses her path--one Domanski, a handsome +young Pole, whose passionate and ill-fated patriotism had driven him +from his native land to find an asylum, like many another Polish +refugee, in the Limburg duchy. He had heard much of the romantic story +of the Princess Aly, and was drawn by sympathy, as by the rumour of her +remarkable beauty, to seek an interview with her, during her visit to +Mannheim. Such a meeting could have but one issue for the romantic Pole. +He lost both head and heart at sight of the lovely and gracious +Princess, and from that moment became the most devoted of all her +slaves. + +When she returned to Oberstein he was swift to follow her and to install +himself under her castle walls, where he could catch an occasional +glimpse of her, or, by good-fortune, have a few blissful moments in her +company. Indeed, it was not long before stories began to be circulated +among the good folk of Oberstein of strange meetings between the +mysterious young stranger who had come to live in their midst and an +equally mysterious lady. "The postman," it was rumoured, "often sees him +on the road leading to the castle, talking in a shadow with someone +enveloped in a long, black, hooded cloak, whom he once thought he +recognised as the Princess." + +No wonder tongues wagged in Oberstein. What could be the meaning of +these secret assignations between the Princess, who was the destined +bride of their Duke, and the obscure young refugee? It was a delicious +bit of scandal to add to the many which had already gathered round the +"adventuress." + +But there was a greater surprise in store for the Obersteiners, as for +the world outside their walls. Soon it began to be rumoured that the +Duke's bride-to-be was no obscure Circassian Princess; this was merely +a convenient cloak to conceal her true identity, which was none less +than that of daughter of an Empress! She was, in fact, the child of +Elizabeth, Tsarina of Russia, and her peasant husband, Razoum; and in +proof of her exalted birth she actually had in her possession the will +in which the late Empress bequeathed to her the throne of Russia. + +How these rumours originated none seemed to know. Was it Domanski who +set them circulating? We know, at least, that they soon became public +property, and that, strangely enough, they won credence everywhere. The +very people who had branded her "adventuress" and hissed her in the +streets, now raised cheers to the future Empress of Russia; while the +Duke, delighted at such a wonderful transformation in the woman he +loved, was more eager than ever to hasten the day when he could call her +his own. As for the Princess, she accepted her new dignities with the +complaisance to be expected from the daughter of a Tsarina. There was +now no need to refer the sceptics to Circassia for proof of her station +and her potential wealth. As heiress to one of the greatest thrones of +Europe, she could at last reveal herself in her true character, without +any need for dissimulation. + +The curtain was now ready to rise on the crowning act of her life-drama, +an act more brilliant than any she had dared to imagine. Russia was +seething with discontent and rebellion; the throne of Catherine II. was +trembling; one revolt had followed another, until Pugatchef had led his +rabble of a hundred thousand serfs to the very gates of Moscow--only, +when success seemed assured, to meet disaster and death. If the +ex-bandit could come so near to victory, an uprising headed by +Elizabeth's own daughter and heiress could scarcely fail to hurl +Catherine from her throne. + +It would have been difficult to find a more powerful ally in this daring +project than Prince Charles Radziwill, chief of Polish patriots, who was +then, as luck would have it, living in exile at Mannheim, and who hated +Russia as only a Pole ever hated her. To Radziwill, then, Domanski went +to offer the help of his Princess for the liberation of Poland and the +capture of Catherine's throne. + +Here indeed was a valuable pawn to play in Radziwill's game of vengeance +and ambition. But the Prince was by no means disposed to snatch the bait +hurriedly. Experience had taught him caution. He must count the cost +carefully before taking the step, and while writing to the Princess, "I +consider it a miracle of Providence that it has provided so great a +heroine for my unhappy country," he took his departure to Venice, +suggesting that the Princess should meet him there, where matters could +be more safely and successfully discussed. Thus it was that the Princess +said her last good-bye to her ducal lover, full of promises for the +future when she should have won her throne, and as "Countess of +Pinneberg" set forth with a retinue of followers to Venice, where she +was regally received at the French embassy. + +Here she tasted the first sweets of her coming Queendom--holding her +Courts, to which distinguished Poles and Frenchmen flocked to pay homage +to the Empress-to-be, and having daily conferences with Radziwill, who +treated her as already a Queen. That her purse was empty and the bankers +declined to honour her drafts was a matter to smile at, since the way +now seemed clear to a crown, with all it meant of wealth and power. When +the Venetian Government grew uneasy at the plotting within its borders, +she went to Ragusa, where she blossomed into the "Princess of all the +Russias," assumed the sceptre that was soon to be hers, issued +proclamations as a sovereign, and crowned these regal acts by sending a +ukase to Alexis Orloff, the Russian Commander-in-Chief, "signed +Elizabeth II., and instructing him to communicate its contents to the +army and fleet under his command." + +Once more, however, fortune played the Princess a scurvy trick, just +when her favour seemed most assured. One night a man was seen scaling +the garden-wall of the palace she was occupying. The guard fired at him, +and the following morning Domanski was found, lying wounded and +unconscious in the garden. The tongues of scandal were set wagging +again, old suspicions were revived, and once again the word +"adventuress"--and worse--passed from mouth to mouth. The men who had +fawned on her now avoided her; worse still, Radziwill, his latent +suspicions thoroughly awakened, and confirmed by a hundred stories and +rumours that came to his ears, declined to have anything more to do +with her, and returned in disgust to Germany. + +But even this crushing rebuff was powerless to damp the spirits and +ambition of the "adventuress," who shook the dust of Ragusa off her +dainty feet, and went off to Rome, where she soon cast her spell over +Sir William Hamilton, our Ambassador there, who gave her the warmest +hospitality. "For several days," we learn, "she reigns like a Queen in +the _salon_ of the Ambassador, out of whose penchant for beautiful women +she has no difficulty in wiling a passport that enables her to enter the +most exclusive circles of Roman society." + +In Rome she lays aside her regal trappings, and wins the respect of all +by her unostentatious living and her prodigal charities. She becomes a +favourite at the Vatican; Cardinals do homage to her goodness, with +perhaps a pardonable eye to her beauty. But behind the brave and pious +front she thus shows to the world her heart is growing more heavy day by +day. Poverty is at her door in the guise of importunate creditors, her +servants are clamouring for overdue wages, and consumption, which for +long has threatened her, now shows its presence in hectic cheeks and a +hacking cough. Fortune seems at last to have abandoned her; and it +requires all her courage to sustain her in this hour of darkness. + +In her extremity she appeals to Sir William Hamilton for a loan, much as +a Queen might confer a favour on a subject, and Hamilton, pleased to be +of service to so fair and pious a lady, sends her letter to his Leghorn +banker, Mr John Dick, with instructions to arrange the matter. + + * * * * * + +While the Princess Aly was practising piety and cultivating Cardinals in +Rome, with an empty purse and a pain-racked body to make a mockery of +her claim to a crown, away in distant Russia Catherine II. was nursing a +terrible revenge on the woman who had dared to usurp her position and +threaten her throne. The succession of revolutions, at which she had at +first smiled scornfully, had now roused the tigress in her. She would +show the world that she was no woman to be trifled with, and the first +victim of her vengeance should be that brazen Princess who dared to +masquerade as "Elizabeth II." + +She sent imperative orders to her trusted and beloved Orloff, fresh from +his crushing defeat of the Turkish fleet, to seize her at any cost, even +if he had to raze Ragusa to the ground; and these orders she knew would +be executed to the letter. For was not Orloff the man whose strong hands +had strangled her husband and placed the crown on her head; also her +most devoted slave? He was, it is true, the biggest scoundrel (as he was +also one of the handsomest men) in Europe, a man ready to stoop to any +infamy, and thus the best possible tool for such an infamous purpose; +but he was also her greatest admirer, eager to step into the place of +"chief favourite" from which his brother Gregory had just been +dismissed. + +When, however, Orloff went to Ragusa, with his soldiers at his back, he +found that the Princess had already flown, leaving no trace behind her. +He ransacked Sicily in vain, and it was only when Sir William +Hamilton's letter to his Leghorn banker came to his hands that he +discovered that she was in Rome, a much safer asylum than Ragusa. It was +hopeless now to capture her by force; he must try diplomacy, and, by the +hands of an aide-de-camp, he sent her a letter in which he informed her +that he had received her ukase and was anxious to pay due homage to the +future Empress of Russia. + +Such was the "Judas" message Kristenef, Orloff's emissary, carried to +the Princess, whom he found in a pitiful condition, wasted to a shadow +by disease and starvation--"in a room cold and bare, whose only +furniture was a leather sofa, on which she lay in a high fever, coughing +convulsively." To such pathetic straits was "Elizabeth II." reduced when +Kristenef came with his fawning airs and lying tongue to tell her that +Alexis Orloff, the greatest man in Russia, had instructed him to offer +her the throne of the Tsars, and, as an earnest of his loyalty, to beg +her acceptance of a loan of eleven thousand ducats. + +In vain did Domanski, who was still by her side, warn her against the +smooth-tongued envoy. She was flattered by such unexpected homage, her +eyes were dazzled by the near prospect of the coveted crown which was to +be hers, at last, just when hope seemed dead. She would accept Orloff's +invitation to go to Pisa to meet him. "As for you," she said, "if you +are afraid, you can stay behind. I am going where Destiny calls me." + +This revolution in her fortunes acted like magic. New life coursed +through her veins, colour returned to her cheeks, and brightness to her +eyes, as one February day in 1775 she left Rome, with the devoted +Domanski for companion and a brilliant escort, for Pisa, where Orloff +greeted her as an Empress. He gave regal fêtes in her honour and filled +her ears with honeyed and flattering words. + +Affecting to be dazzled by her beauty, he even dared to make passionate +love to her, which no man of his day could do more effectively than this +handsomest of the Orloffs; and so infatuated was the poor Princess by +the adoration of her handsome lover and the assurance of the throne he +was to give her, that she at last consented to share that throne with +him, and by his side went through a marriage ceremony, at which two of +his officers masqueraded as officiating priests. + +Nothing remained now between her and the goal of her desires, except to +make the journey to Russia as speedily as possible, and a few hours +after the wedding banquet we see her in the Admiral's launch, with +Orloff and Domanski and a brilliant suite of officers, leaving Leghorn +for the Russian flagship, where she was received with the blare of bands +and the booming of artillery. The crowning moment arrived when, as she +was being hoisted to the deck in a gorgeous chair suspended from the +yard-arm, her future sailors greeted her with thunders of shouts, "Long +live the Empress!" + +The moment she set foot on deck she was seized, handcuffs were snapped +on her wrists, and she was carried a helpless captive to a cabin. At the +same moment Domanski was overpowered before he had time to use his +sword, and made a prisoner. + +The Princess's cries for Orloff, her husband and saviour, are met with +derision. Orloff she is told is himself a prisoner. He has, in fact, +vanished, his dastardly mission executed; and she never saw him again. +Two months later the victim of a man's treachery and a woman's vengeance +is looking with tear-dimmed eyes on "her capital" through a barred +window of a cell in the fortress of Saints Peter and Paul. + +Over the tragic closing of her days we may not dwell long. The scene is +too pitiful, too harrowing. In vain she implores an interview with +Catherine, who blazes into anger at the request. "The impudence of the +wretch," she exclaims, "is beyond all bounds! She must be mad. Tell her +if she wishes any improvement in her lot to cease the comedy she is +playing." Prince Galitzin, Grand Chancellor, exerts all his skill in +vain to force a confession of imposture from her. To his wiles and +threats alike she opposes a dignified and calm front. She persists in +the story of her birth; refuses to admit that she is an impostor. + +Even when she is flung into a loathsome cell, with bread and water for +diet, she does not waver a jot in her demeanour of dignity or in her +Royal claims. Only when she is charged with being the daughter of a +Prague innkeeper does she allow indignation to master her, as she +retorts, "I have never been in Prague in my life, and if I knew who had +thus slandered me I would scratch his eyes out." Domanski, too, proves +equally intractable; even the promise of marriage to her will not wring +from him a word that might discredit his beloved Princess. + +But although the Princess keeps such a brave heart under conditions that +might well have broken it, her spirit is powerless against the insidious +disease that is working such havoc with her body. In her damp, noisome +cell consumption makes rapid headway. Her strength ebbs daily; the end +is coming swiftly near. She makes a last dying appeal to Catherine to +see her if but for a few moments, but the appeal falls on deaf ears. +When she sends for a priest to minister to her last hours, and, by +Catherine's orders, he makes a final attempt to wrest her secret from +her, she moans with her failing breath, "Say the prayers for the dead. +That is all there is for you to do here." + +Four days later death came to her release. Catherine's throne was safe +from this danger at least, and she was left to dalliance with her legion +of lovers, while the woman on whom she had wreaked such terrible +vengeance lay deeply buried in the courtyard of her prison, the very +soldiers who dug her grave being sworn to secrecy. Thus in mystery her +life opened, and in secrecy it closed. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE KING AND THE "LITTLE DOVE" + +A savage murmur ran through the market-place of Bergen, one summer +morning in the year 1507, as Chancellor Valkendorf made his pompous way +along the avenues of stalls laden with their country produce, his +passage followed by scowling eyes and low-spoken maledictions. + +There could not have been a more unwelcome visitor than this cold-eyed, +supercilious Chancellor, unless it were his master, Christian, the +Danish Prince who had come to rule Norway with the iron hand, and to +stamp out the fires of rebellion against the alien rule that were always +smouldering, when not leaping into flame. Bergen itself had been the +scene of the latest revolt against oppressive and unjust taxes, and the +insolent Valkendorf, who was now taking his morning stroll in the +market-place, was fresh from suppressing it with a rough hand which had +left many a smart and longing for vengeance behind it. + +But the Chancellor could afford to smile at such evidences of +unpopularity. He knew that he was the most hated man in Norway--after +his master--but he had executed his mission well and was ready to do it +again. And thus it was with an air, half-amused, half-contemptuous, that +he made his progress this July morning among the booths and stalls of +the market, with eyes scornfully blind to frowns, but very wide open for +any pretty face he might chance to see. + +He had not strolled far before his eyes were arrested by as strangely +contrasted a picture as any he had ever seen. Behind one of the stalls, +heaped high with luscious, many-coloured fruits and mountains of +vegetables, were two women, each so remarkable in her different way +that, almost involuntarily, he stood rooted to the spot, gazing +open-eyed at them. The elder of the two was of gigantic stature, +towering head and shoulders over her companion, with harsh, masculine +face, massive jaw, coarse protruding lips, and black eyes which were +fixed on him in a magnetic stare, defiant and scornful--for none knew +better than she who the stranger was, and few hated him more. + +But it was not to this grim, hard-visaged Amazon that Valkendorf's eyes +were drawn, compelling as were her stature and her basilisk stare. They +quickly turned from her, with a motion of contempt, to feast on the +vision by her side--that of a girl on the threshold of young womanhood +and of a beauty that dazzled the eyes of the old voluptuary. How had she +come there and in such company, this ravishing girl on whom Nature had +lavished the last touch of virginal loveliness, this maiden with her +figure of such supple grace, the proud little oval face with its +complexion of cream and roses, the dainty head from which twin plaits +of golden hair fell almost to her knees, and the eyes blue as violets, +now veiled demurely, now opening wide to reveal their glories, enhanced +by a look of appeal, almost of fear. + +The Chancellor, who was the last man to pass by a flower so seductively +beautiful, approached the stall, undaunted by the forbidding eyes of the +giantess, Frau Sigbrit, by name, and, after making a small purchase, +sought to draw her into amiable conversation. "No," she said in answer +to his inquiries, "we are not Norwegian. We come from Holland, my +daughter and I, and we are trying to earn a little money before +returning there. But why do you ask?" she demanded almost fiercely, +putting a protecting arm around the girl, as if she would shield her +from an enemy. "You are in such a different world from ours!" + +Little by little, however, the grim face began to relax under the adroit +flatteries and courtly deference of the Chancellor--for none knew better +than he the arts of charming, when he pleased; and it was not long +before the Amazon, completely thawed, was confiding to him the most +intimate details of her history and her hopes. + +"Yes, my daughter is beautiful," she said, with a look of pride at the +girl which transfigured her face. "Many a great man has told me +so--dukes, princes, and lords. She is as fair a flower as ever grew in +Holland; and she is as sweet as she is fair. She is Dyveke, my "little +dove," the pride of my heart, my soul, my life. She is to be a Queen one +day. It has been revealed to me in my dreams. But when the day dawns it +will be the saddest in my life." And with further amiable words and a +final courtly salute, Valkendorf continued his stroll, secretly +promising himself a further acquaintance with the dragon and her "little +dove." + +This was the first of many morning strolls in the Bergen market, in +which the Chancellor spent delightful moments at Frau Sigbrit's stall, +each leaving him more and more a slave to her daughter's charms; for he +quickly found that to her physical perfections were allied a low, sweet +voice, every note of which was musical as that of a nightingale, a quiet +dignity and refinement as far removed from her station as her simple +print frock with the bunch of roses nestling in the white purity of her +bosom, and a sprightliness of wit which even her modesty could not +always repress. + +Thus it was that, when Valkendorf at last returned to Upsala and the +Court of his master, Christian, his tongue was full of the praises of +the "market-beauty" of Bergen, whose charms he pictured so glowingly +that the Prince's heart became as inflamed by a sympathetic passion as +his mind by curiosity to see such a siren. "I shall not rest," he said +to his Chancellor, "until I have seen your 'little dove' with my own +eyes; and who knows," he added with a laugh, "perhaps I shall steal her +from you!" + +It was in vain that Valkendorf, now alarmed by his indiscretion, began +to pour cold water on the flames he had lit. Christian had quite lost +his susceptible heart to the rustic and unknown beauty, and vowed that +he could not rest until he had seen her with his own eyes. And within a +month he was riding into Bergen, with Valkendorf by his side, at the +head of a brilliant retinue. + +As the Prince made his way through the crowded avenues of the Bergen +streets to an accompaniment of scowls punctuated by feeble, forced +cheers, he cut a goodly enough figure to win many an admiring, if +reluctant, glance from bright eyes. With his broad shoulders, his erect, +well-knit figure clothed in purple velvet, his stern, swarthy face +crowned by a white-plumed hat, Christian looked every inch a Prince. + +To-day, too, he was in his most amiable mood, with a smile ready to leap +to his lips, and many a gracious wave of the hand and sweep of plumed +hat to acknowledge the grudged salutes of his subjects. He could be +charming enough when he pleased, and this was a day of high good-humour; +for his mind was full of the pleasure that awaited him. Even Frau +Sigbrit's scowl was chased away when his eyes were drawn to her towering +figure, and with a swift smile he singled her out for the honour of a +special salute. + +When the Prince at last arrived in the market-square, he was greeted by +a procession of the prettiest maidens in Bergen who, in white frocks and +with flower-wreathed hair, advanced to pay him the homage of demure +eyes. But among them all, the loveliest girls of the city, Christian saw +but one--a girl younger than almost any other, but so radiantly lovely +that his eyes fixed themselves on her as if entranced, until her cheeks +flamed a vivid crimson under the ardour of his gaze. "No need to point +her out," he whispered delightedly to Valkendorf, "I see your 'little +dove,' and she is all you have told me and more." + +Before many hours had passed, a Court official appeared at Frau +Sigbrit's cottage door with a command from the Prince to her and her +daughter to attend a State ball the following evening. If the poor +market-woman had had a crown laid at her feet, her surprise and +consternation could scarcely have been greater. But she would make a +bigger sacrifice of inclination than this for the "little dove" who +filled her heart, and who, she remembered, was destined to be a Queen; +and decking her in all the finery her modest purse could command and +with a taste of which few would have suspected she was capable, the +market stall-keeper stalked majestically through the avenue of gorgeous +flunkeys, her little Princess with downcast eyes following demurely in +her wake. + +All the fairest women of Bergen were gathered at this ball, the host of +which was their coming King, but it was to the fruit-seller's daughter +that all eyes were turned, in homage to such a rare combination of +beauty, grace, and modesty. Many a fair lip, it is true, curled in +mockery, recognising in the belle of the ball the low-born girl of the +market-place; but it was the mockery of jealousy, the scornful tribute +to a loveliness greater than their own. + +As for Prince Christian, he had no eyes for any but the "little dove" +who outshone all her rivals as the sun pales the stars. It was the maid +of the market whom he led out for the first dance, and throughout the +long night he rarely left her side, whirling round the room with her, +his arm close-clasped round her slender waist, not seeing or indifferent +to the glances of envy and hate that followed them; or, during the +intervals, drinking in her beauty as he poured sweet flatteries into her +ears. As for Dyveke, she was radiantly happy at finding herself thus +transported into the favour of a Prince and the Queendom of fair women, +for whose envy she cared as little as for the danger in which she stood. + +If anything had remained to complete Christian's infatuation, this +intoxicating night of the ball supplied it. The "little dove" had found +a secure nesting-place in his heart. She must be his at any cost. She +and her mother alone, of all the guests, were invited to spend the rest +of the night at the castle as the Prince's guests; and when he parted +from her the following day, it was with vows on his part of undying love +and fidelity, and a promise on hers to come to him at Upsala as soon as +a suitable home could be found for her. + +Thus easily was the dove caught in the toils of one of the most amorous +Princes of Europe; but it must be said for her that her heart went with +the surrender of her freedom, for the Prince, with his ardent passion, +his strength and his magnetism, had swept her as quickly off her feet as +she had made a quick conquest of him. + +Thus, before many weeks had passed, we find Dyveke installed with her +mother in a sumptuous home in the outskirts of Upsala, queening it in +the Prince's Court, and every day forging new fetters to bind him to +her. And while Dyveke thus ruled over Christian's heart, her +strong-minded mother soon established a similar empire over his mind. +With the clever, masterful brain of a man, the Amazon of the +market-place developed such a capacity for intrigue, such a grasp of +statesmanship and such arts of diplomacy that Christian, strong man as +he thought himself, soon became little more than a puppet in her hands, +taking her counsel and deferring to her judgment in preference to those +of his ministers. The fruit-seller thus found herself virtual Prime +Minister, while her daughter reigned, an uncrowned Queen. + +When the Prince was summoned to Copenhagen by his father's failing +health, Frau Sigbrit and her daughter accompanied him, one in her way as +indispensable as the other; and when King James died and Christian +reigned in his stead, the women of the Bergen market were installed in a +splendid suite of apartments in his palace. So hopeless was his +subjection to both that his subjects, with an indifferent shrug of the +shoulders, accepted them as inevitable. + +For a time, it is true, their supremacy was in danger. Now that +Christian was King, it became important to provide him with a Queen, and +a suitable consort was found for him in the Austrian Princess, Isabella, +sister of the Emperor Charles V., a well-gilded bride, distinguished +alike for her beauty and her piety. Isabella, however, was one of the +last women to tolerate any rivalry in her husband's affection, and +before the marriage-contract was sealed, she had received a solemn +pledge from Christian's envoys that his relations with the pretty +flower-girl should cease. + +But even Christian's word of honour was seldom allowed to bar the way to +his pleasure, and within a few weeks of Isabella's bridal entry into +Copenhagen, Dyveke and her mother resumed their places at his Court, to +his Queen's unconcealed disgust and displeasure. More than this, he +established them in a fine house near his palace gates; and when he was +not dallying there with Dyveke, he was to be found by her side at the +Castle of Hvideur, of which he had made her chatelaine. + +The remonstrances of Valkendorf and his other ministers were made to +deaf ears; his wife's reproaches and tears were as futile as the +strongly worded protestations of his Royal relatives. Pleadings, +arguments, and threats were alike powerless to break the spell Dyveke +and her mother had cast over him. But Dyveke's day of empire was now +drawing to a tragic close. One day, after eating some cherries from the +palace gardens, she was seized with a violent pain. All the skill of the +Court doctors could do as little to assuage her agony as to save her +life; and within a few hours she died, clasped to the breast of her +distracted lover! + +Such was Christian's distress that for a time his reason trembled in the +balance. He vowed that he would not be separated from her even by death; +he threatened to put an end to his own life since it had been reft of +all that made it worth living. And when cooler moments came, he swore a +terrible vengeance against those who had robbed him of his beloved. She +had been poisoned beyond a doubt; but who had done the dastardly deed? + +The finger of suspicion pointed to the steward of his household, Torbern +Oxe, who, it was said, had been among the most ardent of Dyveke's +admirers, and had had the audacity to aspire to her hand. It was even +rumoured that he had had more intimate relations with her. Such were the +stories and suspicions that passed from mouth to mouth in Christian's +clouded Court before Dyveke's beautiful body was cold; and such were the +tales which Hans Faaborg, the King's Treasurer, poured into his master's +ears. + +Hans Faaborg little dreamt that when he was thus trying to bring about +the downfall of his rival he was sealing his own fate. Christian lent an +eager ear to the stories of his steward's iniquities; but, when he found +there was no shred of proof to support them, his anger and +disappointment vented themselves on the informer. He had long suspected +Faaborg of irregularities in his purse-holding, and in these suspicions +found a weapon to use against him. Faaborg was arrested; an examination +of his ledgers showed that for years he had been waxing rich at his +master's expense, and he had to pay with his life the penalty of his +fraud and his unproved testimony. + +But Faaborg, though thus removed from his path, was by no means done +with. Rumours began to be circulated that a strange light appeared every +night above the dead man's head as he swung on the gallows. The city was +full of superstitious awe and of whisperings that Heaven was thus +bearing witness to the Treasurer's innocence. And even the King +himself, when he too saw the unearthly light forming a halo round his +victim's head, was filled with remorse and fear to such an extent that +he had Faaborg's body cut down and honoured with a State funeral. + +He was still, however, as far as ever from solving the mystery of +Dyveke's death; and the longer his desire for vengeance was baffled, the +more clamorous it became. Although nothing could be proved against +Torbern Oxe, Christian was by no means satisfied of his innocence, and +he decided to discover by guile the secret which all other means had +failed to reveal. He would, if possible, make his steward his own +betrayer. One day, at a Court banquet, he turned in jocular mood to the +minister and said, "Tell me now, my dear Torbern, was there really any +truth in what Faaborg told me of your relations with my beautiful Lady! +Don't hesitate to tell the truth, which only you know, for I assure you +no harm shall come to you from it." + +Thus thrown off his guard and reassured, the steward, who, like his +master, had probably drunk not wisely, confessed that he had loved +Dyveke, and had asked her to be his wife. "But, sire," he added, "that +was the extent of my offence. I was never intimate with her." During the +remainder of the banquet Christian was most affable to the indiscreet +steward, not only showing no trace of resentment, but treating him with +marked friendliness. + +The following day, however, Torbern was flung into prison, and charged, +not only with his confession, but with the murder of the woman he had +so vainly loved; and, in spite of the storm of indignation that swept +over Denmark, the pleadings of the Papal Legate, Arcimbaldo, and the +tears of the Queen, was sentenced to death for a crime of which there +was no scrap of evidence to point to his guilt. + +This gross act of injustice proved to be the beginning of Christian's +downfall. His cruelties and oppressions had long made him odious to his +subjects, and the climax came when a popular uprising hurled him from +his throne and drove him an exile to Holland. An attempt to recover his +crown ended in speedy disaster, and his last years were spent, in +company with his favourite dwarf, in a cell of the Holstein Castle of +Sondeborg. + +As for Sigbrit, the woman who had played such a conspicuous and baleful +part in Christian's life, she deserted her benefactor at the first sign +of his coming ruin and ended her days in her native Holland, bemoaning +to the last the loss of her "little dove," whom she had seen raised +almost to a throne and had lost so tragically. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +THE ROMANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL SWEDE + +Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, owes his +place in the world's memory to his brawny muscles and to his conquest of +women. Like the third Alexander of Russia of later years, he could, with +his powerful arms, convert a thick iron bar into a necklace, crush a +pewter tankard by the pressure of a mighty hand, toss a heavy anvil into +the air and catch it as another man would catch a ball, or with a wrench +straighten out the stoutest horse-shoe ever forged. + +And his strength of muscle was matched by his skill in the lists of +love. No Louis of France could boast such an array of conquests as this +Saxon Hercules, who changed his mistresses as easily as he changed his +coats; the fairest women in Europe, from Turkey to Poland, succeeded +each other in bewildering succession as the slaves of his pleasure, and +before he died he counted his children to as many as the year has days. + +Of all these fair and frail women who thus ministered to the pleasure of +the "Saxon Samson," none was so beautiful, so gifted, so altogether +alluring as Marie Aurora, Countess of Königsmarck, the younger of the +two daughters of Conrad of Königsmarck. Born in the year 1668, Aurora +was one of three children of the Swedish Count Conrad and his wife, the +daughter of the great Field-Marshal Wrangel. Her elder sister, little +less fair than herself, found a husband, when little more than a child, +in Count Axel Löwenhaupt; her brother Philip, the handsomest man of his +day in Europe, was destined to end his days tragically as the price of +his infatuation for a Queen. + +Betrayed by a jealous woman, the Countess Platen, whose overtures he +spurned, this too gallant lover of Sophia Dorothea of Celle, wife of the +first of our Georges, was foully done to death in a corridor of the +Leine Schloss by La Paten's hired assassins, while she looked smilingly +on at his futile struggle for life, and gloated over his dying agonies. + +On the death of her father, when she was but a child of three, Aurora +was taken by her mother from her native Sweden to Hamburg, where she +grew to beautiful young womanhood; and when, in turn, her mother died, +she found a home with her married sister, the Countess Löwenhaupt. And +it is at this period of her life that her romantic story opens. + +If we are to believe her contemporaries, the world has seldom seen so +much beauty and so many graces enshrined in the form of woman as in this +daughter of Sweden. Her description reads like a catalogue of all human +perfections. Of medium height and a figure as faultless in its exquisite +modelling as in its grace and suppleness; her hair, black as a raven's +plumage, and falling, like a veil of night, below her knees, emphasised +the white purity of face and throat, arms, and hands. Her teeth, twin +rows of pearls, glistened between smiling crimson lips, curved like +Cupid's bow. Her face of perfect oval, with its delicately moulded +features, was illuminated by a pair of large black eyes, now melting, +now flaming, as mood succeeded mood. + +To these graces of body were allied equal graces of mind and character. +Her conversation sparkled with wit and wisdom; she could hold fluent +discourse in half a dozen tongues; she played and sang divinely, wrote +elegant verses, and painted dainty pictures. Her manner was caressing +and courteous; she was generous to a fault, with a heart as tender as it +was large. And the supreme touch was added by an entire unconsciousness +of her charms, and an unaffected modesty which captivated all hearts. + +Such was Aurora of Königsmarck who, in company with her sister, set +forth one day to claim the fortune which her ill-fated brother, Philip, +was said to have left in the custody of his Hanoverian bankers--a +journey which was to make such a dramatic revolution in her own life. + +Arrived at Hanover the sisters found themselves faced by no easy task. +The bankers declared that they had nothing of the late Count's effects +beyond a few diamonds, which they declined to part with, unless evidence +were forthcoming that the Count had died and had left no will behind +him--evidence which, owing to the secrecy surrounding his murder, it was +impossible to furnish. And when a discharged clerk revealed the fact +that the dishonest bankers had actually all the Count's estate, valued +at four hundred thousand crowns, in their possession, the sisters were +unable to make them disgorge a solitary mark. + +In their extremity, they decided to appeal to the Elector of Saxony, who +had known Count Philip well and who would, they hoped, be the champion +of their rights; and, with this object, they journeyed to Dresden, only +to find themselves again baffled. Augustus was away on a hunting +excursion, and would not return for a whole month. His wife and mother, +however, gave them a gracious reception, as charmed by their beauty and +sweetness as sympathetic in their trouble. + +When at last Augustus made his tardy appearance at his capital, the fair +petitioners were presented to him by the Dowager Electress with words of +strong recommendation to his favour. "These ladies, my son," she said, +"have come to beg for your protection and help, to which they are +entitled both by birth and their merits. I beg that you will spare no +effort to ensure that justice is done to them." + +His mother's pleading, however, was not necessary to ensure a favourable +hearing from the Elector, whose eyes were eloquent of the admiration he +felt for the two fairest women who had ever visited his land. Aurora's +beauty, enhanced by her attitude of appeal, the mute craving for +protection, was irresistible. From the moment she entered his presence +he was her slave, as anxious to do her will as any lovesick boy. + +And it was to her that, with his courtliest bow, he answered, "Be +assured, dear lady, that I shall know no rest until your wrongs are +repaired. If I fail, I myself will make reparation in full. Meanwhile, +may I beg you and your sister to be my guests, that I may prove how deep +is my sympathy, and how profound the respect I feel for you." + +Thus it was that by the magic of beauty Aurora and her Countess sister +found themselves installed at the Dresden Court, feted like Queens, +receiving the caresses of the Court ladies, and the homage of every man, +from Augustus himself to the youngest page, of whom a smile from their +pretty lips made a veritable slave. As for the Elector, sated as he was +with the easy smiles and favours of fair women, he gave to the Swedish +beauty, from the first, a homage he had never paid to any of her +predecessors in his affection. + +But Aurora was no woman to be easily won by any man. She listened +smilingly to the Elector's honeyed words, and received his attentions +with the gracious complaisance of a Queen. When, however, he ventured to +tell her that "her charms inspired him with a passion such as he had +never felt for any woman," she answered coldly, "I came here prepared +for your generosity, but I did not expect that your kindness would +assume a form to cause me shame. I beg you not to say anything that can +lessen the gratitude I owe you, and the respect I feel for you." + +Here indeed was a rebuff such as Augustus was little prepared for, or +accustomed to. The beauty, of whom he had hoped to make an easy +conquest, was an iceberg whom all his ardour could not thaw. He was in +despair. "I am sure she hates and despises me, while I love her dearer +than life itself," he confessed to his favourite Beuchling, who vainly +tried to console and cheer him. He confided his passion and his pain to +Aurora's sister, whose hopeful words were alike powerless to dispel his +gloom. + +When Aurora held aloof from him, he sent letter after letter of +passionate pleading to her by the hand of the trusty Beuchling. "If you +knew the tortures I am suffering," he wrote, "your kindness of heart +could not resist pitying me. I was mad to declare my passion so brutally +to you. Let me expiate my fault, prostrate at your feet; and, if you +wish for my death, let me at least receive my sentence from your own +sweet lips." + +To such a desperate state was Augustus brought within a few days of +setting eyes on his new divinity! As for Aurora of the tender heart, her +lover's distress thawed her more than a year of passionate protestations +could have done. She replied, assuring him of her gratitude, her esteem +and respect, and begging him to dismiss such unworthy thoughts of her. +But she had no word of encouragement to send him in the note which her +lover kissed so rapturously before placing it next his heart. + +So alarmed, indeed, was Aurora, that she announced her intention of +leaving forthwith a Court in which she was exposed to so much danger--a +project to which her sister gave a reluctant approval. But the Countess +Löwenhaupt was little disposed to leave a Court where she at least was +having such a good time; for she, too, had her lovers, and among them +the Prince of Fürstenberg, the handsomest man in Saxony, whose devotion +was more than agreeable to her. She preferred to play the part of +Cupid's agent--to exercise her diplomacy in bringing together those two +foolish persons, her sister and the Elector. + +And so skilfully did she play her part, appealing to Aurora's pity, and +assuring Augustus of her sister's love in spite of her seeming coldness, +that before many weeks had passed Aurora had yielded and was listening +with no unwilling ear to the vows of her exalted lover, now transported +to the seventh heaven of happiness. One condition she made, when their +mutual troth was plighted, that it should, for a time at least, remain a +secret from the Court, and to this the Elector gratefully assented. + +Such was the strange wooing of Augustus and the Countess Aurora, in +which passion had its response in a pity which, in this case at least, +was the parent of love. + +It was with no very light heart that Aurora set forth to Mauritzburg, a +few days later, to keep "honeymoon tryst" with Augustus, who had +preceded her, to make, as she understood, the necessary preparations for +her reception. With her sister and a mounted escort of the most +beautiful ladies of the Court, she had ridden as far as the entrance to +the Mauritzburg forest, when her carriage suddenly came to a halt in +front of a magnificent palace. From the open door emerged Diana with her +attendant nymphs to greet her with words of welcome, and to beg her to +tarry a while to accept the hospitality of the forest gods. + +In response to this flattering invitation Aurora left her carriage and +was escorted in stately procession to a saloon, richly painted with +sylvan scenes, in which a sumptuous banquet was spread. No sooner were +she and her ladies seated at the table than, to the strains of beautiful +music, the god Pan (none other than the Elector himself), with his +retinue of fawns and other richly and quaintly garbed forest gods, made +his entry, and took his seat at the right hand of his goddess. Then, to +the deft ministry of Diana and her satellites, and to the soft +accompaniment of pipes and hautboys, the feasting began, while Pan +whispered love to the lady for whom he had prepared such a charming +hospitality. + +The banquet had scarcely come to an end when the jubilant sound of horns +was heard from the forest. A stag dashed by a window in full flight, and +Aurora and her ladies, rushing excitedly to the door, saw horses +awaiting them for the hunt. + +In a moment they are mounted, and, gaily laughing, with Pan leading the +way, they are galloping through the forest glades in the wake of the +flying stag and the music of the hounds, until the stag, hotly pursued, +dashes into a lake, in the centre of which is a beautiful wooded island. +Dismounting, the ladies enter the gondolas which are so opportunely +awaiting them, and are rowed across the strip of water just in time to +witness the death of the gallant animal they have been chasing. + +The hunt over, Aurora and her ladies are conducted to the leafy heart of +the island, where, as by the touch of a magician's wand, a gorgeous +Eastern tent has sprung up, and here another sumptuous entertainment is +prepared for them. Seated on soft-cushioned divans, in the many-hued +environment of Oriental luxury, rare fruits and delicacies are brought +to them in silver baskets by turbaned Turks. The island Sultan now +appears, ablaze with gems, with his officers little less gorgeous than +himself, and with deep obeisances craves permission to seat himself by +Aurora's side, a favour which she was not likely to refuse to a Sultan +in whom she recognised her lover, the Elector. Troupes of dancing-girls +follow, and the moments fly swiftly to the twinkling of dainty feet, the +gliding and posturing of supple bodies, and the strains of sensuous +music. + +Another hour spent in the gondolas, dreamily gliding under the light of +the moon, and horses are again mounted; and Aurora, with Augustus riding +proudly by her side, heads the splendid procession which, with laughter, +and in the gayest of spirits, rides forth to the Mauritzburg Castle at +the close of a day so full of delights. + +"Here," was the Elector's greeting, as he conducted his bride to her +room with its furnishing of silver and rich damask, and its pictured +Cupid showering roses on the silk-curtained bed, "you are the Queen, and +I am your slave." + +Such was the beginning of Aurora's reign over the heart of the Elector +of Saxony--a reign of unclouded splendour and happiness for the woman in +whom pity for her lover was soon replaced by a passion as ardent as his +own. Fêtes and banquets and balls succeeded each other in swift +sequence, at all of which Aurora was Queen, the focus of all eyes, and +receiving universal homage, won no more by her beauty and her position +as the Elector's favourite than by her sweetness and graciousness to the +humblest. No mistress of a King was ever more beloved than this daughter +of Sweden. Even the Elector's mother, a pattern of the most rigid +propriety, had ever a kind word and a caress for her; his neglected wife +made a friend and confidante of the woman of whom she said, "Since I +must have a rival, I am glad she should be one so sweet and lovable." + +We must hasten over the years that followed--years during which Augustus +had no eyes for any other woman than his "uncrowned Queen," and during +which she bore him a son who, as Maurice of Saxony, was to win many +laurels in the years to come. It must suffice to say that never was +Royal liaison conducted with so much propriety, or was marked by so much +mutual devotion and loyalty. + +But it was not in the nature of Augustus the Strong to remain always +true to any woman, however charming; and although Aurora's reign lasted +longer than that of any half-dozen of her rivals, it, too, had its +ending. Within a month of the birth of her son, Augustus, now King of +Poland, was caught in the toils of another enslaver, the beautiful +Countess Esterle. Aurora realised that her sun had set, and +relinquishing her sceptre without a murmur, she retired to the convent +of Quedlinburg, of which Augustus had appointed her Abbess. + +Thus in an atmosphere of peace and piety, beloved of all for her +sweetness and charity, Aurora of Königsmarck spent her last years until +the end came one day in the year 1728; and in the crypt of the convent +she loved so well she sleeps her last sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +THE SISTER OF AN EMPEROR + +When Napoleon Bonaparte, the shabby, sallow-faced, out-of-work captain +of artillery, was kicking his heels in morose idleness at Marseilles, +and whiling away the dull hours in making love to Desirée Clary, the +pretty daughter of the silk-merchant in the Rue des Phocéens, his +sisters were living with their mother, the Signora Letizia, in a sordid +fourth-floor apartment in a slum near the Cannebiere, and running wild +in the Marseilles streets. + +Strange tales are told of those early years of the sisters of an +Emperor-to-be--Elisa Bonaparte, future Grand Duchess of Tuscany; +Pauline, embryo Princess Borghese; and Caroline, who was to wear a crown +as Queen of Naples--high-spirited, beautiful girls, brimful of frolic +and fun, laughing at their poverty, decking themselves out in cheap, +home-made finery, and flirting outrageously with every good-looking +young man who was willing to pay homage to their _beaux yeux_. If +Marseilles deigned to notice these pretty young madcaps, it was only +with the cold eyes of disapproval; for such "shameless goings-on" were +little less than a scandal. + +The pity of it was that there was no one to check their escapades. +Their mother, the imposing Madame Mère of later years, seemed +indifferent what her daughters did, so long as they left her in peace; +their brothers, Kings-to-be, were too much occupied with their own +love-making or their pranks to spare them a thought. And thus the trio +of tomboys were left, with a loose rein, to indulge every impulse that +entered their foolish heads. And a right merry time they had, with their +dancing, their private theatricals, the fun behind the scenes, and their +promiscuous love affairs, each serious and thrilling until it gave place +to a successor. + +Of the three Bonaparte "graces" the most lovely by far (though each was +passing fair) was Pauline, who, though still little more than a child, +gave promise of that rare perfection of face and figure which was to +make her the most beautiful woman in all France. "It is impossible, with +either pen or brush," wrote one who knew her, "to do any justice to her +charms--the brilliance of her eyes, which dazzled and thrilled all on +whom they fell; the glory of her black hair, rippling in a cascade to +her knees; the classic purity of her Grecian profile, the wild-rose +delicacy of her complexion, the proud, dainty poise of her head, and the +exquisite modelling of the figure which inspired Canova's 'Venus +Victrix.'" + +Such was Pauline Bonaparte, whose charms, although then immature, played +such havoc with the young men of Marseilles, and who thus early began +that career of conquest which was to afford so much gossip for the +tongue of scandal. That the winsome little minx had her legion of +lovers from the day she set foot in Marseilles, at the age of thirteen, +we know; but it was not until Frèron came on the scene that her volatile +little heart was touched--Frèron, the handsome coxcomb and +arch-revolutionary, who was sent to Marseilles as a Commissioner of the +Convention. + +To Pauline, the gay, gallant Parisian, penniless adventurer though he +was, was a veritable hero of romance; and at sight of him she completely +lost her heart. It was a _grande passion_, which he was by no means slow +to return. Those were delicious hours which Pauline spent in the company +of her beloved "Stanislas," hours of ecstasy; and when he left +Marseilles she pursued him with the most passionate protestations. + +"Yes," she wrote, "I swear, dear Stanislas, never to love any other than +thee; my heart knows no divided allegiance. It is thine alone. Who could +oppose the union of two souls who seek to find no other happiness than +in a mutual love?" And again, "Thou knowest how I worship thee. It is +not possible for Paulette to live apart from her adored Stanislas. I +love thee for ever, most passionately, my beautiful god, my adorable +one--I love thee, love thee, love thee!" + +In such hot words this child of fifteen poured out her soul to the Paris +dandy. "Neither mamma," she vowed, "nor anyone in the world shall come +between us." But Pauline had not counted on her brother Napoleon, whose +foot was now placed on the ladder of ambition, at the top of which was +an Imperial crown, and who had other designs for his sister than to +marry her to a penniless nobody. In vain did Pauline rage and weep, and +declare that "she would die--_voilà tout!_" Napoleon was inexorable; and +the flower of her first romance was trodden ruthlessly under his feet. + +When Junot, his own aide-de-camp, next came awooing Pauline, he was +equally obdurate. "No," he said to the young soldier; "you have nothing, +she has nothing. And what is twice nothing?" And thus lover number two +was sent away disconsolate. + +Napoleon's sun was now in the ascendant, and his family were basking in +its rays. From the Marseilles slums they were transported first to a +sumptuous villa at Antibes; then to the Castle of Montebello, at Naples. +The days of poverty were gone like an evil dream; the sisters of the +famous General and coming Emperor were now young ladies of fashion, +courted and fawned on. Their lovers were not Marseilles tradesmen or +obscure soldiers and journalists (like Junot and Frèron), but brilliant +Generals and men of the great world; and among them Napoleon now sought +a husband for his prettiest and most irresponsible sister. + +This, however, proved no easy task. When he offered her to his favourite +General, Marmont, he was met with a polite refusal. "She is indeed +charming and lovely," said Marmont; "but I fear I could not make her +happy." Then, waxing bolder, he continued: "I have dreams of domestic +happiness, of fidelity, virtue; and these dreams I can scarcely hope to +realise in your sister." Albert Permon, Napoleon's old schoolfellow, +next declined the honour of Pauline's hand, although it held the bait of +a high office and splendid fortune. + +The explanation of these refusals is not far to seek if we believe +Arnault's description of Pauline--"An extraordinary combination of the +most faultless physical beauty and the oddest moral laxity. She had no +more manners than a schoolgirl--she talked incoherently, giggled at +everything and nothing, mimicked the most serious personages, put out +her tongue at her sister-in-law.... She was a good child naturally +rather than voluntarily, for she had no principles." + +But Pauline was not to wait long, after all, for a husband. Among the +many men who fluttered round her, willing to woo if not to wed the +empty-headed beauty, was General Leclerc, young and rich, but weak in +body and mind, "a quiet, insignificant-looking man," who at least loved +her passionately, and would make a pliant husband to the capricious +little autocrat. And we may be sure Napoleon heaved a sigh of relief +when his madcap sister was safely tied to her weak-kneed General. + +Pauline was at last free to conduct her flirtations secure from the +frowns of the brother she both feared and adored, and she seems to have +made excellent use of her opportunities; and, what was even more to her, +to encourage to the full her passion for finery. Dress and love filled +her whole life; and while her idolatrous husband lavishly supplied the +former, he turned a conveniently blind eye to the latter. + +Remarkable stories are told of Pauline's extravagant and daring +costumes at this time. Thus, at a great ball in Madame Permon's Paris +mansion, she appeared in a dress of classic scantiness of Indian muslin, +ornamented with gold palm leaves. Beneath her breasts was a cincture of +gold, with a gorgeous jewelled clasp; and her head was wreathed with +bands spotted like a leopard's skin, and adorned with bunches of gold +grapes. + +When this bewitching Bacchante made her appearance in the ballroom the +sensation she created was so great that the dancing stopped instantly; +women and men alike climbed on chairs to catch a glimpse of the rare and +radiant vision, and murmurs of admiration and envy ran round the +_salon_. Her triumph was complete. In the hush that followed, a voice +was heard: "_Quel dommage!_ How lovely she would be, if it weren't for +her ears. If I had such ears, I would cut them off, or hide them." +Pauline heard the cruel words. The flush of mortification and anger +flamed in her cheeks; she burst into tears and walked out of the room. +Madame de Coutades, her most jealous rival, had found a rich revenge. + +General Leclerc did not live long to play the slave to his little +autocrat; and when he died at San Domingo, the beautiful widow returned +to France, accompanied by his embalmed body, with her glorious hair, +which she had cut off for the purpose, wreathing his head! She had not, +however, worn her weeds many months before she was once more surrounded +by her court of lovers--actors, soldiers, singers, on each of whom in +turn she lavished her smiles; and such time as she could spare from +their flatteries and ogling she spent at the card-table, with +fortune-tellers, or, chief joy of all, in decking her beauty with +wondrous dresses and jewels. + +But the charming widow, sister of the great Napoleon, was not long to be +left unclaimed; and this time the choice fell on Prince Camillo +Borghese, a handsome, black-haired Italian, who allied to a head as vain +and empty as her own the physical graces and gifts of an Admirable +Crichton, and who, moreover, was lord of all the famed Borghese riches. + +Pauline had now reached dizzy heights, undreamed of in the days, only +ten short years earlier, when she was coquetting in home-made finery +with the young tradesmen of Marseilles. She was a Princess, bearing the +greatest name in all Italy; and to this dignity her gratified brother +added that of Princess of Gustalla. All the world-famous Borghese jewels +were hers to deck her beauty with--a small Golconda of priceless gems; +there was gold galore to satisfy her most extravagant whims; and she was +still young--only twenty-five--and in the very zenith of her loveliness. + +Picture, then, the pride with which, one early day of her new bridehood, +she drove to the Palace of St Cloud in the gorgeous Borghese State +carriage, behind six horses, and with an escort of torch-bearers, to pay +a formal call on her sister-in-law, Josephine, Empress-to-be. She had +decked herself in a wonderful creation of green velvet; she was ablaze +from head to foot with the Borghese diamonds. Such a dazzling vision +could not fail to fill Josephine with envy--Josephine, who had hitherto +treated her with such haughty patronage. + +As she sailed into the _salon_ in all her Queen of Sheba splendour, it +was to be greeted by her sister-in-law in a modest dress of muslin, +without a solitary gem to relieve its simplicity; and--horror!--to find +that the room had been re-decorated in blue by the artful Josephine--a +colour absolutely fatal to her green magnificence! It was thus a very +disgusted Princess who made her early exit from the palace between a +double line of bowing flunkeys, masking her anger behind an affectation +of ultra-Royal dignity. + +Still, Pauline was now a _grande dame_ indeed, who could really afford +to patronise even Napoleon's wife. Her Court was more splendid than that +of Josephine. She had lovers by the score--from Blanguini, who composed +his most exquisite songs to sing for her ears alone, to Forbin, her +artist Chamberlain, whose brushes she inspired in a hundred paintings of +her lovely self in as many unconventional guises. Her caskets of jewels +were matched by the most wonderful collection of dresses in France, the +richest and daintiest confections, from pearl embroidered ball-gowns +which cost twenty thousand francs to the mauve and silver in which she +went a-hunting in the forest of Fontainebleau. At Petit Trianon and in +the Faubourg St Honoré, she had palaces that were dreams of beauty and +luxury. The only thorn in her bed of roses was, in fact, her husband, +the Prince, the very sight of whom was sufficient to spoil a day for +her. + +When, at Napoleon's bidding, she accompanied Borghese to his +Governorship beyond the Alps, she took in her train seven wagon-loads of +finery. At Turin she held the Court of a Queen, to which the Prince was +only admitted on sufferance. Royal visits, dinners, dances, receptions +followed one another in dazzling succession; behind her chair, at dinner +or reception, always stood two gigantic negroes, crowned with ostrich +plumes. She was now "sister of the Emperor," and all the world should +know it! + +If only she could escape from her detested husband she would be the +happiest woman on earth. But Napoleon on this point was adamant. In her +rage and rebellion she tore her hair, rolled on the floor, took drugs to +make her ill; and at last so succeeded in alarming her Imperial brother +that he summoned her back to France, where her army of lovers gave her a +warm welcome, and where she could indulge in any vanity and folly +unchecked. + +Matters were now hastening to a tragic climax for Napoleon and the +family he had raised from slumdom in Marseilles to crowns and coronets. +Josephine had been divorced, to Pauline's undisguised joy; and her place +had been taken by Marie Louise, the proud Austrian, whom she liked at +least as little. When Napoleon fell from his throne, she alone of all +his sisters helped to cheer his exile in Elba; for the brother she loved +and feared was the only man to whom Pauline's fickle heart was ever +true. She even stripped herself of all her jewels to make the way smooth +back to his crown. And when at last news came to her at Rome of his +death at St Helena it was she who shed the bitterest tears and refused +to be comforted. That an empire was lost, was nothing compared with the +loss of the brother who had always been so lenient to her failings, so +responsive to her love. + +Two years later her own end came at Florence. When she felt the cold +hand of death on her, she called feebly for a mirror, that she might +look for the last time on her beauty. "Thank God," she whispered, as she +gazed, "I am still lovely! I am ready to die." A few moments later, with +the mirror still clutched in her hand, and her eyes still feasting on +the charms which time and death itself were powerless to dim, died +Pauline Bonaparte, sister of an Emperor and herself an Empress by the +right of her incomparable beauty. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +A SIREN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY + +When Wilhelmine Encke first opened her eyes on the world one day in the +year 1754, he would have been a bold prophet who would have predicted +that she would one day be the uncrowned Queen of the Court of Russia, +_plus Reine que la Reine_, and that her children would have in their +veins the proudest blood in Europe. Such a prophecy might well have been +laughed to scorn, for little Wilhelmine had as obscure a cradle as +almost any infant in all Prussia. Her father was an army bugler, who +wore private's uniform in Frederick the Great's army; and her early +years were to be spent playing with other soldiers' children in the +sordid environment of Berlin barracks. + +When her father turned his back on the army, while Wilhelmine was still +nursing her dolls, it was to play the humble rôle of landlord of a small +tavern, from which he was lured by the bait of a place as French-horn +player in Frederick's private band; and the goal of his modest ambition +was reached when he was appointed trumpeter to the King. + +This was Herr Encke's position when the curtain rises on our story at +Potsdam, and shows us Wilhelmine, an unattractive maid of ten, the +Cinderella of her family, for whom there seemed no better prospect than +a soldier-husband, if indeed she were lucky enough to capture him. She +was, in fact, the "ugly duckling" of a good-looking family, removed by a +whole world from her beautiful eldest sister Charlotte, who counted +among her many admirers no less exalted a wooer than Prince Frederick +William, the King's nephew and heir to his throne. + +There was, indeed, no more beautiful or haughty damsel in all Potsdam +than this trumpeter's daughter who had caught the amorous fancy of the +Prince, then, as to his last day, the slave of every pretty face that +crossed his path. But Charlotte Encke was much too imperious a young +lady to hold her Royal lover long in fetters. He quickly wearied of her +caprices, her petulances, and her exhibitions of temper; and the climax +came one day when in a fit of anger she struck her little sister, in his +presence, and he took up the cudgels for Wilhelmine. + +This was the last straw for the disillusioned and disgusted Prince, who +sent Charlotte off to Paris, where as the Countess Matushke she played +the fine lady at her lover's cost, while the Prince took her Cinderella +sister under his protection. He took her education into his own hands, +provided her with masters to teach her a wide range of accomplishments, +from languages to dancing and deportment, while he himself gave her +lessons in history and geography. Nor did he lack the reward of his +benevolent offices; for Wilhelmine, under his ministrations, not only +developed rare gifts and graces of mind, like many another Cinderella +before her; she blossomed into a rose of girlhood, more beautiful even +than her imperious sister, and with a sweetness of character and a +winsomeness which Charlotte could never have attained. + +On her part, gratitude to her benefactor rapidly grew into love for the +handsome and courtly Prince; on his, sympathy for the ill-used +Cinderella, into a passion for the lovely maiden hovering on the verge +of a still more beautiful womanhood. It was a mutual passion, strong and +deep, which now linked the widely contrasted lives of the King-to-be and +the trumpeter's daughter--a passion which, with each, was to last as +long as life itself. + +Wilhelmine was now formally installed in the place of the deposed +Charlotte as favourite of the heir to the throne; and idyllic years +followed, during which she gave pledges of her love to the man who was +her husband in all but name. That her purse was often empty was a matter +to smile at; that she had to act as "breadwinner" to her family, and was +at times reduced to such straits that she was obliged to pawn some of +her small stock of jewellery in order to provide her lover with a +supper, was a bagatelle. She was the happiest young woman in Prussia. + +Even what seemed to be a crowning disaster, fortune turned into a boon +for her. When news of this unlicensed love-making came to the King's +ears, he was furious. It was intolerable that the destined ruler of a +great and powerful nation should be governed and duped by a woman of the +people. He gave his nephew a sound rating--alike for his extravagance +and his amour; and packed off Wilhelmine to join her sister in Paris. + +But, for once, Frederick found that he had made a mistake. The Prince, +robbed of the woman he loved, took the bit in his teeth, and plunged so +deeply into extravagant dallying with ballet-dancers and stars of the +opera that the King was glad to choose the lesser evil, and to summon +Wilhelmine back to her Prince's arms. One stipulation only he made, that +she should make her home away from the capital and the dangerous +allurements which his nephew found there. + +Now at last we find Cinderella happily installed, with the King's august +approval, in a beautiful home which has since blossomed into the +splendours of Charlottenburg. Here she gave birth to a son, whom +Frederick dubbed Count de la Marke in his nurse's arms, but who was +fated never to leave his cradle. This child of love, the idol of his +parents, sleeps in a splendid mausoleum in the great Protestant Church +of Berlin. + +As a sop to Prussian morality and to make the old King quite easy, a +complaisant husband was now found for the Prince's favourite in his +chamberlain, Herr Rietz, son of a palace gardener; and Frederick William +himself looked on while the woman he loved, the mother of his children, +was converted by a few priestly words into a "respectable married +woman"--only to leave the altar on his own arm, his wife in the eyes of +the world. + +The time was now drawing near when Wilhelmine was to reach the zenith of +her adventurous life. One August day in 1786 Frederick the Great drew +his last breath in the Potsdam Palace, and his nephew awoke to be +greeted by his chamberlain as "Your Majesty." The trumpeter's daughter +was at last a Queen, in fact, if not in name, more secure in her +husband's love than ever, and with long years of splendour and happiness +before her. That his fancy, ever wayward, flitted to other women as fair +as herself, did not trouble her a whit. Like Madame de Pompadour, she +was prepared even to encourage such rivalry, so long as the first place +(and this she knew) in her husband's heart was unassailably her own. + +Picture our Cinderella now in all her new splendours, moving as a Queen +among her courtiers, receiving the homage of princes and ambassadors as +her right, making her voice heard in the Council Chamber, and holding +her _salon_, to which all the great ones of the earth flocked to pay +tribute to her beauty and her gifts of mind. It was a strange +transformation from the barracks-kitchen to the Queendom of one of the +greatest Courts of Europe; but no Queen cradled in a palace ever wore +her honours with greater dignity, grace, and simplicity than this +daughter of an army bandsman. + +The days of the empty purse were, of course, at an end. She had now her +ten thousand francs a month for "pin-money," her luxuriously appointed +palace at Charlottenburg, and her Berlin mansion, "Unter den Linden," +with its private theatre, in which she and her Royal lover, surrounded +by their brilliant Court, applauded the greatest actors from Paris and +Vienna. It is said that many of these stage-plays were of questionable +decency, with more than a suggestion of the garden of Eden in them; but +this is an aspersion which Madame de Rietz indignantly repudiates in her +"Memoirs." + +While Wilhelmine was thus happy in her Court magnificence, varied by +days of "delightful repose," at Charlottenburg, France was in the throes +of her Revolution, drenched with the blood of her greatest men and +fairest women; her King had lost his crown and his head with it; and +Europe was in arms against her. When Frederick William joined his army +camped on the Rhine bank, Wilhelmine was by his side to counsel him as +he wavered between war and peace. The fate of the coalition against +France was practically in the hands of the trumpeter's daughter, whose +voice was all for peace. "What matters it," she said, "how France is +governed? Let her manage her own affairs, and let Europe be saved from +the horrors of bloodshed." + +In vain did the envoys of Spain and Italy, Austria and England, practise +all their diplomacy to place her influence in the scale of war. When +Lord Henry Spencer offered her a hundred thousand guineas if she would +dissuade her husband from concluding a treaty with France, she turned a +deaf ear to all his pleading and arguments. Such influence as she +possessed should be exercised in the interests of peace, and thus it was +that the vacillating King deserted his allies, and signed the Treaty of +Bâle, in 1795. + +Such was the triumphant issue of Madame Rietz's intervention in the +affairs of Europe; such the proof she gave to the world of her conquest +of a King. It was thus with a light heart that she turned her back on +the Rhine camp; and with her husband's children and a splendid retinue +set out on her journey to Italy, to see which was the greatest ambition +of her life. At the Austrian Court she was coldly received, it is true, +thanks to her part in the Treaty of Bâle; but in Italy she was greeted +as a Queen. At Naples Queen Caroline received her as a sister; the +trumpeter's daughter was the brilliant centre of fêtes and banquets and +receptions such as might have gratified the vanity of an Empress: while +at Florence she spent days of ideal happiness under the blue sky of +Italy and among her beauties of Nature and Art. + +It was at Venice that she wrote to her King lover, "Your Majesty knows +well that, for myself, I place no value on the foolish vanities of Court +etiquette; but I am placed in an awkward position by my daughter being +raised to the rank of Countess, while I am still in the lowly position +of a bourgeoise." She had, in fact, always declined the honour of a +title, which Frederick William had so often begged her to accept; and it +was only for her daughter's sake, when the question of an alliance +between the young Countess de la Marke and Lord Bristol's heir arose, +that she at last stooped to ask for what she had so long refused. + +A few weeks later her brother, the King's equerry, placed in her hands +the patent which made her Countess Lichtenau, with the right to bear on +her shield of arms the Prussian eagle and the Royal crown. + +Wherever the Countess (as we must now call her) went on her Italian +tour she drew men to her feet by the magnetism of her beauty, who would +have paid no homage to her as _chère amie_ of a King; for she was now in +the early thirties, in the full bloom of the loveliness that had its +obscure budding in the Potsdam barrack-rooms. Young and old were equally +powerless to resist her fascinations. She had, indeed, no more ardent +slave and admirer than my Lord Bristol, the octogenarian Bishop of +Londonderry, whose passion for the Countess, young enough to be his +granddaughter, was that of a lovesick youth. + +From "dear Countess and adorable friend," he quickly leaps in his +letters to "my dear Wilhelmine." He looks forward with the impatience of +a boy to seeing her at "that terrestrial paradise which is called +Naples, where we shall enjoy perpetual spring and spend delightful days +in listening to the divine _Paesiello_. Do you know," he adds, "I passed +two hours of real delight this morning in simply contemplating your +elegant bedroom where only the elegant sleeper was missing." + +"It is in _Crocelle_," he writes a little later, "that you will make +people happy by your presence, and where you will recuperate your +health, regain your gaiety, and forget an Irishman; and a holy Bishop, +more worthy of your affection, on account of the deep attachment he has +for you, will take his place." + +In June, 1796, this senile lover writes, "In an hour I depart for +Germany; and, as the wind is north, with every step I take I shall say: +'This breeze comes perhaps from her; it has touched her rosy lips and +mingled its scent with the perfume of her breath which I shall inhale, +the perfume of the breath of my dear Wilhelmine.'" + +But these days of dallying with her legion of lovers, of regal fêtes and +pleasure-chasing, were brought to an abrupt conclusion when news came to +her at Venice that her "husband," the King, was dying, with the Royal +family by his bedside awaiting the end. Such news, with all its import +of sorrow and tragedy, set the Countess racing across the Continent, +fast as horses could carry her, to the side of her beloved King, whom +she found, if not _in extremis_, "very dangerously ill and pitifully +changed" from the robust man she had left. Her return, however, did more +for him than all the skill of his doctors. It gave him a new lease of +life, in which her presence brought happiness into days which, none knew +better than himself, were numbered. + +For more than a year the Countess was his tender nurse and constant +companion, ministering to his comfort and arranging plays and tableaux +for his entertainment. She watched over him as jealously as any mother +over her dying child; but all her devotion could not stay the steps of +death, which every day brought nearer. As the inevitable end approached, +her friends warned her to leave Charlottenburg while the opportunity was +still hers--to escape with her jewels and her money (a fortune of +£150,000)--but to all such urging she was deaf. She would stay by her +lover's side to the last, though she well knew the danger of delay. + +One November day in 1797 Frederick William made his last public +appearance at a banquet, with the Countess at his right hand; and seldom +has festival had such a setting in tragedy. "None of the guests," we are +told, "uttered a word or ate a mouthful of anything; the plates were +cleared at the hasty ringing of a bell. A convulsive movement made by +the sick man showed that he was suffering agonies. Before half-past nine +every guest had left, greatly troubled. The majority of those who had +been present never saw the unfortunate monarch again. They all shared +the same presentiment of disaster, and wept." + +From that night the King was dead, even to his own Court. The gates of +his palace were closed against the world, and none were allowed to +approach the chamber in which his life was ebbing away, save the +Countess, his nurse, and his doctors. Even his children were refused +admittance to his presence. As the Marquis de Saint Mexent said, "The +King of Prussia ends his days as though he were a rich benefactor. All +the relations are excluded by the housekeeper." + +A few days before the end came the Countess was seen to leave the +palace, carrying a large red portfolio--a suspicious circumstance which +the Crown Prince's spies promptly reported to their master. There could +be only one inference--she had been caught in the act of stealing State +papers, a crime for which she would have to pay a heavy price as soon +as her protector was no more! As a matter of fact the portfolio +contained nothing more secret or valuable than the letters she had +written to the King during the twenty-seven years of their romance, +letters which, after reading, she consigned to the flames in her boudoir +within an hour of the suspected theft of State documents. + +A few days later, on the night of the 16th of November (1797), the King +entered on his "death agony," one fit of suffocation succeeding another, +until the Countess, unable to bear any longer the sight of such +suffering, was carried away in violent convulsions. She saw him no more; +for by seven o'clock in the morning Frederick William had found release +from his agony in death, and his son had begun to reign in his stead. + +At last the long-delayed hour of revenge had come to Frederick William +III., who had always regarded his father's favourite as an enemy; and +his vengeance was swift to strike. Before the late King's body was cold, +his successor's emissaries appeared at the palace door, Unter den +Linden, with orders to search her papers and to demand the keys of every +desk and cupboard. Even then she scorned to fly before the storm which +she knew was breaking. For three days and nights her carriage stood at +her gates ready to take her away to safety; but she refused to move a +step. + +Then one morning, before she had left her bed, a major of the guards, +with a posse of soldiers, appeared at her bedroom door armed with a +warrant for her arrest; and for many weeks she was a closely guarded +prisoner in her own house, subject to daily insults and indignities from +men who, a few weeks earlier, had saluted her as a Queen. + +At the trial which followed some very grave indictments were preferred +against her. She was charged with having betrayed State secrets; with +having robbed the Royal Exchequer; stolen the King's portfolio; and +removed the priceless solitaire diamond from his crown, and the very +rings from his fingers as he lay dying. To these and other equally grave +charges the Countess gave a dignified denial, which the evidence she was +able to produce supported. The diamond and the rings were, in fact, +discovered in places indicated by her where they had been put, by the +King's orders, for safe custody. + +The trial had a happier ending than, from the malignity of her enemies, +especially of the King, might have been expected. After three months of +durance she was removed to a Silesian fortress. Her houses and lands +were taken from her; but her furniture and jewels were left untouched, +and with them she was allowed to enjoy a pension of four thousand +thalers a year. Such was the judgment of a Court which proved more +merciful than she had perhaps a right to expect. And two months later, +the influence and pleading of her friends set her free from her +fortress-prison to spend her life where and as she would. + +The sun of her splendour had indeed set, but many years of peaceful and +not unhappy life remained for our ex-Queen, who was still in the prime +of her womanhood and beauty and with the magnetism that, to her last +day, brought men to her feet. At fifty she was able to inspire such +passion in the breast of a young artist, Francis Holbein, that he asked +and won her hand in marriage. But this romance was short-lived, for +within a year he left her, to spend the remainder of her days in Paris, +Vienna, and her native Prussia. Here her adventurous career closed in +such obscurity, at the age of sixty-eight, that even those who +ministered to her last moments were unaware that the dying woman was the +Countess who had played so dazzling a part a generation earlier, as +favourite of the King of Prussia and Queen of her loveliest women. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +THE CORSICAN AND THE CREOLE + +Of the many women who succeeded one another with such bewildering +rapidity in the favour of the first Napoleon, from Desirée Clary, +daughter of the Marseilles silk-merchant, the "little wife" of his days +of obscurity, to Madame Walewska, the beautiful Pole, who so fruitlessly +bartered her charms for her country's salvation, only one really +captured his fickle heart--Josephine de Beauharnais, the woman whom he +raised to the splendour of an Imperial crown, only to fling her aside +when she no longer served the purposes of his ambition. + +It was one October day in the year 1795 that Josephine, Vicomtesse de +Beauharnais, first cast the spell of her beauty on the "ugly little +Corsican," who had then got his foot well planted on the ladder, at the +summit of which was his crown of empire. At twenty-six, the man who, but +a little earlier, was an out-of-work captain, eating his heart out in a +Marseilles slum, was General-in-Chief of the armies of France, with the +disarmed rebels of Paris grovelling at his feet. + +One day a handsome boy came to him, craving permission to retain the +sword his father had won, a favour which the General, pleased by the +boy's frankness and manliness, granted. The next day the young rebel's +mother presented herself to thank him with gracious words for his +kindness to her son--a creature of another world than his, with a +beauty, grace and refinement which were a new revelation to his +bourgeois eyes. + +The fair vision haunted him; the music of her voice lingered in his +ears. He must see her again. And, before another day had passed, we find +the pale-faced, grim Corsican, with the burning eyes, sitting awkwardly +on a horse-hair chair of Madame's dining-room in her small house in the +Rue Chantereine, nervously awaiting the entry of the Vicomtesse who had +already played such havoc with his peace of mind. And when at last she +made her appearance, few would have recognised in the man, who made his +shy, awkward bow, the famous General with whose name the whole of France +was ringing. + +It was little wonder, perhaps, that the little Corsican's heart went +pit-a-pat, or that his knees trembled under him, for the lady whose +smile and the touch of whose hand sent a thrill through him, was indeed, +to quote his own words, "beautiful as a dream." From the chestnut hair +which rippled over her small, proudly poised head to the arch of her +tiny, dainty feet, "made for homage and for kisses," she was, "all +glorious without." There was witchery in every part of her--in the rich +colour that mantled in her cheeks; the sweet brown eyes that looked out +between long-fringed eyelids; the small, delicate nose; "the nostrils +quivering at the least emotion"; the exquisite lines of the tall, supple +figure, instinct with grace in every moment; and, above all, in the +seductive music of a voice, every note of which was a caress. + +Sixteen years earlier, Josephine had come from Martinique to Paris as +bride of the Vicomte de Beauharnais, with whom she had led a more or +less unhappy life, until the guillotine of the Revolution left her a +widow, with two children and an empty purse. But even this crowning +calamity was powerless to crush the sunny-hearted Creole, who merely +laughed at the load of debts which piled themselves up around her. A +little of the wreckage of her husband's fortune had been rescued for her +by influential friends; but this had disappeared long before Napoleon +crossed her path. And at last the light-hearted widow realised that if +she had a card left to play, she must play it quickly. + +Here then was her opportunity. The little General was obviously a slave +at her feet; he was already a great man, destined to be still greater; +and if he was bourgeois to his coarse finger-tips, he could at least +serve as a stepping-stone to raise her from poverty and obscurity. + +As for Napoleon, he was a vanquished man--and he knew it--before ever he +set foot in Madame's modest dining-room. When he left, he "trod on air," +for the Vicomtesse had been more than gracious to him. The next day he +was drawn as by a magnet to the Rue Chantereine, and the next and the +next, each interview with his divinity forging fresh links for the +chain that bound him; and at each visit he met under Madame's roof some +of the great ones of that other world in which Josephine moved, the old +_noblesse_ of France--who paid her the homage due to a Queen. + +Thus vanity and ambition fed the flames of the passion which was +consuming him; and within a fortnight he had laid his heart and his +fortune, which at the time consisted of "his personal wardrobe and his +military accoutrements" at the feet of the Creole widow; and one March +day in 1796 Napoleon Bonaparte, General, and Josephine de Beauharnais, +were made one by a registrar who obligingly described the bride as +twenty-nine (thus robbing her of three years), and added two to the +bridegroom's twenty-six years. + +After two days of rapturous honeymooning Napoleon was on his way to join +his army in Italy, as reluctant a bridegroom as ever left Cupid at the +bidding of Mars. At every change of horses during the long journey he +dispatched letters to the wife he had left behind--letters full of +passion and yearning. In one of them he wrote, "When I am tempted to +curse my fate, I place my hand on my heart and find your portrait there. +As I gaze at it I am filled with a joy unutterable. Life seems to hold +no pain, save that of severance from my beloved." + +At Nice, amid all the labours and anxieties of organising his rabble +army for a campaign, his thoughts are always taking wings to her; her +portrait is ever in his hand. He says his prayers before it; and, when +once he accidentally broke the glass, he was in an agony of despair and +superstitious foreboding. His one cry was, "Come to me! Come to my heart +and to my arms. Oh, that you had wings!" + +Even when flushed with the surrender of Piedmont after a fortnight's +brilliant fighting, in which he had won half a dozen battles and reaped +twenty-one standards, he would have bartered all his laurels for a sight +of the woman he loved so passionately. But while he was thus yearning +for her in distant Italy, Madame was much too happy in her beloved Paris +to lend an ear to his pleadings. As wife of the great Napoleon she was a +veritable Queen, fawned on and flattered by all the great ones in the +capital. Hers was the place of honour at every fête and banquet; the +banners her husband had captured were presented to her amid a tumult of +acclamation; when she entered a theatre the entire house rose to greet +her with cheers. She was thus in no mood to leave her Queendom for the +arms of her husband, whose unattractive person and clumsy ardour only +repelled her. + +When his letters calling her to him became more and more imperative, she +could no longer ignore them. But she could, at least, invent an +excellent excuse for her tarrying. She wrote to tell him that she was +expecting to become a mother. This at least would put a stop to his +importunity. And it did. Napoleon was full of delight--and self-reproach +at the joyful news. "Forgive me, my beloved," he wrote. "How can I ever +atone? You were ill and I accused you of lingering in Paris. My love +robs me of my reason, and I shall never regain it.... A child, sweet as +its mother, is soon to lie in your arms. Oh! that I could be with you, +even if only for one day!" + +To his brother Joseph he writes in a similar strain: "The thought of her +illness drives me mad. I long to see her, to hold her in my arms. I love +her so madly, I cannot live without her. If she were to die, I should +have absolutely nothing left to live for." + +When, however, he learns that Madame's illness is not sufficient to +interfere with her Paris gaieties, a different mood seizes him. Jealousy +and anger take the place of anxious sympathy. He insists that she shall +join him--threatens to resign his command if she refuses. Josephine no +longer dares to keep up her deception. She must obey. And thus, in a +flood of angry tears, we see her starting on her long journey to Italy, +in company with her dog, her maid, and a brilliant escort of officers. +Arrived at Milan, she was welcomed by Napoleon with open arms; but +"after two days of rapture and caresses," he was face to face with the +great crisis of Castiglione. His army was in imminent danger of +annihilation; his own fate and fortune trembled in the balance. Nothing +short of a miracle could save him; and on the third day of his new +honeymoon he was back again in the field at grips with fate. + +But even at this supreme crisis he found time to write daily letters to +the dear one who was awaiting the issue in Milan, begging her to share +his life. "Your tears," he writes, "drive me to distraction; they set my +blood on fire. Come to me here, that at least we may be able to say +before we die we had so many days of happiness." Thus he pleads in +letter after letter until Josephine, for very shame, is forced to yield, +and to return to her husband, who, as Masson tells us, "was all day at +her feet as before some divinity." + +Such days of bliss were, however, few and far between for the man who +was now in the throes of a Titanic struggle, on the issue of which his +fortunes and those of France hung. But when duty took him into danger +where his lady could not follow, she found ample solace. Monsieur +Charles, Leclerc's adjutant, was all the cavalier she needed--an Adonis +for beauty, a Hercules for strength, the handsomest soldier in +Napoleon's army, a past-master in all the arts of love-making. There was +no dull moment for Josephine with such a squire at her elbow to pour +flatteries into her ears and to entertain her with his clever tongue. + +But Monsieur Charles had short shrift when Napoleon's jealousy was +aroused. He was quickly sent packing to Paris; and Josephine was left to +write to her aunt, "I am bored to extinction." She was weary of her +husband's love-rhapsodies, disgusted with the crudities of his passion. +She had, however, a solace in the homage paid to her everywhere. At +Genoa she was received as a Queen; at Florence the Grand Duke called her +"cousin"; the entire army, from General to private, was under the spell +of her beauty and the graciousness that captivated all hearts. She was, +too, reaping a rich harvest of costly presents and bribes, from all who +sought to win Napoleon's favour through her. + +The Italian campaign at last over, Madame found herself back again in +her dear Paris, raised to a higher pinnacle of Queendom than ever, +basking in the splendours of the husband whose glories she so gladly +shared, though she held his love in such light esteem. But for him, at +least, there was no time for dallying. Within a few months he was waving +farewell to her again, from the bridge of the _Océan_ which was carrying +him off to the conquest of Egypt, buoyed by her promise that she would +join him when his work was done. And long before he had reached Malta +she was back again in the vortex of Paris gaiety, setting the tongue of +scandal wagging by her open flirtation with one lover after another. + +It was not long before the news of Madame's "goings-on" reached as far +as Alexandria. The dormant jealousy in Napoleon, lulled to rest since +Monsieur Charles had vanished from the scene, was fanned into flame. He +was furious; disillusion seized him, and thoughts of divorce began to +enter his brain. Two could play at this game of falseness; and there +were many beautiful women in Egypt only too eager to console the great +Napoleon. + +When news came to Josephine that her husband had landed at Fréjus, and +would shortly be with her, she was in a state bordering on panic. She +shrank from facing his anger; from the revelation of debts and unwifely +conduct which was inevitable. Her all was at stake and the game was more +than half lost. In her desperation she took her courage in both hands +and set forth, as fast as horses could take her, to meet Napoleon, that +she might at least have the first word with him; but as ill-luck would +have it, he travelled by a different route and she missed him. + +On her return to Paris she found the door of Napoleon's room barred +against her. "After repeated knocking in vain," says M. Masson, "she +sank on her knees sobbing aloud. Still the door remained closed. For a +whole day the scene was prolonged, without any sign from within. Worn +out at last, Josephine was about to retire in despair, when her maid +fetched her children. Eugène and Hortense, kneeling beside their mother, +mingled their supplications with hers. At last the door was opened; +speechless, tears streaming down his cheeks, his face convulsed with the +struggle that had rent his heart, Bonaparte appeared, holding out his +arms to his wife." + +Such was the meeting of the unfaithful Josephine and the husband who had +vowed that he would no longer call her wife. The reconciliation was +complete; for Napoleon was no man of half-measures. He frankly forgave +the weeping woman all her sins against him; and with generous hand +removed the mountain of debt her extravagance had heaped up--debts +amounting to more than two million francs, one million two hundred +thousand of which she owed to tradespeople alone. + +But Napoleon's passion for his wife, of whose beauty few traces now +remained, was dead. His loyalty only remained; and this, in turn, was to +be swept away by the tide of his ambition. A few years later Josephine +was crowned Empress by her husband, and consecrated by the Pope, after +a priest had given the sanction of the Church to her incomplete +nuptials. + +She had now reached the dazzling zenith of her career. At the Tuileries, +at St Cloud, and at Malmaison, she held her splendid Courts as Empress. +She had the most magnificent crown jewels in the world; and at Malmaison +she spent her happiest hours in spreading her gems out on the table +before her, and feasting her eyes on their many-hued fires. Her +wardrobes were full of the daintiest and costliest gowns of which, we +are told, more than two hundred were summer-dresses of percale and of +muslin, costing from one thousand to two thousand francs each. + +Less than six years of such splendour and luxury, and the inevitable end +of it all came. Napoleon's eyes were dazzled by the offer of an alliance +with the eldest daughter of the Austrian Emperor. His whole ambition now +was focused on providing a successor to his crown (Josephine had failed +him in this important matter); and in Marie Louise of Austria he not +only saw the prospective mother of his heir, but an alliance with one of +the great reigning houses of Europe, which would lend a much-needed +glamour to his bourgeois crown. + +His mind was at last inevitably made up. Josephine must be divorced. Her +pleadings and tears and faintings were powerless to melt him. And one +December day, in the year 1809, Napoleon was free to wed his Austrian +Princess; and Josephine was left to console herself as best she might, +with the knowledge that at least she had rescued from her downfall a +life-income of three million francs a year, on which she could still +play the rôle of Empress at the Elysée, Malmaison, and Navarre, the +sumptuous homes with which Napoleon's generosity had dowered the wife +who failed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +THE ENSLAVER OF A KING + +More than fifty years have gone since the penitent soul of Lola Montez +took flight to its Creator; but there must be some still living whose +pulses quicken at the very mention of a name which recalls so much +mystery and romance and bewildering fascination of the days when, for +them, as for her, "all the world was young." + +Who was she, this woman whose beauty dazzled the eyes and whose witchery +turned the heads of men in the forties and fifties of last century? A +dozen countries, from Spain to India, were credited with her birth. Some +said she was the daughter of a noble house, kidnapped by gipsies in her +infancy; others were equally confident that she had for father the +coroneted rake, Lord Byron, and for mother a charwoman. + +Her early years were wrapped in a mystery which she mischievously helped +to intensify by declaring that her father was a famous Spanish toreador. +Her origin, however, was prosaic enough. She was the daughter of an +obscure army captain, Gilbert, who hailed from Limerick; her mother was +an Oliver, from whom she received her strain of Spanish blood; and the +names given to her at a Limerick font, one day in 1818, two months after +her parents had made their runaway match, were Marie Dolores Eliza +Rosanna. + +When Captain Gilbert returned, after his furlough-romance, to India, he +took his wife and child with him. Seven years later cholera removed him; +his widow found speedy solace in the arms of a second husband, one +Captain Craigie; and Dolores was packed off to Scotland to the care of +her stepfather's people until her schooldays were ended. + +In the next few years she alternated between the Scottish household, +with its chilly atmosphere of Calvinism, and schools in Paris and +London, until, her education completed, she escaped the husband, a +mummified Indian judge, whom her mother had chosen for her, by eloping +with a young army officer, a Captain James, and with him made the return +voyage to India. + +A few months later her romance came to a tragic end, when her Lothario +husband fell under the spell of a brother-officer's wife and ran away +with her to the seclusion of the Neilgherry Hills, leaving his wife +stranded and desolate. And thus it was that Dolores Gilbert wiped the +dust of India finally off her feet, and with a cheque for a thousand +pounds, which her good-hearted stepfather slipped into her hand, started +once more for England, to commence that career of adventure which has +scarcely a parallel even in fiction. She had had more than enough of +wedded life, of Scottish Calvinism, and of a mother's selfish +indifference. She would be henceforth the mistress of her own fate. She +had beauty such as few women could boast--she had talents and a stout +heart; and these should be her fortune. + +Her first ambition was to be a great actress; and when she found that +acting was not her forte she determined to dance her way to fame and +fortune, and after a year's training in London and Spain she was ready +to conquer the world with her twinkling feet and supple body. + +Of her first appearance as a danseuse, before a private gathering of +Pressmen, we have the following account by one who was there: "Her +figure was even more attractive than her face, lovely as the latter was. +Lithe and graceful as a young fawn, every movement that she made seemed +instinct with melody. Her dark eyes were blazing and flashing with +excitement. In her pose grace seemed involuntarily to preside over her +limbs and dispose their attitude. Her foot and ankle were almost +faultless." + +Such was the enthusiastic description of Lola Montez (as she now chose +to call herself) on the eve of her bid for fame as a dancer who should +perhaps rival the glories of a Taglioni. A few days later the world of +rank and fashion flocked to see the début of the danseuse whose fame had +been trumpeted abroad; and as Lola pirouetted on to the stage--the focus +of a thousand pairs of eyes--she felt that the crowning moment of her +life had come. + +Almost before her twinkling feet had carried her to the centre of the +stage an ominous sound broke the silence of expectation. A hiss came +from one of the boxes; it was repeated from another, and another. The +sibilant sound spread round the house; it swelled into a sinister storm +of hisses and boos. The light faded out of the dancer's eyes, the smile +from her lips; and as the tumult of disapprobation rose to a deafening +climax the curtain was rung down, and Lola rushed weeping from the +stage. Her career as a dancer, in England, had ended at its birth. + +But Lola Montez was not the woman to sit down calmly under defeat. A few +weeks later we find her tripping it on the stage at Dresden, and at +Berlin, where the King of Prussia himself was among her applauders. But +such success as the Continent brought her was too small to keep her now +deplenished purse supplied. She fell on evil days, and for two years led +a precarious life--now, we are told, singing in Brussels streets to keep +starvation from her side, now playing the political spy in Russia, and +again, by a capricious turn of fortune's wheel, being fêted and courted +in the exalted circles of Vienna and Paris. + +From the French capital she made her way to Warsaw, where stirring +adventures awaited her, for before she had been there many days the +Polish Viceroy, General Paskevitch, cast his aged but lascivious eyes on +her young beauty and sent an equerry to desire her presence at the +palace. "He offered her" (so runs the story as told by her own lips) +"the gift of a splendid country estate, and would load her with diamonds +besides. The poor old man was a comic sight to look upon--unusually +short in stature; and every time he spoke he threw his head back and +opened his mouth so wide as to expose the artificial gold roof of his +palate. A death's head making love to a lady could not have been a more +horrible or disgusting sight. These generous gifts were most +respectfully and very decidedly declined." + +But General Paskevitch was not disposed to be spurned with impunity. The +contemptuous beauty must be punished for her scorn of his wooing; and, +when she made her appearance on the stage the same night it was to a +greeting of hisses by the Viceroy's hirelings. The next night brought +the same experience; but when on the third night the storm arose, "Lola, +in a rage, rushed down to the footlights and declared that those hisses +had been set at her by the director, because she had refused certain +gifts from the old Prince, his master. Then came a tremendous shower of +applause from the audience, and the old Princess, who was present, both +nodded her head and clapped her hands to the enraged and fiery little +Lola." + +A tumultuous crowd of Poles escorted her to her lodgings that night. She +was the heroine of the hour, who had dared to give open defiance to the +hated Viceroy. The next morning Warsaw was "bubbling and raging with the +signs of an incipient revolution. When Lola Montez was apprised of the +fact that her arrest was ordered she barricaded her door; and when the +police arrived she sat behind it with a pistol in her hand, declaring +that she would certainly shoot the first man who should dare to break +in." Fortunately for Lola, her pistol was not used. The French Consul +came to her rescue, claiming her as a subject of France, and thus +protecting her from arrest. But the order that she should quit Warsaw +was peremptory, and Warsaw saw her no more. + +Back again in Paris, Lola found that even her new halo of romance was +powerless to win favour for her dancing. Again she was to hear the storm +of hisses; and this time in her rage "she retaliated by making faces at +her audience," and flinging parts of her clothing in their faces. But if +Paris was not to be charmed by her dainty feet it was ready to yield an +unstinted homage to her rare beauty and charm. She found a flattering +welcome in the most exclusive of _salons_; the cleverest men in the +capital confessed the charm of her wit and surrounded her with their +flatteries. + +M. Dujarrier, the most brilliant of them all, young, rich, and handsome, +fell head over ears in love with her and asked her to be his wife. But +the cup of happiness was scarcely at her lips before it was dashed away. +Dujarrier was challenged to a duel by Beauvallon, a political enemy; and +when Lola was on her way to stop the meeting she met a mournful +procession bringing back her dead lover's body, on which she flung +herself in an agony of grief and covered it with kisses. At the +subsequent trial of Beauvallon she electrified the Court by declaring +with streaming eyes, "If Beauvallon wanted satisfaction I would have +fought him myself, for I am a better shot than poor Dujarrier ever was." +And she was probably only speaking the truth, for her courage was as +great as the love she bore for the victim of the duel. + +As a child Lola had shocked her puritanical Scottish hosts by declaring +that "she meant to marry a Prince," and unkindly as fate had treated +her, she had by no means relinquished this childish ambition. It may be +that it was in her mind when, a year and a half after the tragedy that +had so clouded her life in Paris, she drifted to Munich in search of +more conquests. + +Now in the full bloom of her radiant loveliness--"the most beautiful +woman in Europe" many declared--mingling the vivacity of an Irish beauty +with the voluptuous charms of a Spaniard--she was splendidly equipped +for the conquest of any man, be he King or subject; and Ludwig I., King +of Bavaria, had as keen an eye for female beauty as for the objects of +art on which he squandered his millions. + +It was this Ludwig who made Munich the fairest city in all Germany, and +who enriched his palace with the finest private collection of pictures +and statues that Europe can boast. But among all his treasures of art he +valued none more than his gallery of portraits of fair women, each of +whom had, at one time or another, visited his capital. + +Such was Ludwig, Bavaria's King, to whom Lola Montez now brought a new +revelation of female loveliness, to which his gallery could furnish no +rival. At first sight of her, as she danced in the opera ballet, he was +undone. The next day and the next his eyes were feasting on her charms +and her supple grace; and within a week she was installed at the Court +and was being introduced by His Majesty as "my best friend." + +And not only the King, but all Munich was at the feet of the lovely +"Spaniard"; her drives through the streets were Royal progresses; her +receptions in the palace which Ludwig presented to her were thronged by +all the greatest in Bavaria; on Prince and peasant alike she cast the +spell of her witchery. As for Ludwig, connoisseur of the beautiful, he +was her shadow and her slave, showering on her gifts an Empress might +well have envied. Fortune had relented at last and was now smiling her +sweetest on the adventuress; and if Lola had been content with such +triumphs as these the story of her later life might have been very +different. But she craved power to add to her trophies, and aspired to +take the sceptre from the weak hand of her Royal lover. + +Never did woman make a more fatal mistake. On the one hand was arrayed +the might of Austria and of Rome, whose puppet Ludwig was; on the other +hand was a nation clamouring for reforms. Revolution was already in the +air, and it was reserved to this too daring woman to precipitate the +storm. + +Her first ambition was to persuade Ludwig to dismiss his Ministry, to +shake himself free from foreign influence, and to inaugurate the era of +reform for which his subjects were clamouring. In vain did Austria try +to win her to its side by bribes of gold (no less than a million +florins) and the offer of a noble husband. To all its seductions Lola +turned as deaf an ear as to the offers of Poland's Viceroy. And so +strenuous was her championship of the people that the Cabinet was +compelled to resign in favour of the "Lola Ministry" of reformers. + +So far she had succeeded, but the price was still to pay. The +reactionaries, supported by Austria and the Romish Church, were quick +to retaliate by waging remorseless war against the King's mistress; and, +among their most powerful weapons, used the students' clubs of Munich, +who, from being Lola's most enthusiastic admirers, became her bitterest +enemies. + +To counteract this move Lola enrolled a students' corps of her own--a +small army of young stalwarts, whose cry was "Lola and Liberty," and who +were sworn to fight her battles, if need be, to the death. Thus was the +fire of revolution kindled by a woman's vanity and lust of power. +Students' fights became everyday incidents in the streets of Munich, and +on one occasion when Lola, pistol in hand, intervened to prevent +bloodshed, she was rescued with difficulty by Ludwig himself and a +detachment of soldiers. + +The climax came when she induced the King to close the University for a +year--an autocratic step which aroused the anger not only of every +student but of the whole country. The streets were paraded by mobs +crying, "Down with the concubine!" and "Long live the Republic!" +Barricades were erected and an influential deputation waited on the King +to demand the expulsion of the worker of so much mischief. + +In vain did Ludwig declare that he would part with his crown rather than +with the Countess of Landsfeld--for this was one of the titles he had +conferred on his favourite. The forces arrayed against him were too +strong, and the order of expulsion was at last conceded. It was only, +however, when her palace was in flames and surrounded by a howling mob +that the dauntless woman deigned to seek refuge in flight, and, +disguised as a boy, suffered herself to be escorted to the frontier. Two +weeks later Ludwig lost his crown. + +The remainder of this strange story may be told in a few words. Thrown +once more on the world, with a few hastily rescued jewels for all her +fortune, Lola Montez resumed her stage life, appearing in London in a +drama entitled "Lola Montez: or a Countess for an Hour." Here she made a +conquest of a young Life Guardsman, called Heald, who had recently +succeeded to an estate worth £5000 a year; and with him she spent a few +years, made wretched by continual quarrels, in one of which she stabbed +him. When he was "found drowned" at Lisbon she drifted to Paris, and +later to the United States, which she toured with a drama entitled "Lola +Montez in Bavaria." There she made her third appearance at the altar, +with a bridegroom named Hull, whom she divorced as soon as the honeymoon +had waned. + +Thus she carried her restless spirit through a few more years of +wandering and growing poverty, until a chance visit to Spurgeon's +Tabernacle revolutionised her life. She decided to abandon the stage and +to devote the remainder of her days to penitence and good works. But the +end was already near. In New York, where she had gone to lecture, she +was struck down by paralysis, and a few weeks before she had seen her +forty-second birthday she died in a charitable institution, joining +fervently in the prayers of the clergyman who was summoned to her +death-bed. + +"When she was near the end, and could not speak," the clergyman says, +"I asked her to let me know by a sign whether she was at peace. She +fixed her eyes on mine and nodded affirmatively. I do not think I ever +saw deeper penitence and humility than in this poor woman." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +AN EMPRESS AND HER FAVOURITES + +When Sophie Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst was romping on the +ramparts or in the streets of Stettin with burghers' children for +playmates, he would have been a bold prophet who would have predicted +that one day she would be the most splendid figure among Europe's +sovereigns, "the only great man in Europe," according to Voltaire, "an +angel before whom all men should be silent"; and that, while dazzling +Europe by her statesmanship and learning, she would afford more material +for scandal than any woman, except perhaps Christina of Sweden, who ever +wore a crown. + +There is much, it is true, to be said in extenuation of the weakness +that has left such a stain on the memory of Catherine II. of Russia. +Equipped far beyond most women with the beauty and charms that fascinate +men, and craving more than most of her sex the love of man, she was +mated when little more than a child to the most degenerate Prince in all +Europe. + +The Grand Duke Peter, heir to the Russian throne, who at sixteen took to +wife the girl-Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, was already an expert in +almost every vice. Imbecile in mind, he found his chief pleasure in the +company of the most degraded. He rarely went to bed sober--in fact, his +bride's first sight of him was when he was drunk, at the age of ten. He +was, too, "a liar and a coward, vicious and violent; pale, sickly, and +uncomely--a crooked soul in a prematurely ravaged body." + +Such was the Grand Duke Peter, to whom the high-spirited, beautiful +Princess Sophie (thenceforth to be known as "Catherine") was tied for +life one day in the year 1744--a youth the very sight of whom repelled +her, while his vices filled her with loathing. Add to this revolting +union the fact that she found herself under the despotic rule of the +Empress Elizabeth, who made no concealment of her hatred and jealousy of +the fair young Princess, surrounded her with spies, and treated her as a +rebellious child, to be checked and bullied at every turn--and it is not +difficult to understand the spirit of recklessness and defiance that was +soon roused in Catherine's breast. + +There was at the Russian Court no lack of temptation to indulge this +spirit of revolt to the full. The young German beauty, mated to worse +than a clown, soon had her Court of admirers to pour flatteries into her +dainty ears, and she would perhaps have been less than a woman if she +had not eagerly drunk them in. She had no need of anyone to tell her +that she was fair. "I know I am beautiful as the day," she once +exclaimed, as she looked at her mirrored reflection in her first ball +finery at St Petersburg, with a red rose in her glorious hair; and the +mirror told no flattering tale. + +See the picture Poniatowski, one of her earliest and most ardent slaves, +paints of the young Grand Duchess. "With her black hair she had a +dazzling whiteness of skin, a vivid colour, large blue eyes prominent +and eloquent, black and long eyebrows, a Greek nose, a mouth that looked +made for kissing, a slight, rather tall figure, a carriage that was +lively, yet full of nobility, a pleasing voice, and a laugh as merry as +the humour through which she could pass with ease from the most playful +and childish amusements to the most fatiguing mathematical +calculations." + +With the brain, even in those early years, of a clever man, she was +essentially a woman, with all a woman's passion for the admiration and +love of men; and one cannot wonder, however much one may deplore, that +while her imbecile husband was guzzling with common soldiers, or playing +with his toys and tin cannon in bed, vacuous smiles on his face, his +beautiful bride should find her own pleasures in the homage of a +Soltykoff, a Poniatowski, an Orloff, or any other of the legion of +lovers who in quick succession took her fancy. + +The first among her admirers to capture her fancy was Sergius Soltykoff, +her chamberlain, high-born, "beautiful as the day," polished courtier, +supple-tongued wooer, to whom the Grand Duchess gave the heart her +husband spurned. But Soltykoff's reign was short; the fickle Princess, +ever seeking fresh conquests, wearied of him as of all her lovers in +turn, and his place was taken within a year by Stanislas Poniatowski, a +fascinating young Pole, who returned to St Petersburg with a reputation +of gallantry won in almost every Court of Europe. + +Poniatowski had not perhaps the physical perfections of his dethroned +predecessor, but he had the well-stored brain that made an even more +potent appeal to Catherine. He could talk "like an angel" on every +subject that appealed to her, from art to philosophy; and he had, +moreover, a magnetic charm of manner which few women could resist. + +Such a lover was, indeed, after her heart, for he brought romance and +adventure to his wooing; and whether he found his way to her boudoir +disguised as a ladies' tailor or as one of the Grand Duke's musicians, +or made open love to her under the very nose of her courtiers, he played +his rôle of lover to admiration. Once Peter, in jealous mood, threatened +to run his rival through with his sword, and, in his rage, "went into +his wife's bedroom and pulled her out of bed without leaving her time to +dress." An hour later his anger had changed to an amused complaisance, +and he was supping with the culprits, and with boisterous laughter was +drinking their healths. + +When at last a political storm drove Poniatowski from Russia, Catherine, +who never forgot a banished lover, secured for him the crown of Poland. + +Thus the favourites come and go, each supreme for a time, each +inevitably packed off to give place to a successor. With Poniatowski +away in Poland, Catherine cast her eyes round her Court to find a third +favourite, and her choice was soon made, for of all her army of admirers +there was one who fully satisfied her ideal of handsome manhood. + +Of the five Orloff brothers, each a Goliath in stature and a Hercules in +strength, the handsomest was Gregory, "the giant with the face of an +angel." Towering head and shoulders over most of his fellow-courtiers, +with knotted muscles which could fell an ox or crush a horse-shoe with +the closing of a hand, Gregory Orloff was reputed the bravest man in +Russia, as he was the idol of his soldiers. He was also a notorious +gambler and drinker and the hero of countless love adventures. + +No greater contrast could be possible than between this dare-devil son +of Anak and the cultured, almost feminine Poniatowski; but Catherine +loved, above all things, variety, and here it was in startling +abundance. Nor was her new lover any the less desirable because he was +some years younger than herself, or that his grandfather had been a +common soldier in the army of Peter the Great. + +And Gregory Orloff proved himself as bold in wooing as he was brave in +war. For him there was no stealing up back stairs, no masquerading in +disguises. He was the elect favourite of the future Empress of Russia, +and all the world should know it. He was inseparable from his mistress, +and paid his court to her under the eyes of her husband; while +Catherine, thus emboldened, made as little concealment of her +partiality. + +But troublous days were coming to break the idyll of their love. The +Empress Elizabeth, as was inevitable, at last drank herself to death, +and her nephew Peter, now a besotted imbecile of thirty-four, put on the +Imperial robes, and was free to indulge his madness without restraint. +The first use he made of his freedom was to subject his wife to every +insult and humiliation his debased brain could suggest. He flaunted his +amours and vices before her, taunted her in public with her own +indiscretions, and shouted in his cups that he would divorce her. + +Not content with these outrages on his Empress, he lost no opportunity +of disgusting his subjects and driving his soldiers to the verge of +mutiny. Such an intolerable state of things could only have one issue. +The Emperor was undoubtedly mad; the Emperor must go. + +Over the _coup d'état_ which followed we must pass hurriedly--the +conspiracy of Catherine and the Orloffs, the eager response of the army +which flocked to the Empress, "kissing me, embracing my hands, my feet, +my dress, and calling me their saviour"; the marching of the insurgent +troops to Oranienbaum, with Catherine, astride on horseback, at their +head; and Peter's craven submission, when he crawled on his knees to his +wife, with whimpering and tears, begging her to allow him to keep "his +mistress, his dog, his negro, and his violin." + +The Emperor was safe behind barred doors at Mopsa; Catherine was now +Empress in fact as well as name. Three weeks later Peter was dead; was +he done to death by Catherine's orders? To this day none can say with +certainty. The story of this tragedy as told by Castèra makes gruesome +reading. + +One day Alexis Orloff and Teplof appeared at Mopsa to announce to the +deposed sovereign his approaching deliverance and to ask a dinner of +him. Glasses and brandy were ordered, and while Teplof was amusing the +Tsar, Orloff filled the glasses, adding poison to one of them. + +"The Tsar, suspecting no harm, took the poison and swallowed it. He was +soon seized with agonising pains. He screamed aloud for milk, but the +two monsters again presented poison to him and forced him to take it. +When the Tsar's valet bravely interposed he was hurled from the room. In +the midst of the tumult there entered Prince Baratinski, who commanded +the Guard. Orloff, who had already thrown down the Tsar, pressed upon +his chest with his own knees, holding him fast at the same time by the +throat. Baratinski and Teplof then passed a table-napkin with a sliding +knot round his neck, and the murderers accomplished the work of death by +strangling him." + +Such is the story as it has come down to us, and as it was believed in +Russia at the time. That Gregory Orloff was innocent of a crime in which +his own brother played a leading part is as little to be credited as +that Catherine herself was in ignorance of the design on her husband's +life. But, however this may be, we are told that when the news of her +husband's death was brought to the Empress at a banquet, she was to all +appearance overcome with horror and grief. She left the table with +streaming eyes and spent the next few days in unapproachable solitude +in her rooms. + +Thus at last Catherine was free both from the tyranny of Elizabeth and +from the brutality of her bestial husband. She was sole sovereign of all +the Russias, at liberty to indulge any caprice that entered her +versatile brain. That her subjects, almost to a man, regarded her with +horror as her husband's murderer, that this detestation was shared by +the army that had put her on the throne, and by the nobles who had been +her slaves, troubled her little. She was mistress of her fate, and +strong enough (as indeed she proved) to hold, with a firm grasp, the +sceptre she had won. + +High as Gregory Orloff had stood in her favour before she came to her +crown, his position was now more splendid and secure. She showered her +favours on him with prodigal hand. Lands and jewels and gold were +squandered on her "First Favourite"--the official designation she +invented for him; and he wore on his broad chest her miniature in a +blazing oval of diamonds, the crowning mark of her approval. And to his +brothers she was almost equally generous, for in a few years of her +ascendancy the Orloffs were enriched by vast estates on which forty-five +thousand serfs toiled, by palaces, and by gold to the amount of +seventeen million roubles. Such it was to be in the good books of +Catherine II., Empress of Russia. + +With riches and power, Gregory's ambition grew until he dreamt of +sitting on the throne itself by Catherine's side; and in her foolish +infatuation even this prize might have been his, had not wiser counsels +come to her rescue. "The Empress," said Panine to her, "can do what she +likes; but Madame Orloff can never be Empress of Russia." And thus +Gregory's greatest ambition was happily nipped in the bud. + +The man who had played his cards with such skill and discretion in the +early days of his love-making had now, his head swollen by pride and +power, grown reckless. If he could not be Emperor in name, he would at +least wield the sceptre. The woman to whom he owed all was, he thought, +but a puppet in his hands, as ready to do his bidding as any of his +minions. But through all her dallying Catherine's smiles masked an iron +will. In heart she was a woman; in brain and will-power, a man. And +Orloff, like many another favourite, was to learn the lesson to his +cost. + +The time came when she could no longer tolerate his airs and +assumptions. There was only one Empress, but lovers were plentiful, and +she already had an eye on his successor. And thus it was that one day +the swollen Orloff was sent on a diplomatic mission to arrange peace +between Russia and Turkey. When she bade him good-bye she called him her +"angel of peace," but she knew that it was her angel's farewell to his +paradise. + +How the Ambassador, instead of making peace, stirred up the embers of +war into fresh flame is a matter of history. But he was not long left to +work such mad mischief. While he was swaggering at a Jassy fête, in a +costume ablaze with diamonds worth a million roubles, news came to him +of a good-looking young lieutenant who was not only installed in his +place by Catherine's side, but was actually occupying his own +apartments. Within an hour he was racing back to St Petersburg, resting +neither night nor day until he had covered the thousand leagues that +separated him from the capital. + +Before, however, his sweating horses could enter it, he was stopped by +Catherine's emissaries and ordered to repair to the Imperial Palace at +Gatshina. And then he realised that his sun had indeed come to its +setting. His honours were soon stripped from him, and although he was +allowed to keep his lands, his gold and jewels, the spoils of Cupid, the +diamond-framed miniature, was taken away to adorn the breast of his +successor, the lieutenant. + +Under this cloud of disfavour Orloff conducted himself with such +resignation--none knew better than he how futile it was to fight--that +Catherine, before many months had passed, not only recalled him to +Court, but secured for him a Princedom of the Holy Empire. "As for +Prince Gregory," she said amiably, "he is free to go or stay, to hunt, +to drink, or to gamble. I intend to live according to my own pleasure, +and in entire independence." + +After a tragically brief wedded life with a beautiful girl-cousin, who +died of consumption, Orloff returned to St Petersburg to spend the last +few months of his life, "broken-hearted and mad." And to his last hour +his clouded brain was tortured with visions of the "avenging shade of +the murdered Peter." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY CINDERELLA + +It was to all seeming a strange whim that caused Cardinal Mazarin, one +day in the year 1653, to summon his nieces, daughters of his sister, +Hieronyme Mancini, from their obscurity in Italy to bask in the sunshine +of his splendours in Paris. + +At the time of this odd caprice, Richelieu's crafty successor had +reached the zenith of his power. His was the most potent and splendid +figure in all Europe that did not wear a crown. He was the avowed +favourite and lover of Anne of Austria, Queen of France, to whose vanity +he had paid such skilful court--indeed it was common rumour that she had +actually given him her hand in secret marriage. The boy-King, Louis +XIV., was a puppet in his strong hands. He was, in fact, the dictator of +France, whose smiles the greatest courtiers tried to win, and before +whose frowns they trembled. + +In contrast to such magnificence, his sister, Madame Mancini, was the +wife of a petty Italian baron, who was struggling to bring up her five +daughters on a pathetically scanty purse--as far removed from her +magnificent brother as a moth from a star. There was, on the face of +things, every reason why the great and all-powerful Cardinal should +leave his nieces to their genteel poverty; and we can imagine both the +astonishment and delight with which Madame Mancini received the summons +to Paris which meant such a revolution in life for her and her +daughters. + +If the Mancini girls had no heritage of money, they had at least the +dower of beauty. Each of the five gave promise of a rare +loveliness--with the solitary exception of Marie, Madame's third +daughter, who at fourteen was singularly unattractive even for that +awkward age. Tall, thin, and angular, without a vestige of grace either +of figure or movement, she had a sallow face out of which two great +black eyes looked gloomily, and a mouth wide and thin-lipped. She was, +in addition, shy and slow-witted to the verge of stupidity. Marie, in +fact, was quite hopeless, the "ugly duckling" of a good-looking family, +and for this reason an object of dislike and resentment to her mother. + +Certainly, said Madame, Marie must be left behind. Her other daughters +would be a source of pride to their uncle; he could secure great matches +for them, but Marie--pah! she would bring discredit on the whole family. +And so it was decided in conclave that the "ugly duckling" should be +left in a nunnery--the only fit place for her. But Marie happily had a +spirit of her own. She would not be left behind, she declared; and if +she must go to a nunnery, why there were nunneries in plenty in France +to which they could send her. And Marie had her way. + +She was not, however, to escape the cloister after all, for to a Paris +nunnery she was consigned when her Cardinal uncle had set eyes on her. +"Let her have a year or two there," was his verdict, "and, who knows, +she may blossom into a beauty yet. At any rate she can put on flesh and +not be the scarecrow she is." And thus, while her more favoured sisters +were revelling in the gaieties of Court life, Marie was sent to tell her +beads and to spend Spartan days among the nuns. + +Nearly two years passed before Mazarin expressed a wish to see his ugly +niece again; and it was indeed a very different Marie who now made her +curtsy to him. Gone were the angular figure, the awkward movements, the +sallow face, the slow wits. Time and the healthy life of the cloisters +had done their work well. What the Cardinal now saw was a girl of +seventeen, of exquisitely modelled figure, graceful and self-possessed; +a face piquant and full of animation, illuminated by a pair of glorious +dark eyes, and with a dazzling smile which revealed the prettiest teeth +in France. Above all, and what delighted the Cardinal most, she had now +a sprightly wit, and a quite brilliant gift of conversation. It was thus +a smiling and gratified Cardinal who gave greeting to his niece, now as +fair as her sisters and more fascinating than any of them. There was no +doubt that he could find a high-placed husband for her, and thus--for +this was, in fact, his motive for rescuing his pretty nieces from their +obscurity--make his position secure by powerful family alliances. + +It was not long before Mazarin fixed on a suitor in the person of +Armande de la Porte, son of the Marquis de la Meilleraye, one of the +most powerful nobles in France. But alas for his scheming! Armande's +heart had already been caught while Marie was reciting her matins and +vespers: He had lost it utterly to her beautiful sister, Hortense; he +vowed that he would marry no other, and that if Hortense could not be +his wife he would prefer to die. Thus Marie was rescued from a union +which brought her sister so much misery in later years, and for a time +she was condemned to spend unhappy months with her mother at the Louvre. + +To this period of her life Marie Mancini could never look back without a +shudder. "My mother," she says, "who, I think, had always hated me, was +more unbearable than ever. She treated me, although I was no longer +ugly, with the utmost aversion and cruelty. My sisters went to Court and +were fussed and fêted. I was kept always at home, in our miserable +lodgings, an unhappy Cinderella." + +But Fortune did not long hide his face from Cinderella. Her "Prince +Charming" was coming--in the guise of the handsome young King, Louis +XIV. himself. It was one day while visiting Madame Mancini in her +lodgings at the Louvre that Louis first saw the girl who was to play +such havoc with his heart; and at the first sight of those melting dark +eyes and that intoxicating smile he was undone. He came again and +again--always under the pretext of visiting Madame, and happy beyond +expression if he could exchange a few words with her daughter, Marie; +until he soon counted a day worse than lost that did not bring him the +stolen sweetness of a meeting. + +When, a few weeks later, Madame Mancini died, and Marie was recalled to +Court by her uncle, her life was completely changed for her. Louis had +now abundant opportunities of seeking her side; and excellent use he +made of them. The two young people were inseparable, much to the alarm +of the Cardinal and Madame Mère, the Queen. The young King was never +happy out of her sight; he danced with her (and none could dance more +divinely than Marie); he listened as she sang to him with a voice whose +sweetness thrilled him; they read the same books together in blissful +solitude; she taught him her native Italian, and entranced him by the +brilliance of her wit; and when, after a slight illness, he heard of her +anxious inquiries and her tears of sympathy, his conquest was complete. +He vowed that she and no other should be his wife and Queen of France. + +But these halcyon days were not to last long. It was no part of +Mazarin's scheming that a niece of his should sit on the throne. The +prospect was dazzling, it is true, but it would inevitably mean his own +downfall, so strongly would such an alliance be resented by friends as +well as enemies; and Anne of Austria was as little in the mood to be +deposed by such an obscure person as the "Mancini girl." Thus it was +that Queen and Cardinal joined hands to nip the young romance in the +bud. + +A Royal bride must be found for Louis, and that quickly; and +negotiations were soon on foot to secure as his wife Margaret, Princess +of Savoy. In vain did the boy-King storm and protest; equally futile +were Marie's tearful pleadings to her uncle. The fiat had gone forth. +Louis must have a Royal bride; and she was already about to leave Italy +on her bridal progress to France. + +It was, we may be sure, with a heavy heart that Marie joined the +cavalcade which, with its gorgeous procession of equipages, its gaily +mounted courtiers, and its brave escort of soldiery, swept out of Paris +on its stately progress to Lyons, to meet the Queen-to-be. But there was +no escape from the humiliation, for she must accompany Anne of Austria, +as one of her retinue of maids-of-honour. Arrived too soon at Lyons, +Louis rides on to give first greeting to his bride, who is now within a +day's journey; and returns with a smiling face to announce to his mother +that he finds the Princess pleasing to his eye, and to describe, with +boyish enthusiasm, her grace and graciousness, her magnificent eyes, her +beautiful hair, and the delicate olive of her complexion, while Marie's +heart sinks at the recital. Could this be the lover who, but a few days +ago, had been at her feet, vowing that she was the only bride in all the +world for him? + +When he seeks her side and shamefacedly makes excuses for his seeming +recreancy, she bids him marry his "ugly bride" in accents of scorn, and +then bursts into tears, which she only consents to wipe away when he +declares that his heart will always be hers and that he will never marry +the Italian Princess. + +But Margaret of Savoy was not after all to be Queen of France. She was, +as it proved, merely a pawn in the Cardinal's deep game. It was a +Spanish alliance that he sought for his young King; and when, at the +eleventh hour, an ambassador came hurriedly to Lyons to offer the +Infanta's hand, the Savoy Duke and his sister, the Princess, had +perforce to return to Italy "empty-handed." + +There was at least a time of respite now for Louis and Marie, and as +they rode back to Paris, side by side, chatting gaily and exchanging +sweet confidences, the sun once more shone on the happiest young people +in all France. Then followed a period of blissful days, of dances and +fêtes, in brilliant succession, in which the lovers were inseparable; +above all, of long rambles together, when, "the world forgetting," they +could live in the happy present, whatever the future might have in store +for them. + +Meanwhile the negotiations for the Spanish marriage were ripening fast. +Louis and Marie again appeal, first to the Cardinal, then to the Queen, +to sanction their union, but to no purpose; both are inflexible. Their +foolish romance must come to an end. As a last resource Marie flies to +the King, with tender pleadings and tears, begging him not to desert +her; to which he answers that no power on earth shall make him wed the +Infanta. "You alone," he swears, "shall wear the crown of Queen"; and in +token of his love he buys for her the pearls that were the most +treasured belongings of the exiled Stuart Queen, Henrietta Maria. The +lovers part in tears, and the following day Marie receives orders to +leave Paris and to retire to La Rochelle. + +At every stage of her journey she was overtaken by messengers bearing +letters from Louis, full of love and protestations of unflinching +loyalty; and when Louis moved with his Court to Bayonne, the lovers met +once more to mingle their tears. But Louis, ever fickle, was already +wavering again. "If I must marry the Infanta," he said, "I suppose I +must. But I shall never love any but you." + +Marie now realised that this was to be the end. In face of a lover so +weak, and a fate so inflexible, what could she do but submit? And it was +with a proud but breaking heart that she wrote a few days later to tell +Louis that she wished him not to write to her again and that she would +not answer his letters. One June day news came to her that her lover was +married and that "he was very much in love with the Infanta"; and even +her pride, crushed as it was, could not restrain her from writing to her +sister, Hortense, "Say everything you can that is horrid about him. +Point out all his faults to me, that I may find relief for my aching +heart." When, a few months later, Marie saw the King again, he received +her almost as a stranger, and had the bad taste to sing the praises of +his Queen. + +But Marie Mancini was the last girl in all France to wed herself long to +grief or an outraged vanity. There were other lovers by the score among +whom she could pick and choose. She was more lovely now than when the +recreant Louis first succumbed to her charms--with a ripened witchery of +black eyes, red lips, the flash of pearly teeth revealed by every +dazzling smile, with glorious black hair, the grace of a fawn, and a +"voluptuous fascination" which no man could resist. + +Prince Charles of Lorraine was her veriest slave, but Mazarin would have +none of him. Prince Colonna, Grand Constable of Naples, was more +fortunate when he in turn came a-wooing. He bore the proudest name in +Italy, and he had wealth, good-looks, and high connections to lend a +glamour to his birth. The Cardinal smiled on his suit, and Marie, since +she had no heart to give, willingly gave her hand. + +Louis himself graced the wedding with his presence; and we are told, as +the white-faced bride "said the 'yes' which was to bind her to a +stranger, her eyes, with an indescribable expression, sought those of +the King, who turned pale as he met them." + +Over the rest of Marie Mancini's chequered life we must hasten. After a +few years of wedded life with her Italian Prince, "Colonna's early +passion for his beautiful wife was succeeded by a distaste amounting to +hatred. He disgusted her with his amours; and when she ventured to +protest against his infidelity, he tried to poison her." This crowning +outrage determined Marie to fly, and, in company with her sister, +Hortense, who had fled to her from the brutality of her own husband, she +made her escape one dark night to Civita Vecchia, where a boat was +awaiting the runaways. + +Hotly pursued on land and sea, narrowly escaping shipwreck, braving +hardships, hunger, and hourly danger of capture, the fugitives at last +reached Marseilles where Marie (Hortense now seeking a refuge in Savoy) +began those years of wandering and adventure, the story of which +outstrips fiction. + +Now we find her seeking asylum at convents from Aix to Madrid; now +queening it at the Court of Savoy, with Duke Charles Emmanuel for lover; +now she is dazzling Madrid with the Almirante of Castille and many +another high-placed worshipper dancing attendance on her; and now she is +in Rome, turning the heads of grave cardinals with her witcheries. +Sometimes penniless and friendless, at others lapped in luxury; but +carrying everywhere in her bosom the English pearls, the last gift of +her false and frail Louis. + +Thus, through the long, troubled years, until old-age crept on her, the +Cardinal's niece wandered, a fugitive, over the face of Europe, +alternately caressed and buffeted by fortune, until "at long last" the +end came and brought peace with it. As she lay dying in the house of a +good Samaritan at Pisa, with no other hand to minister to her, she +called for pen and paper, and with failing hand wrote her own epitaph, +surely the most tragic ever penned--"Marie Mancini Colonna--Dust and +Ashes." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +BIANCA, GRAND DUCHESS OF TUSCANY + +More than three centuries have gone since Florence made merry over the +death of her Grand Duchess, Bianca. It was an occasion for rejoicing; +her name was bandied from lips to lips--"La Pessima Bianca"; jeers and +laughter followed her to her unmarked grave in the Church of San +Lorenzo. But through the ages her picture has come down to us as she +strutted on the world's stage in all her pride and beauty, with a +vividness which few better women of her time retain. + +It was in the year 1548, when our boy-King, the sixth Edward, was fresh +to his crown, that Bianca Capello was cradled in the palace of her +father, one of the greatest men of Venice, Senator and Privy Councillor. +As a child she was as beautiful as she was wilful; the pride of her +father, the despair of his wife, her stepmother--her little head full of +romance, her heart full of rebellion against any kind of discipline or +restraint. + +Before she had left the schoolroom Capello's daughter was, by common +consent, the fairest girl in her native city, with a beauty riper than +her years. Tall, and with a well-developed figure of singular grace, +she carried her head as proudly as any Queen. Her fair hair fell in a +rippling cascade far below her waist; her face, hands, and throat, we +are told, were "white as lilies," save for the delicate rose-colour that +tinted her cheeks. Her eyes were large and dark, and of an almost +dazzling brilliance; and her full, pouting lips were red and fragrant as +a rose. + +Such was Bianca Capello on the threshold of womanhood, as you may see +her pictured to-day in Bronzino's miniature at the British Museum, with +a loveliness which set the hearts of the Venetian gallants a-flutter +before our Shakespeare was in his cradle. She might, if she would, have +mated with almost any noble in Tuscany, had not her foolish, wayward +fancy fallen on Pietro Bonaventuri, a handsome young clerk in Salviati's +bank, whose eyes had often strayed from his ledgers to follow her as, in +the company of her maid, the Senator's daughter took her daily walk past +his office window. + +At sight of so fair a vision Pietro was undone; he fell violently in +love with her long before he exchanged a word with her, and although no +one knew better than he the gulf that separated the daughter of a +nobleman and a Senator from the drudge of the quill, he determined to +win her. Youth and good-looks such as his, with plenty of assurance to +support them, had done as much for others, and they should do it for +him. How they first met we know not, but we know that shortly after this +momentous meeting Bianca had completely lost her heart to the knight of +the quill, with the handsome face, the dark, flashing eyes, and the +courtly manner. + +Other meetings followed--secret rendezvous arranged by the duenna +herself in return for liberal bribes--to keep which Bianca would steal +out of her father's palace at dead of night, leaving the door open +behind her to ensure safe return before dawn. On one such occasion, so +the story runs, Bianca returned to find the door closed against her by a +too officious hand. She dared not wake the sleepers to gain +admittance--that would be to expose her secret and to cover herself with +disgrace--and in her fears and alarm she fled back to her lover. + +However this may be, we know that, for some urgent reason or other, the +young lovers disappeared one night together from Venice and made their +way to Florence to find a refuge under the roof of Pietro's parents. +Here a terrible disillusion met Bianca at the threshold. Her +husband--for, on the runaway journey, Pietro had secured the friendly +services of a village priest to marry them--had told her that he was the +son of noble parents, kin to his employers, the Salviatis. The home to +which he now introduced her was little better than a hovel, with poverty +looking out of its windows. + +Here indeed was a sorry home-coming for the new-made bride, daughter of +the great Capello! There was not even a drudge to do the housework, +which Bianca was compelled to share with her bucolic mother-in-law. It +is even said that she was compelled to do laundry-work in order to keep +the domestic purse supplied. Her husband had forfeited his meagre +salary; she had equally sacrificed the fortune left to her by her +mother. Sordid, grinding poverty stared both in the face. + +To return to her own home in Venice was impossible. So furious were her +father and stepmother at her escapade that a large reward was advertised +for the capture of her husband, "alive or dead," and a sentence of death +had been procured from the Council of Ten in the event of his arrest. +More than this, a sentence of banishment was pronounced against Pietro +and Bianca; the maid who had connived at their illicit wooing and flight +paid for her treachery with her life; and Pietro's uncle ended his days +in a loathsome dungeon. + +Such was the vengeance taken by Bartolomeo Capello. As for the runaways, +they spent a long honeymoon in concealment and hourly dread of the fate +that hung over them. It was well known, however, in Florence where they +were in hiding; and curious crowds were drawn to the Bonaventuri hovel +to catch a glimpse of the heroes of a scandal with which all Italy was +ringing. Thus it was that Francesco de Medici first set eyes on the +woman who was to play so great a part in his life. + +There could be no greater contrast than that between Francesco de +Medici, heir to the Tuscan Grand Dukedom, and the beautiful young wife +of the bank-clerk, now playing the rôle of maid-of-all-work and +charwoman. It is said that Francesco was a madman; and indeed what we +know of him makes this description quite plausible. He was a man of +black brow and violent temper, repelling alike in appearance and +manner. He was, we are told, "more of a savage than a civilised human +being." His food was deluged with ginger and pepper; his favourite fare +was raw eggs filled with red pepper, and raw onions, of which he ate +enormous quantities. He drank iced water by the gallon, and slept +between frozen sheets. He was a man, moreover, of evil life, familiar +with every form of vicious indulgence. His only redeeming feature was a +love of art, which enriched the galleries of Florence. + +Such was the Medici--half-ogre, half-madman, who, riding one day through +a Florence slum, saw at the window of a mean dwelling the beautiful face +of Bianca Bonaventuri, and rode on leaving his heart behind. Here indeed +was a dainty dish to set before his jaded appetite. The owner of that +fair face, with the crimson lips and the black, flashing eyes, must be +his. On the following day a great Court lady, the Marchesa Mondragone, +presents herself at the Bonaventuri door, with smiles and gracious +words, bearing an invitation to Court for the lady of the window. +"Impossible," bluntly answers Signora Bonaventuri; her daughter-in-law +has no clothes fit to be seen at Court. "But," persists the Marchesa, +"that is a matter that can easily be arranged. It will be a pleasure to +me to supply the necessary outfit, if the Signora and her +daughter-in-law will but come to-morrow to the Mondragone Palace." The +bride, when consulted, is not unwilling; and the following day, in +company with her mother-in-law, she is effusively received by the +Marchesa, and is feasting her eyes on exquisite robes and the glitter +of rare gems, among which she is invited to make her choice. A moment +later Francesco enters, and with courtly grace is kissing the hand of +his new divinity.... + +Then followed secret meetings such as marked Bianca's first unhappy +wooing in Venice--hours of rapture for the Tuscan Duke, of flattered +submission by the runaway bride; and within a few weeks we find Bianca +installed in a palace of her own with Francesco's guards and equipage +ever at its door, while his newly made bride, Giovanna, Archduchess of +Austria, kept her lonely vigil in the apartments which so seldom saw her +husband. + +Francesco, indeed, had no eyes or thought for any but the lovely woman +who had so completely enslaved him. As for her, condemn her as we must, +much can be pleaded in extenuation of her conduct. She had been basely +deceived and betrayed. On the one side was a life of sordid poverty and +drudgery, with a husband for whom she had now nothing but dislike and +contempt; on the other was the ardent homage of the future ruler of +Tuscany, with its accompaniment of splendour, luxury, and power. A fig +for love! ambition should now rule her life. She would drain the cup of +pleasure, though the dregs might be bitter to the taste. + +She was now in the very prime of her beauty, and a Queen in all but the +name. Between her and her full Queendom were but two obstacles--her +lover's plain, unattractive wife, and her own worthless husband; and of +these obstacles one was soon to be removed from her path. + +Pietro, who had been made chamberlain to the Tuscan Court, was more +than content that his wife should go her own way, so long as he was +allowed to go his. He was kept very agreeably occupied with love affairs +of his own. The richest widow in Florence, Cassandra Borgianni, was +eager to lavish her smiles and favours on him; and the knowledge that +two of his predecessors in her affection had fallen under the assassin's +knife only lent zest to a love adventure which was after his heart. +Warnings of the fate that might await him in turn fell on deaf ears. +When his wife ventured to point out the danger he retorted, "If you say +another word I will cut your throat." The following night as he was +returning from a visit to the widow, a dagger was sheathed in his heart, +and Pietro's amorous race was run. + +Such was the end of the bank-clerk and his eleventh-hour glories and +love adventures. Now only Giovanna remained to block the way to the +pinnacle of Bianca's ambition; and her health was so frail that the +waiting might not be long. Giovanna had provided no successor to her +husband (who had now succeeded to his Grand Dukedom); if Bianca could +succeed where the Grand Duchess had failed, she could at least ensure +that a son of hers would one day rule over Tuscany. + +Thus one August day in 1576 the news flashed round Florence that a male +child had been born in the palace on the Via Maggiore. Francesco was in +the "seventh heaven" of delight. Here at last was the long-looked-for +inheritor of his honours--the son who was to perpetuate the glories of +the Medici and to thwart his brother, the Cardinal, who had so +confidently counted on the succession for himself. And Madame Bianca +professed herself equally delighted, although her pleasure was qualified +by fear. + +She had played her part with consummate cleverness; but there were two +women who knew the true story of the birth of the child, which had been +smuggled into the palace from a Florence slum. One was the changeling's +mother, a woman of the people, whom a substantial bribe had induced to +part with her new-born infant; the other was Bianca's waiting woman. +These witnesses to the imposture must be silenced effectually. + +Hired assassins made short work of the mother. The waiting-maid was +"left for dead" in a mountain-pass, to which she had been lured; but she +survived long enough at least to communicate her secret to the Grand +Duke's brother, the Cardinal Ferdinand de Medici. + +Bianca was now in a parlous plight. At any moment her enemy, the +Cardinal, might betray her to her lover, and bring the carefully planned +edifice of her fortunes tumbling about her ears. But she proved equal +even to this emergency. Taking her courage in both hands, she herself +confessed the fraud to the Grand Duke, who not only forgave her (so +completely was he under the spell of her beauty) but insisted on calling +the gutter-child his son. + +The tables, however, were soon to be turned on her, for Giovanna, who +had long despaired of providing an heir to her husband, gave birth a +few months later to a male child. Florence was jubilant, for the Grand +Duchess was as beloved as her rival was detested; and the christening of +the heir was made the occasion of festivities and rejoicing. Bianca's +day of triumph seemed at last to be over. For a time she left Florence +to hide her humiliation; but within a year she was back again, to be +received with open arms of welcome by the Duke. During her absence she +had made peace with her family, and when her father and brother came to +Florence to visit her, they were received by Francesco with regal +entertainments, and sent away loaded with presents and honours. + +Bianca had now reached the zenith of her power and splendour. Before she +had been back many months the Grand Duchess died, to the undisguised +relief of her husband, who hastened from her funeral to the arms of her +rival. Her position was now secure, unassailable; and before Giovanna +had been two months in the family vault, Bianca was secretly married to +her Grand ducal lover. + +Florence was furious. But what mattered that? The Venetian Senate had +recognised Bianca as a true daughter of the Republic. She was the legal +wife of the ruler of Tuscany. She was Grand Duchess at last, and she +meant all the world to know it. That she was cordially hated by her +husband's subjects, that the air was full of stories of her +extravagance, her intemperance, and her cruelty, gave her no moment's +unhappiness. For eight years she reigned as Queen, wielding the sceptre +her husband's hands were too weak or indifferent to hold. Giovanna's +son had followed his mother to the grave; and the child of the slums, +who had been so fruitlessly smuggled into her palace, had been +legitimated. + +The only thorn now left in her bed of roses was the enmity of the Grand +Duke's brother, the Cardinal; and her greatest ambition was to win him +to her side. In the autumn of 1787 he was invited to Florence, and as +the culmination of a series of festivities, a grand banquet was given, +at which he had the place of honour, at her right hand. The feast was +drawing near to its end. Bianca, with sparkling eyes and flushed face, +looking lovelier than she had ever looked before, was at her happiest, +for the Cardinal had at last succumbed to her bright eyes and honeyed +words. It was the crowning moment of her many triumphs, when life left +nothing more to desire. + +Then it was, at the supreme moment, that tragedy in its most terrible +form fell on the scene of festivity and mirth. While Bianca was smiling +her sweetest on the Cardinal she was seized by violent pains, "her mouth +foams, her face is distorted by agony; she shrieks aloud that she is +dying. Francesco tries to go to her aid, but his steps are suddenly +arrested. He too is seized by the same terrible anguish. A few hours +later both she and he breathe their last breath." + +"Poison" was the word which ran through the palace and soon through +Florence from blanched lips to blanched lips. Some said it was the +Cardinal who had done the deed; others whispered stories of a poisoned +tart designed by Bianca for the Cardinal, who refused to be tempted. +Whereupon the Grand Duke had eaten of it, and Bianca, "seeing that her +plot had so tragically miscarried, seized the tart from her husband's +hand and ate what was left of it." + +The truth will never be known. What we do know is that within a few +hours of the last joke and the last drained glass of that fatal banquet +the bodies of Francesco and Bianca were lying in death side by side in +an adjacent room, the door of which was locked against the eyes of the +curious--even against the physicians. + +In the solemn lying-in-state that followed Bianca had no place. +Francesco alone, by his brother's orders, wore his crown in death. As +for Bianca, her body was hurried away and flung into the common vault of +San Lorenzo, with the light of two yellow wax torches to bear it +company, and the jibes and jeers of Florence for its only requiem. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +RICHELIEU, THE ROUÉ + +In the drama of the French Court many a fine-feathered villain "struts +his brief hour" on the stage, dazzling eyes by his splendour, and +shocking a world none too easily shocked in those days of easy morals by +his profligacy; but it would be difficult among all these gilded rakes +to find a match for the Duc de Richelieu, who carried his villainies +through little less than a century of life. + +Born in 1696, when Louis XIV. had still nearly twenty years of his long +reign before him, Louis François Armand Duplessis, Duc de Richelieu, +survived to hear the rumblings which heralded the French Revolution +ninety-two years later; and for three-quarters of a century to be known +as the most accomplished and heartless roué in all France. Bearer of a +great name, and inheritor of the splendours and riches of his +great-uncle, the Cardinal, who was Louis XII.'s right-hand man, and, in +his day, the most powerful subject in Europe, the Duc was born with the +football of fortune at his feet; and probably no man who has ever lived +so shamefully prostituted such magnificent opportunities and gifts. + +As a boy, still in his teens, he had begun to play the rôle of Don Juan +at the Court of the child-King, Louis XV. The most beautiful women at +the Court, we are told, went crazy over the handsome boy, who bore the +most splendid name in France; and thus early his head was turned by +flatteries and attentions which followed him almost to the grave. + +The young Duchesse de Bourgogne, the King's mother, made love to him, to +the scandal of the Court; and from Princesses of the Blood Royal to the +humblest serving-maid, there was scarcely a woman at Court who would not +have given her eyes for a smile from the Duc de Fronsac, as he was then +known. + +How he revelled in his conquests he makes abundantly clear in the +Memoirs he left behind him--surely the most scandalous ever written--in +which he recounts his love affairs, in long sequence, with a +cold-blooded heartlessness which shocks the reader to-day, so long after +lover and victims have been dust. He revels in describing the artifices +by which he got the most unassailable of women into his power--such as +the young and beautiful Madame Michelin, whose religious scruples proved +such a frail barrier against the assaults of the young Lothario. He +chuckles with a diabolical pride as he tells us how he played off one +mistress against another; how he made one liaison pave the way to its +successor; and how he abandoned each in turn when it had served its +purpose, and betrayed, one after another, the women who had trusted to +his nebulous sense of honour. + +A profligate so tempted as the Duc de Richelieu was from his earliest +years, one can understand, however much we may condemn; but for the man +who conducted his love affairs with such heartlessness and dishonour no +language has words of execration and contempt to describe him. + +From his earliest youth there was no "game" too high for our Don Juan to +fly at. Long before he had reached manhood he counted his lady-loves by +the score; and among them were at least three Royal Princesses, +Mademoiselle de Charolais, and two of the Regent's own daughters, the +Duchesse de Berry and Mademoiselle de Valois, later Duchess of Modena, +who, in their jealousy, were ready to "tear each other's eyes out" for +love of the Duc. Quarrels between the rival ladies were of everyday +occurrence; and even duels were by no means unknown. + +When, for instance, the Duc wearied of the lovely Madame de Polignac, +this lady was so inflamed by hatred of her successor in his affections, +the Marquise de Nesle, that she challenged her to a duel to the death in +the Bois de Boulogne. When Madame de Polignac, after a fierce exchange +of shots, saw her rival stretched at her feet, she turned furiously on +the wounded woman. "Go!" she shrieked. "I will teach you to walk in the +footsteps of a woman like me! If I had the traitor here, I would blow +his brains out!" Whereupon, Madame de Nesle, fainting as she was from +loss of blood, retorted that her lover was worthy that even more noble +blood than hers should be shed for him. "He is," she said to the few +onlookers who had hurried to the scene on hearing the shots, "the most +amiable _seigneur_ of the Court. I am ready to shed for him the last +drop of blood in my veins. All these ladies try to catch him, but I hope +that the proofs I have given of my devotion will win him for myself +without sharing with anyone. Why should I hide his name? He is the Duc +de Richelieu--yes, the Duc de Richelieu, the eldest son of Venus and +Mars!" + +Such was the devotion which this heartless profligate won from some of +the most beautiful and highly placed ladies of France. What was the +secret of the spell he cast over them it is difficult to say. It is true +that he was a handsome man, as his portraits show, but there were men +quite as handsome at the French Court; he was courtly and accomplished, +but he had many rivals as clever and as skilled in courtly arts as +himself. His power must, one thinks, have lain in that strange magnetism +which women seem so powerless to resist in men, and which outweighs all +graces of mind and physical perfections. + +The Duc's career, however, was not one unbroken dallying with love. +Thrice, at least, he was sent to cool his ardour within the walls of the +Bastille--on one occasion as the result of a duel with the Comte de +Gacé. His lady-loves were desolate at the cruel fate which had overtaken +their idol. They fell on their knees at the Regent's feet, and, with +tears streaming down their pretty cheeks, pleaded for his freedom. Two +of the Royal Princesses, both disguised as Sisters of Charity, visited +the prisoner daily in his dungeon, carrying with them delicacies to +tempt his appetite, and consolation to cheer his captivity. + +In vain did Duc and Comte both declare that they had never fought a +duel; and when, in the absence of proof, the Regent insisted that their +bodies should be examined for the convicting wounds, the impish +Richelieu came triumphantly through the ordeal as the result of having +his wounds covered with pink taffeta and skilfully painted! + +It was a more serious matter that sent him again to the Bastille in +1718. False to his country as to the victims of his fascinations, he had +been plotting with Spain, France's bitterest enemy, for the seizure of +the Regent and the carrying him off across the Pyrenees; and certain +incriminating letters sent to him by Cardinal Alberoni had been +intercepted, and were in the Regent's hands. The Regent's daughter, +Mademoiselle de Valois, warned her lover of his danger, but too late. +Before he could escape, he was arrested, and with an escort of archers +was safely lodged in the Bastille. + +Our Lothario was now indeed in a parlous plight. Lodged in the deepest +and most loathsome dungeon of the Bastille--a dungeon so damp that +within a few hours his clothes were saturated--without even a chair to +sit on or a bed to lie on, with legions of hungry rats for company, he +was now face to face with almost certain death. The Regent, whose love +affairs he had thwarted a score of times, and who thus had no reason to +love the profligate Duc, vowed that his head should pay the price of his +treason. + +Once more the Court ladies were reduced to hysterics and despair, and +forgot their jealousies in a common appeal to the Regent for clemency. +Mademoiselle de Valois was driven to distraction; and when tears and +pleadings failed to soften her father's heart, she declared in the +hearing of the Court that she would commit suicide unless her lover was +restored to liberty. In company with her rival, Mademoiselle de +Charolais, she visited the dungeon in the dark night hours, taking flint +and steel, candles and bonbons, to weep with the captive. + +She squandered two hundred thousand livres in attempts to bribe his +guards, but all to no purpose: and it was not until after six months of +durance that the Regent at last yielded--moved partly by his daughter's +tears and threats and partly by the pleadings of the Cardinal-Archbishop +of Paris--and the prisoner was released, on condition that the Cardinal +and the Duchesse de Richelieu would be responsible for his custody and +good behaviour. + +A few days later we find the irresponsible Richelieu climbing over the +garden-walls of his new "prison" at Conflans, racing through the +darkness to Paris behind swift horses, and making love to the Regent's +own mistresses and his daughter! + +But such facilities for dalliance with the Regent's daughter were soon +to be brought to an end. Mademoiselle de Valois, in order to ensure her +lover's freedom, had at last consented to accept the hand of the Duke of +Modena, an alliance which she had long fought against; and before the +Duc had been a free man again many weeks she paid this part of his +ransom by going into exile, and to an odious wedded life, in a far +corner of Italy--much, it may be imagined, to the Regent's relief, for +his daughters and their love affairs were ever a thorn in his side. + +It was not long, however, before the new Duchess of Modena began to sigh +for her distant lover, and to bombard him with letters begging him to +come to her. "I cannot live without your love," she wrote. "Come to +me--only, come in disguise, so that no one can recognise you." + +This was indeed an adventure after the Lothario Duc's heart--an +adventure with love as its reward and danger as its spur. And thus it +was that, a few weeks after the Duchess had sent her invitation, two +travel-stained pedlars, with packs on their backs, entered the city of +Modena to find customers for their books and phamphlets. At the small +hostelry whose hospitality they sought the hawkers gave their names as +Gasparini and Romano, names which masked the identities of the +knight-errant Duc and his friend, La Fosse, respectively. + +The following morning behold the itinerant hawkers in the palace +grounds, their wares spread out to tempt the Court ladies on their way +to Mass, when the Duchess herself passed their way and deigned to stop +to converse graciously with the strangers. To her inquiries they +answered that they came from Piedmont; and their curious jargon of +French and Italian lent support to the story. After inspecting their +wares she asked for a certain book. "Alas! Madame," Gasparini answered, +"I have not a copy here, but I have one at my inn." And bidding him +bring the volume to her at the palace, the great lady resumed her devout +journey to Mass. + +A few hours later Gasparini presented himself at the palace with the +required volume, and was ushered into the august presence of the +Duchess. A moment later, on the closing of the door, the Royal lady was +in the "hawker's" arms, her own flung around his neck, as with tears of +joy she welcomed the lover who had come to her in such strange guise and +at such risk. + +A few stolen moments of happiness was all the lovers dared now to allow +themselves. The Duke of Modena was in the palace, and the situation was +full of danger. But on the morrow he was going away on a hunting +expedition, and then--well, then they might meet without fear. + +On the following day, the coast now clear, behold our "hawker" once more +at the palace door, with a bundle of books under his arm for the +inspection of Her Highness, and being ushered into the Duchess's +reading-room, full of souvenirs of the happy days they had spent +together in distant Paris and Versailles. Among them, most prized of +all, was a lock of his own hair, enshrined on a small altar, and +surmounted by a crown of interlocked hearts. This lock, the Duchess told +him, she had kissed and wept over every day since they had parted. + +Each day now brought its hours of blissful meeting, so seemingly short +that the Princess would throw her arms around her "hawker's" neck and +implore him to stay a little longer. One day, however, he tarried too +long; the Duke returned unexpectedly from his hunting, and before the +lovers could part, he had entered the room--just in time to see the +pedlar bowing humbly in farewell to his Duchess, and to hear him assure +her that he would call again with the further books she wished to see. + +Certainly it was a strange spectacle to greet the eyes of a home-coming +Duke--that of his lady closeted with a shabby pedlar of books; but at +least there was nothing suspicious in it, and, getting into conversation +with the "hawker," the Duke found him quite an entertaining fellow, full +of news of what was going on in the world outside his small duchy. + +In his curious jargon of French and Italian, Gasparini had much to tell +His Highness apart from book-talk. He entertained him with the latest +scandals of the French Court; with gossip about well-known personages, +from the Regent to Dubois. "And what about that rascal, the Duc de +Richelieu?" asked the great man. "What tricks has he been up to lately?" +"Oh," answered Gasparini, with a wink at the Duchess, who was crimson +with suppressed laughter, "he is one of my best customers. Ah, Monsieur +le Duc, he is a gay dog. I hear that all the women at the Court are +madly in love with him; that the Princesses adore him, and that he is +driving all the husbands to distraction." + +"Is it as bad as that?" asked the Duke, with a laugh. "He is a more +dangerous fellow even than I thought. And what is his latest game?" + +"Oh," answered the hawker, "I am told that he has made a wager that he +will come to Modena, in spite of you; and I shouldn't be at all +surprised if he does!" + +"As for that," said the Duke, with a chuckle, "I am not afraid. I defy +him to do his worst; and I am willing to wager that I shall be a match +for him. However," he added, "you're an entertaining fellow; so come and +see me again whenever you please." + +And thus, by the wish of the Duchess's husband himself, the ducal +"hawker" became a daily visitor at the palace, entertaining His Highness +with his chatter, and, when his back was turned, making love to his +wife, and joining her in shrieks of laughter at his easy gullibility. + +Thus many happy weeks passed, Gasparini, the pedlar, selling few +volumes, but reaping a rich harvest of stolen pleasure, and revelling in +an adventure which added such a new zest to a life sated with more +humdrum love-making. But even the Duchess's charms began to pall; the +ladies he had left so disconsolate in Paris were inundating him with +letters, begging him to return to them--letters, all forwarded to him +from his château at Richelieu, where he was supposed to be in retreat. +The lure was too strong for him; and, taking leave of the Duchess in +floods of tears, he returned to his beloved Paris to fresh conquests. + +And thus it was with the gay Duc until the century that followed that of +his birth was drawing to its close; until its sun was beginning to set +in the blood of that Revolution, which, if he had lived but one year +longer, would surely have claimed him as one of its first victims. +Three wives he led to the altar--the last when he had passed into the +eighties--but no marital duty was allowed to interfere with the amours +which filled his life; and to the last no pity ever gave a pang to the +"conscience" which allowed him to pick and fling away his flowers at +will, and to trample, one after another, on the hearts that yielded to +his love and trusted to his honour. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +THE INDISCRETIONS OF A PRINCESS + +It was an ill fate that brought Caroline, Princess of +Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel to England to be the bride of George, Prince of +Wales, one April day in the year 1795; although probably no woman has +ever set forth on her bridal journey with a lighter or prouder heart, +for, as she said, "Am I not going to be the wife of the handsomest +Prince in the world?" If she had any momentary doubt of this, a glance +at the miniature she carried in her bosom reassured her; for the +pictured face that smiled at her was handsome as that of an Apollo. + +No wonder the Princess's heart beat high with pride and pleasure during +that last triumphal stage of her journey to her husband's arms; for he +was not only the handsomest man, with "the best shaped leg in Europe," +he was by common consent the "greatest gentleman" any Court could show. +Picture him as he made his first appearance at a Court ball. "His coat," +we are told, "was of pink silk, with white cuffs; his waistcoat of white +silk, embroidered with various-coloured foil and adorned with a +profusion of French paste. And his hat was ornamented with two rows of +steel beads, five thousand in number, with a button and a loop of the +same metal, and cocked in a new military style." See young "Florizel" as +he makes his smiling and gracious progress through the avenues of +courtiers; note the winsomeness of his smiles, the inimitable grace of +his bows, his pleasant, courtly words of recognition, and say if ever +Royalty assumed a form more agreeable to the eye and captivating to the +senses. + +"Florizel" was indeed the most splendid Prince in the world, and the +most "perfect gentleman." He was also, though his bride-to-be little +knew it, the most dissolute man in Europe, the greatest gambler and +voluptuary--a man who was as false to his friends as he was traitor to +every woman who crossed his path, a man whom no appeal of honour or +mercy could check in his selfish pursuit of pleasure. + +"I look through all his life," Thackeray says, "and recognise but a bow +and a grin. I try and take him to pieces, and find silk stockings, +padding, stays, a coat with frogs and a fur collar, a star and blue +ribbon, a pocket handkerchief prodigiously scented, one of Truefitt's +best nutty brown wigs reeking with oil, a set of teeth and a huge black +stock, under-waistcoats, more under-waistcoats, and then--nothing. +French ballet-dancers, French cooks, horse-jockeys, buffoons, +procuresses, tailors, boxers, fencing-masters, china, jewel and +gimcrack-merchants--these were his real companions." + +Such was the husband Princess Caroline came so light-heartedly, with +laughter on her lips, from Brunswick to wed, little dreaming of the +disillusion and tears that were to await her on the very threshold of +the life to which she had looked forward with such high hopes. + +We get the first glimpse of Caroline some twelve years earlier, when Sir +John Stanley, who was making the grand tour, spent a few weeks at her +father's Court. He speaks of her as a "beautiful girl of fourteen," and +adds, "I did think and dream of her day and night at Brunswick, and for +a year afterwards I saw her for hours three or fours times a week, but +as a star out of my reach." Years later he met her again under sadly +changed conditions. "One day only," he writes, "when dining with her and +her mother at Blackheath, she smiled at something which had pleased her, +and for an instant only I could have fancied she had been the Caroline +of fourteen years old--the lovely, pretty Caroline, the girl my eyes had +so often rested on, with light and powdered hair hanging in curls on her +neck, the lips from which only sweet words seemed as if they would flow, +with looks animated, and always simply and modestly dressed." + +Lady Charlotte Campbell, too, gives us a glimpse of her in these early +and happier years, before sorrow had laid its defacing hand on her. "The +Princess was in her early youth a pretty girl," Lady Charlotte says, +"with fine light hair--very delicately formed features, and a fine +complexion--quick, glancing, penetrating eyes, long cut and rather small +in the head, which gave them much expression; and a remarkably +delicately formed mouth." + +It was in no happy home that the Princess had been cradled one May day +in 1768. Her father, Charles William, Duke of Brunswick, was an austere +soldier, too much absorbed in his military life and his mistress, to +give much thought to his daughters. Her mother, the Duchess Augusta, +sister of our own George III., was weak and small-minded, too much +occupied in self-indulgence and scandal-talking to trouble about the +training of her children. + +Princess Caroline herself draws an unattractive picture of her +home-life, in answer to Lady Charlotte Campbell's question, "Were you +sorry to leave Brunswick?" "Not at all," was the answer; "I was sick +tired of it, though I was sorry to leave my fader. I loved my fader +dearly, better than any oder person. But dere were some unlucky tings in +our Court which made my position difficult. My fader was most entirely +attached to a lady for thirty years, who was in fact his mistress. She +was the beautifullest creature and the cleverest, but, though my fader +continued to pay my moder all possible respect, my poor moder could not +suffer this attachment. And de consequence was, I did not know what to +do between them; when I was civil to one, I was scolded by the other, +and was very tired of being shuttlecock between them." + +But in spite of these unfortunate home conditions Caroline appears to +have spent a fairly happy girlhood, thanks to her exuberant spirits; and +such faults as she developed were largely due to the lack of parental +care, which left her training to servants. Thus she grew up with quite a +shocking disregard of conventions, running wild like a young filly, and +finding her pleasure and her companions in undesirable directions. +Strange stories are told of her girlish love affairs, which seem to have +been indiscreet if nothing worse, while her beauty drew to her many a +high-placed wooer, including the Prince of Orange and Prince George of +Darmstadt, to all of whom she seems to have turned a cold shoulder. + +But the wilful Princess was not to be left mistress of her own destiny. +One November day, in 1794, Lord Malmesbury arrived at the Brunswick +Court to demand her hand for the Prince of Wales, whom his burden of +debts and the necessity of providing an heir to the throne of England +were at last driving reluctantly to the altar. And thus a new and +dazzling future opened for her. To her parents nothing could have been +more welcome than this prospect of a crown for their daughter; while to +her it offered a release from a life that had become odious. + +"The Princess Caroline much embarrassed on my first being presented to +her," Malmesbury enters in his diary--"pretty face, not expressive of +softness--her figure not graceful, fine eyes, good hands, tolerable +teeth, fair hair and light eyebrows, good bust, short, with what the +French call 'des épaules impertinentes,' vastly happy with her future +expectations." + +Such were Malmesbury's first impressions of the future Queen of England, +whom it was his duty to prepare for her exalted station--a duty which he +seems to have taken very seriously, even to the regulating of her +toilette and her manners. Thus, a few days after setting eyes on her, +his diary records: "She _will_ call ladies whom she meets for the first +time 'Mon coeur, ma chère, ma petite,' and I am obliged to rebuke and +correct her." He lectures her on her undignified habit of whispering and +giggling, and impresses on her the necessity of greater care in her +attire, on more constant and thorough ablution, more frequent changes of +linen, the care of her teeth, and so on--all of which admonitions she +seems to have taken in excellent part, with demure promises of +amendment, until he is impelled to write, "Princess Caroline improves +very much on a closer acquaintance--cheerful and loves laughing. If she +can get rid of her gossiping habit she will do very well." + +Thus a few months passed at the Brunswick Court. The ceremonial of +betrothal took place in December--"Princess Caroline much affected, but +replies distinctly and well"; the marriage-contract was signed, and +finally on 28th March the Princess embarked for England on her journey +to the unseen husband whose good-looks and splendour have filled her +with such high expectations. That she had not yet learnt discretion, in +spite of all Malmesbury's homilies, is proved by the fact that she spent +the night on board in walking up and down the deck in the company of a +handsome young naval officer, conduct which naturally gave cause for +observation and suspicion in the affianced bride of the future King of +England. + +It was well, perhaps, that she had snatched these few hours of innocent +pleasure: for her first meeting with her future husband was well +calculated to scatter all her rosy dreams. Arrived at last at St James's +Palace, "I immediately notified the arrival to the King and Prince of +Wales," says Malmesbury; "the last came immediately. I accordingly +introduced the Princess Caroline to him. She very properly attempted to +kneel to him. He raised her gracefully enough, and embraced her, said +barely one word, turned round and retired to a distant part of the +apartment, and calling to me said: 'Harris, I am not well; pray get me a +glass of brandy.' I said, 'Sir, had you not better have a glass of +water?' Upon which he, much out of humour, said with an oath: 'No; I +will go directly to the Queen,' and away he went. The Princess, left +during this short moment alone, was in a state of astonishment; and, on +my joining her, said, '_Mon Dieu_, is the Prince always like that? I +find him very fat, and not at all as handsome as his portrait.'" + +Such was the Princess's welcome to the arms of her handsome husband and +to the Court over which she hoped to reign as Queen; nor did she receive +much warmer hospitality from the Prince's family. The Queen, who had +designed a very different bride for her eldest son, received her with +scarcely disguised enmity, while the King, although, as he afterwards +proved, kindly disposed towards her, treated her at first with an +amiable indifference. And certainly her attitude seems to have been +calculated to create an unfavourable impression on her new relatives and +on the Court generally. + +At the banquet which followed her reception, Malmesbury says, "I was far +from satisfied with the Princess's behaviour. It was flippant, rattling, +affecting raillery and wit, and throwing out coarse, vulgar hints about +Lady----, who was present. The Prince was evidently disgusted, and this +unfortunate dinner fixed his dislike, which, when left to herself, the +Princess had not the talent to remove; but by still observing the same +giddy manners and attempts at cleverness and coarse sarcasm, increased +it till it became positive hatred." + +"What," as Thackeray asks, "could be expected from a wedding which had +such a beginning--from such a bridegroom and such a bride? Malmesbury +tells us how the Prince reeled into the Chapel Royal to be married on +the evening of Wednesday, the 8th of April; and how he hiccuped out his +vows of fidelity." "My brother," John, Duke of Bedford, records, "was +one of the two unmarried dukes who supported the Prince at the ceremony, +and he had need of his support; for my brother told me the Prince was so +drunk that he could scarcely support himself from falling. He told my +brother that he had drunk several glasses of brandy to enable him to go +through the ceremony. There is no doubt that it was a _compulsory_ +marriage." + +With such an overture, we are not surprised to learn that the Royal +bridegroom spent his wedding-night in a state of stupor on the floor of +his bedroom; or that at dawn, when he had slept off the effects of his +debauch, "pages heard cries proceeding from the nuptial chamber, and +shortly afterwards saw the bridegroom rush out violently." + +Nor, we may be sure, was the Prince's undisguised hatred of his bride in +any way mitigated by the stories which Lady Jersey and others of hex +rivals poured into his willing ears--stories of her attachment to a +young German Prince whom she was not allowed to marry; of a mysterious +illness, followed by a few weeks' retreat; of that midnight promenade +with the young naval officer; of assignations with Major Toebingen, the +handsomest soldier in Europe, who so proudly wore the amethyst tie-pin +she had presented to him--these and many another story which reflected +none too well on her reputation before he had set eyes on her. But it +needed no such whispered scandal to strengthen his hatred of a bride who +personally repelled him, and who had been forced on him at a time when +his heart was fully engaged with his lawful wedded wife, Mrs +Fitzherbert, when it was not straying to Lady Jersey, to "Perdita" or +others of his legion of lights-o'-love. + +From the first day the ill-fated union was doomed. One violent scene +succeeded another, until, before she had been two months a wife, the +Prince declared that he would no longer live with her. He would only +wait until her child was born; then he would formally and finally leave +her. Thus, three months after the birth of the Princess Charlotte, the +deed of separation was signed, and Caroline was at last free to escape +from a Court which she had grown to detest, with good reason, and from a +husband whose brutalities and infidelities filled her with loathing. + +She carried with her, however, this consolation, that the "great, hearty +people of England loved and pitied her." "God bless you! we will bring +your husband back to you," was among the many cries that greeted her as +she left the palace on her way to exile. But, to quote Thackeray again, +"they could not bring that husband back; they could not cleanse that +selfish heart. Was hers the only one he had wounded? Steeped in +selfishness, impotent for faithful attachment and manly enduring +love--had it not survived remorse, was it not accustomed to desertion?" + +For a time the outcast Princess, with her infant daughter, led a retired +life amid the peace and beauty of Blackheath, where she lived as simply +as any bourgeoise, playing the "lady bountiful" to the poor among her +neighbours. Her chief pleasure seems to have been to surround herself +with cottage babies, converting Montague House into a "positive nursery, +littered up with cradles, swaddling-bands, feeding bottles, and other +things of the kind." + +But even to this rustic retirement watchful eyes and slanderous tongues +followed her; and it was not long before stories were passing from mouth +to mouth in the Court of strange doings at Blackheath. The Princess, it +was said, had become very intimate with Sir John Douglas and his lady, +her near neighbours, and more especially with Sydney Smith, a +good-looking naval captain, who shared the Douglas home, a man, +moreover, with whom she had had suspicious relations at her father's +Court many years earlier. It was rumoured that Captain Smith was a +frequent and too welcome guest at Montague House, at hours when discreet +ladies are not in the habit of receiving their male friends. Nor was the +handsome captain the only friend thus unconventionally entertained. +There was another good-looking naval officer, a Captain Manby, and also +Sir Thomas Lawrence, the famous painter, both of whom were admitted to a +suspicious intimacy with the Princess of Wales. + +These rumours, sufficiently disquieting in themselves, were followed by +stories of the concealed birth of a child, who had come mysteriously to +swell the numbers of the Princess's protégés of the crèche. Even King +George, whose sympathy with his heir's ill-used wife was a matter of +common knowledge, could not overlook a charge so grave as this. It must +be investigated in the interests of the State, as well as of his +family's honour; and, by his orders, a Commission of Peers was appointed +to examine into the matter and ascertain the truth. + +The inquiry--the "Delicate Investigation" as it was appropriately +called--opened in June, 1806, and witness after witness, from the +Douglases to Robert Bidgood, a groom, gave evidence which more or less +supported the charges of infidelity and concealment. The result of the +investigation, however, was a verdict of acquittal, the Commissioners +reporting that the Princess, although innocent, had been guilty of very +indiscreet conduct--and this verdict the Privy Council confirmed. + +For the Princess it was a triumphant vindication, which was hailed with +acclamation throughout the country. Even the Royal family showed their +satisfaction by formal visits of congratulation to the Princess, from +the King himself to the Duke of Cumberland who conducted his +sister-in-law on a visit to the Court. + +But the days of Blackheath and the amateur nursery were at an end. The +Princess returned to London, and found a more suitable home in +Kensington Palace for some years, where she held her Court in rivalry of +that of her husband at Carlton House. Here she was subjected to every +affront and slight by the Prince and his set that the ingenuity of +hatred could devise, and to crown her humiliation and isolation, her +daughter Charlotte was taken from her and forbidden even to recognise +her when their carriages passed in the street or park. + +Can we wonder that, under such remorseless persecutions, the Princess +became more and more defiant; that she gave herself up to a life of +recklessness and extravagance; that, more and more isolated from her own +world, she sought her pleasure and her companions in undesirable +quarters, finding her chief intimates in a family of Italian musicians; +or that finally, heart-broken and despairing, she determined once for +all to shake off the dust of a land that had treated her so cruelly? + +In August, 1814, with the approval of King and Parliament, the Princess +left England to begin a career of amazing adventures and indiscrétions, +the story of which is one of the most remarkable in history. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +THE INDISCRETIONS OF A PRINCESS--_continued_ + +When Caroline, Princess of Wales, shook the dust of England off her feet +one August day in the year 1814, it was only natural that her steps +should first turn towards the Brunswick home which held for her at least +a few happy memories, and where she hoped to find in sympathy and old +associations some salve for her wounded heart. + +But the fever of restlessness was in her blood--the restlessness which +was to make her a wanderer over the face of the earth for half a dozen +years. The peace and solace she had looked for in Brunswick eluded her; +and before many days had passed she was on her way through Switzerland +to the sunny skies of Italy, where she could perhaps find in distraction +and pleasure the anodyne which a life of retirement denied her. She was +full of rebellion against fate, of hatred against her husband and his +country which had treated her with such unmerited cruelty. She would +defy fate; she would put a whole continent between herself and the +nightmare life she had left behind, she hoped for ever. She would pursue +and find pleasure at whatever cost. + +In September, within five weeks of leaving England, we find her at +Geneva, installed in a suite of rooms next to those occupied by Marie +Louise, late Empress of France, a fugitive and exile like herself, and +animated by the same spirit of reckless revolt against destiny--Marie +Louise, we read, "making excursions like a lunatic on foot and on +horseback, never even seeming to dream of making people remember that, +before she became mixed up with a Corsican adventurer, she was an +Archduchess"; the Princess of Wales, equally careless of her dignity and +position, finding her pleasure in questionable company. + +"From the inn where she was stopping she heard music, and, quite +unaccompanied, immediately entered a neighbouring house and disappeared +in the medley of dancers." A few days later, at Lausanne, "she learned +that a little ball was in progress at a house opposite the 'Golden +Lion,' and she asked for an invitation. After dancing with everybody and +anybody, she finished up by dancing a Savoyard dance, called a +_fricassée_, with a nobody. Madame de Corsal, who blushed and wept for +the rest of the company, declares that it has made her ill, and that she +feels that the honour of England has been compromised." Thus early did +Caroline begin that career of indiscretion, to call it by no worse name, +which made of her six years' exile "a long suicide of her reputation." + +In October we find the Princess entering Milan, with her retinue of +ladies-in-waiting, chamberlains, equerry, page, courier, and coachman, +and with William Austin for companion--a boy, now about thirteen, whom +she treated as her son, and who was believed by many to be the child of +her imprudence at Blackheath, although the Commission of the "Delicate +Investigation" had pronounced that he was son of a poor woman at +Deptford. At Milan, as indeed wherever she wandered in Italy, the +"vagabond Princess" was received as a Queen. Count di Bellegarde, the +Austrian Governor, was the first to pay homage to her; at the Scala +Theatre, the same evening, her entry was greeted with thunders of +applause, and whenever she appeared in the Milan streets it was to an +accompaniment of doffed hats and cheers. + +One of her first visits was to the studio of Giuseppe Bossi, the famous +and handsome artist, whom she requested to paint her portrait. "On +Thursday," Bossi records, "I sketched her successfully in the character +of a Muse; then on Friday she came to show me her arms, of which she +was, not without reason, decidedly vain--she is a gay and whimsical +woman, she seems to have a good heart; at times she is ennuyée through +lack of occupation." On one occasion when she met in the studio some +French ladies, two of whom had been mistresses of the King of +Westphalia, the poor artist was driven to distraction by the chatter, +the singing, and dancing, in which the Princess especially displayed her +agility, until, as he pathetically says, "the house seemed possessed of +the devil, and you can imagine with what kind of ease it was possible +for me to work." + +Before leaving Milan the Princess gave a grand banquet to Bellegarde +and a number of the principal men of the city--a feast which was to have +very important and serious consequences, for it was at this banquet that +General Pino, one of her guests, introduced to Caroline a new courier, a +man who, though she little dreamt it at the time, was destined to play a +very baleful part in her life. + +This new courier was a tall and strikingly handsome man, who had seen +service in the Italian army, until a duel, in which he killed a superior +officer, compelled him to leave it in disgrace. At the time he entered +the Princess's service he was a needy adventurer, whose scheming brain +and utter lack of principle were in the market for the highest bidder. +"He is," said Baron Ompteda, "a sort of Apollo, of a superb and +commanding appearance, more than six feet high; his physical beauty +attracts all eyes. This man is called Pergami; he belongs to Milan, and +has entered the Princess's service. The Princess," he significantly +adds, "is shunned by all the English people of rank; her behaviour has +created the most marked scandal." + +Such was the man with whose life that of the Princess of Wales was to be +so intimately and disastrously linked, and whose relations with her were +to be displayed to a shocked world but a few years later. It was indeed +an evil fate that brought this "superb Apollo" of the crafty brain and +conscienceless ambition into the life of the Princess at the high tide +of her revolt against the world and its conventions. + +When Caroline and her retinue set out from Milan for Tuscany it was in +the wake of Pergami, who had ridden ahead to discharge his duties as +_avant courier_; but before Rome was reached his intimacy and +familiarity with his mistress were already the subject of whispered +comments and shrugged shoulders. At a ball given in her honour at Rome +by the banker Tortonia, the Princess shocked even the least prudish by +the abandon of her dancing and the tenuity of her costume, which, we are +told, consisted of "a single embroidered garment, fastened beneath the +bosom, without the shadow of a corset and without sleeves." And at +Naples, where King Joachim Murat gave her a regal reception, with a +sequel of fêtes and gala-performances in honour of the wife of the +Regent of England, she attended a rout, at the Teatro San Carlo, so +lightly attired "that many who saw her at her first entrance looked her +up and down, and, not recognising her, or pretending not to recognise +her, began to mutter disapprobation to such an extent that she was +compelled to withdraw.... The English residents soon let her understand, +by ceasing to frequent her palace, that even at Naples there were +certain laws of dress which could not be trampled underfoot in this +hoydenish manner." + +While Caroline was thus defying convention and even decency, watchful +eyes were following her everywhere. A body of secret police, whose +headquarters were at Milan, was noting every indiscretion; and every +week brought fresh and damaging reports to England, where they were +eagerly welcomed by the Regent and his satellites. And while the +Princess was thus playing unconsciously, or recklessly, into the hands +of the enemy, Pergami was daily making his footing in her favour more +secure. Before Caroline left Naples he had been promoted from courier to +equerry, and in this more exalted and privileged rôle was always at her +side. So marked, in fact, was the intimacy even at this early stage, +that the Princess's retinue, one after another, and on one flimsy +pretext or another, deserted her in disgust, each vacancy, as it +occurred, being filled by one of Pergami's relatives--his brother, his +daughter, his sister-in-law (the Countess Oidi), and others, until +Caroline was soon surrounded by members of the ex-courier's family. + +From Naples she wandered to Genoa, and from Genoa to Milan and Venice, +received regally everywhere by the Italians and shunned by the English +residents. From Venice she drifted to Lake Como, with whose beauties she +was so charmed that she decided to make her home there, purchasing the +Villa del Garrovo for one hundred and fifty thousand francs, and setting +the builders to work to make it a still more splendid home for a future +Queen of England. But even to the lonely isolation of the Italian lakes +the eyes of her husband's secret agents pursued her, spying on her every +movement--"uncertain shadows gliding in the twilight along the paths and +between the hedges, and even in the cellars and attics of the +villa"--until the shadowy presences filled her with such terror and +unrest that she sought to escape them by a long tour in the East. + +Thus it was that in November, 1815, the Princess and her Pergami +household set forth on their journey to Sicily, Tunis, Athens, the +cities of the East and Jerusalem, the strange story of which was to be +unfolded to the world five years later. How intimate the Princess and +her handsome, stalwart courier had by this time become was illustrated +by the Attorney-General in his opening speech at her memorable trial. +"One day, after dinner, when the Princess's servants had withdrawn, a +waiter at the hotel, Gran Brettagna, saw the Princess put a golden +necklace round Pergami's neck. Pergami took it off again and put it +jestingly on the neck of the Princess, who in her turn once more removed +it and put it again round Pergami's neck." + +As early as August in this year Pergami had his appointed place at the +Princess's table, and his room communicating with hers, and on the +various voyages of the Eastern tour there was abundant evidence to prove +"the habit which the Princess had of sleeping under one and the same +awning with Pergami." + +But it is as impossible in the limits of space to follow Caroline and +her handsome cavalier through every stage of these Eastern wanderings, +as it is unnecessary to describe in detail the evidence of intimacy so +lavishly provided by the witnesses for the prosecution at the +trial--evidence much of which was doubtless as false as it was venal. +That the Princess, however, was infatuated by her cavalier, and that she +was in the highest degree indiscreet in her relations with him, seems +abundantly clear, whatever the precise degree of actual guilt may have +been. + +Pergami had now been promoted from equerry to Grand Chamberlain to Her +Royal Highness, and as further evidence of her favour, she bought for +him in Sicily an estate which conferred on its owner the title of Baron +della Francina. At Malta she procured for him a knighthood of that +island's famous order; at Jerusalem she secured his nomination as Knight +of the Holy Sepulchre; and, to crown her favours, she herself instituted +the Order of St Caroline, with Pergami for Grand Master. Behold now our +ex-courier and adventurer in all his new glory as Grand Chamberlain and +lover of a future Queen of England, as Baron della Francina, Knight of +two Orders and Grand Master of a third, while every post of profit in +that vagrant Court was held by some member of his family! + +The Eastern tour ended, which had ranged from Algiers and Egypt to +Constantinople and Jerusalem, and throughout which she had progressed +and been received as a Queen, Caroline settled down for a time in her +now restored villa on Lake Como, celebrating her return by lavish +charities to her poor neighbours, and by popular fêtes and balls, in one +of which "she danced as Columbine, wearing her lover's ear-rings, whilst +Pergami, dressed as harlequin and wearing her ear-rings, supported her." + +But even here she was to find no peace from her husband's spies, whose +evidence, confirmed on oath by a score of witnesses, was being +accumulated in London against the longed-for day of reckoning. And it +was not long before Caroline and her Grand Chamberlain were on their +wanderings again--this time to the Tyrol, to Austria, and through +Northern Italy, always inseparable and everywhere setting the tongue of +scandal wagging by their indiscreet intimacy. Even the tragic death in +childbirth of her only daughter, the Princess Charlotte, which put all +England in mourning, seemed powerless to check her career of folly. It +is true that, on hearing of it, she fell into a faint and afterwards +into a kind of protracted lethargy, but within a few weeks she had flung +herself again into her life of pleasure-chasing and reckless disregard +of convention. + +But matters were now hurrying fast to their tragic climax. For some time +the life of George III. had been flickering to its close. Any day might +bring news that the end had come, and that the Princess was a Queen. And +for some time Caroline had been bracing herself to face this crisis in +her life and to pit herself against her enemies in a grim struggle for a +crown, the title to which her years of folly (for such at the best they +had been) had so gravely endangered. Over the remainder of her vagrant +life, with its restless flittings, and its indiscretions, marked by +spying eyes, we must pass to that February morning in 1820 when, to +quote a historian, "the Princess had scarcely reached her hotel (at +Florence) when her faithful major-domo, John Jacob Sicard, appeared +before her, accompanied by two noblemen, and in a voice full of emotion +announced, 'You are Queen.'" + +The fateful hour had at last arrived when Caroline must either renounce +her new Queendom or present a bold front to her enemies and claim the +crown that was hers. After a few indecisive days, spent in Rome, where +news reached her that the King had given orders that her name should be +excluded from the Prayer Book, her wavering resolution took a definite +and determined shape. She would go to London and face the storm which +she knew her coming would bring on her head. + +At Paris she was met by Lord Hutchinson with a promise of an increase of +her yearly allowance to fifty thousand pounds, on condition that she +renounced her claim to the title of Queen, and consented never to put +foot again in England--an offer to which she gave a prompt and scornful +refusal; and on the afternoon of 5th June she reached Dover, greeted by +enthusiastic cheers and shouts of "God save Queen Caroline!" by the +fluttering of flags, and the jubilant clanging of church-bells. The +wanderer had come back to the land of her sorrow, to find herself +welcomed with open arms by the subjects of the King whose brutality had +driven her to exile and to shame. + +The story of the trial which so soon followed her arrival has too +enduring a place in our history to call for a detailed description--the +trial in which all the weight of the Crown and the testimony of a small +army of suborned witnesses--"a troupe of comedians in the pay of +malevolence," to quote Brougham--were arrayed against her; and in which +she had so doughty a champion in Brougham, and such solace and support +in the sympathy of all England. We know the fate of that Bill of Pains +and Penalties, which charged her with having permitted a shameful +intimacy with one Bartolomeo Pergami, and provided as penalty that she +should be deprived of the title and privilege of Queen, and that her +marriage to King George IV. should be for ever dissolved and +annulled--how it was forced through the House of Lords with a +diminishing majority, and finally withdrawn. And we know, too, the +outburst of almost delirious delight that swept from end to end of +England at the virtual acquittal of the persecuted Caroline. "The +generous exultation of the people was," to quote a contemporary, "beyond +all description. It was a conflagration of hearts." + +We also recall that pathetic scene when Caroline presented herself at +the door of Westminster Abbey to demand admission, on the day of her +husband's coronation, to be received by the frigid words, "We have no +instructions to allow you to pass"; and we can see her as, "humiliated, +confounded, and with tears in her eyes," she returned sadly to her +carriage, the heart crushed within her. Less than three weeks later, +seized by a grave and mysterious illness, she laid down for ever the +burden of her sorrows, leaving instructions that her tomb should bear +the words: + +CAROLINE +THE INJURED QUEEN OF ENGLAND. + +As for Pergami, the idol with the feet of clay, who had clouded her last +years in tragedy, he survived for twenty years more to enjoy his honours +and his ill-gotten gold; while William Austin, who had masqueraded as a +Prince and called Caroline "mother," ended his days, while still a young +man, in a madhouse. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +THE LOVE-AFFAIRS OF A REGENT + +When Louis XIV. laid down, one September day in the year 1715, the crown +which he had worn with such splendour for more than seventy years, his +sceptre fell into the hands of his nephew Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, who +for eight years ruled France as Regent, and as guardian of the +child-King, the fifteenth Louis. + +Seldom in the world's history has a reign, so splendid as that of the +Sun-King, closed in such darkness and tragedy. The disastrous war of the +Spanish Succession had drained France of her strength and her gold. She +lay crushed under a mountain of debt--ten thousand million francs; she +was reduced to the lowest depths of wretchedness, ruin, and disorder, +and it was at this crisis in her life as a nation that fate placed a +child of four on her throne, and gave the reins of power into the hands +of the most dissolute man in Europe. + +Not that Philippe of Orleans lacked many of the qualities that go to the +making of a ruler and a man. He had proved himself, in Italy and in +Spain, one of the bravest of his country's soldiers, and an able, +far-seeing leader of armies; and he had, as his Regency proved, no mean +gifts of statesmanship. But his kingly qualities were marred by the +taint of birth and early environment. + +Such good qualities as he had he no doubt drew from his mother, the +capable, austere, high-minded Elizabeth of Bavaria, who to her last day +was the one good influence in his life. To his father, Louis XIV.'s +younger brother, who is said to have been son of Cardinal Mazarin, Anne +of Austria's lover, and who was the most debased man of his time in all +France, he just as surely owed the bias of sensuality to which he +chiefly owes his place in memory. + +And not only was he thus handicapped by his birth; he had for tutor that +arch-scoundrel Dubois--the "grovelling insect" who rarely opened his +mouth without uttering a blasphemy or indecency, and who initiated his +charge, while still a boy, into every base form of so-called pleasure. + +Such was the man who, amid the ruins of his country, inaugurated in +France an era of licentiousness such as she had never known--an +incomprehensible mass of contradictions--a kingly presence with the soul +of a Caliban, statesman and sinner, high-minded and low-living, spending +his days as a sovereign, a rôle which he played to perfection, and his +nights as a sot and a sensualist. + +It was doubtless Dubois who was mostly responsible for the baseness in +the Regent's character--Dubois who had taught him a contempt for +religion and morality, the cynical view of life which makes the pleasure +of the moment the only thing worth pursuing, at whatever cost; and who +had impressed indelibly on his mind that no woman is virtuous and that +men are knaves. And there was never any lack of men to continue Dubois' +teaching. He gathered round him the most dissolute gallants in France, +in whose company he gave the rein to his most vicious appetites. His +"roués" he dubbed them, a title which aptly described them; although +they affected to give it a very different interpretation. They were the +Regent's roués, they said, no doubt with the tongue in the cheek, +because they were so devoted to him that they were ready, in his +defence, to be broken on the wheel (_la roue_)! + +Each of these boon-comrades was a past-master in the arts of +dissipation, and each was also among the most brilliant men of his day. +The Chevalier de Simiane was famous alike for his drinking powers and +his gift of graceful verse; De Fargy was a polished wit, and the +handsomest man in France, with an unrivalled reputation for gallantry; +the Comte de Nocé was the Regent's most intimate friend from +boyhood--brother-in-law he called him, since they had not only tastes +but even mistresses in common. Then there were the Marquis de la Fare, +Captain of Guards and _bon enfant_; the Marquis de Broglio, the biggest +debauchee in France, the Marquis de Canillac, the Duc de Brancas, and +many another--all famous (or infamous) for some pet vice, and all the +best of boon-companions for the pleasure-loving Regent. + +Strange tales are told of the orgies of this select band which the +Regent gathered around him--orgies which shocked even the France of the +eighteenth century, when she was the acknowledged leader in licence. At +six o'clock every evening Philippe's kingship ended for the day. He had +had enough--more than enough--of State and ceremonial, of interviewing +ambassadors, and of the flatteries of Princes and the obsequious homage +of courtiers. Pleasure called him away from the boredom of empire; and +at the stroke of six we find him retiring to the company of his +mistresses and his roués to feast and drink and gamble until dawn broke +on the revelry--his laugh the loudest, his wit the most dazzling, his +stories the most piquant, keeping the table in a roar with his +infectious gaiety. He was Regent no longer; he was simply a _bon +camarade_, as ready to exchange familiarities with a "lady of the +ballet" as to lead the laughter at a joke at his own expense. + +At nine o'clock, when the fun had waxed furious and wine had set the +slowest tongue wagging and every eye a-sparkle, other guests streamed in +to join the orgy--the most beautiful ladies of the Court, from the +Duchesse de Gesores and Madame de Mouchy to the Regent's own daughter, +the Duchesse de Berry, who, young as she was, had little to learn of the +arts of dissipation. And in the wake of these high-born women would +follow laughing, bright-eyed troupes of dancing and chorus-girls from +the theatres with an escort of the cleverest actors of Paris, to join +the Regent's merry throng. + +The champagne now flowed in rivers; the servants were sent away; the +doors were locked and the fun grew riotous; ceremony had no place there; +rank and social distinctions were forgotten. Countesses flirted with +comedians; Princes made love to ballet-girls and duchesses alike. The +leader of the moment was the man or woman who could sing the most daring +song, tell the most piquant story, or play the most audacious practical +joke, even on the Regent himself. Sometimes, we are told, the lights +would be extinguished, and the orgy continued under the cover of +darkness, until the Regent suddenly opened a cupboard, in which lights +were concealed--to an outburst of shrieks of laughter at the scenes +revealed. + +Thus the mad night hours passed until dawn came to bring the revels to a +close; or until the Regent would sally forth with a few chosen comrades +on a midnight ramble to other haunts of pleasure in the capital--the +lower the better. Such was the way in which Philippe of Orleans, Regent +of France, spent his nights. A few hours after the carouse had ended he +would resume his sceptre, as austere and dignified a ruler as you would +find in Europe. + +It must not be imagined that Philippe was the only Royal personage who +thus set a scandalous example to France. There was, in fact, scarcely a +Prince or Princess of the Blood Royal whose love affairs were not +conducted flagrantly in the eyes of the world, from the Dowager Duchesse +de Bourbon, who lavished her favours on the Scotch financier, John Law, +of Lauriston, to the Princesse de Conte, who mingled her piety with a +marked partiality for her nephew, Le Kallière. + +As for the Regent's own daughters, from the Duchesse de Berry, to +Louise, Queen of Spain, each has left behind her a record almost as +scandalous as that of her father. It was, in fact, an era of corruption +in high places, when, in the reaction that followed the dismal and +decorous last years of Louis XIV.'s reign, Pleasure rose phoenix-like +from the ashes of ruin and flaunted herself unashamed in every guise +with which vice could deck her. + +It must be said for the Regent, corrupt as he was, that he never abused +his position and his power in the pursuit of beauty. His mistresses +flocked to him from every rank of life, from the stage to the highest +Court circles, but remained no longer than inclination dictated. And the +fascination is not far to seek, for Philippe d'Orléans was of the men +who find easy conquests in the field of love. He was one of the +handsomest men in all France; and to his good-looks and his reputation +for bravery he added a manner of rare grace and courtliness, a supple +tongue, and that strange magnetic power which few women could resist. + +No King ever boasted a greater or more varied list of favourites, in +which actresses and duchesses vied with each other for his smiles, in a +rivalry which seems to have been singularly free from petty jealousy. +Among the beauties of the Court we find the Duchesse de Fedari, the +Duchesse de Gesores, the Comtesse de Sabran at one extreme; and +actresses like Emilie, Desmarre, and La Souris at the other, pretty +butterflies of the footlights who appealed to the Regent no more than +Madame d'Averne, the gifted pet of France's wits and literary men, the +most charming "blue-stocking" of her day. And all, without +exception--duchesses, countesses, and actresses--were as ready to give +their love to Philippe, the man, as to the Duc d'Orléans, Regent of +France. + +Even in his relations with these ministers of pleasure, the Regent's +better qualities often exhibit themselves agreeably. To the pretty +actress, Emilie, whose heart was so completely his, he always acted with +a characteristic generosity and forbearance; and her conduct is by no +means less pleasing than his. Once, we are told, when he expressed a +wish to give her a pair of diamond ear-rings at a cost of fifteen +thousand francs, she demurred at accepting so valuable a present. "If +you must be so generous," she pleaded, "please don't give me the +ear-rings, which are much too grand for such as me. Give me, instead, +ten thousand francs, so that I may buy a small house to which I can +retire when you no longer love me as you now do." + +Emilie had scarcely returned home, however, when a Court official +appeared with a package containing, not ten thousand, but twenty-five +thousand francs, which her lover insisted on her keeping; and when she +returned fifteen thousand francs, he promptly sent them back again, +declaring that he would be very angry if she refused again to accept +them. + +His love, indeed, for Emilie seems to have been as pure and deep as any +of which he was capable. It was no fleeting passion, but an affection +based on a sincere respect for her character and mental gifts. So +highly, indeed, did he think of her judgment that she became his most +trusted counsellor. She sat by his side when he received ambassadors; +he consulted her on difficult problems of State; and it was her advice +that he often followed in preference to the wisdom of all his ministers; +for, as he said to Dubois, "Emilie has an excellent brain; she always +gives me the best counsel." + +When at last he had to part from the modest and accomplished actress it +was under circumstances which speak well for his generosity. A former +lover, the Marquis de Fimarcon, on his return from fighting in Spain, +sought Emilie out, and, blazing with jealousy, insisted that she should +leave the Regent and return to his protection. He vowed that, if she +refused, he would murder her; and when, in her alarm, she sought refuge +in a convent at Charenton, he threatened to burn the nuns alive in their +cells unless they restored her to him. Thus it was that, rather than +allow Emilie to run any risks from her revengeful and brutal lover, the +Regent relinquished his claim to her; and only when Fimarcon's continued +brutality at last made intervention necessary, did he order the bully to +be arrested and consigned to the prison of Fort l'Évêque. + +It is, however, in the story of Mademoiselle Aissé, the Circassian +slave, that we find the best illustration of the chivalry which underlay +the Regent's passion for women, and which he never forgot in his wildest +excesses. This story, one of the most touching in French history, opens +in the year 1698, when a band of Turkish soldiers returned to +Constantinople from a raid in the Caucasus, bringing with them, among +many other captives, a beautiful child of four years, said to be the +daughter of a King. So lovely was the little Circassian fairy that when +the Comte de Feriol, France's Ambassador to Turkey, set eyes on her, he +decided to purchase her; and she became his property in exchange for +fifteen hundred livres. + +That she might have every advantage of training to fit her for his +seraglio in later years, the child was sent to Paris, to the home of the +Ambassador's brother, President de Feriol, where she grew to beautiful +girlhood as a member of the family, as fair a flower as ever was +transplanted to French soil. Thus she passed the next thirteen years of +her young life, charming all by her sweetness of disposition, as she won +the homage of all by her remarkable beauty and grace. + +Such was Ayesha, or Aissé, the Circassian maid, when at last her "owner" +returned to Paris to fall under the spell of her radiant beauty and to +claim her as his chattel, bought with good gold and trained at his cost +to adorn his harem. In vain did Aissé weep and plead to be spared a fate +from which every fibre of her being shrank in horror. Her "master" was +inexorable. "When I bought you," he said, "it was my intention to make +you my daughter or my mistress. I now intend that you shall become both +the one and the other." Friendless and helpless, she was obliged to +yield; and for six years she had to submit to the endearments of her +protector, a man more than old enough to be her father, until his death +brought her release. + +At twenty-four, more lovely than ever, combining the beauty of the +Circassian with the graces of France, Aissé had now every right to look +forward at least to such happiness as was possible to a stranger in a +strange land. But no sooner was one danger to her peace removed than +another sprang up to take its place. The rumour of her beauty and her +sweetness had come to the ears of the Regent, and strong forces were at +work to bring her to his arms. Madame de Tencin was the leader in this +base conspiracy, with the power of the Romish Church at her back; for +with the fair Circassian high in the Regent's favour and a pliant tool +in their hands, the Jesuits' influence at Court would be greatly +strengthened. Dubois was won over to the unholy alliance; and the Due's +_maîtresse en titre_ was bribed, not only to withdraw all opposition to +her proposed rival, but to arrange a meeting between the Regent and the +victim. + +Success seemed to be assured. Mademoiselle Aissé was to exchange slavery +to her late owner for an equally odious place in the harem of the ruler +of France. Her tears and entreaties were all in vain; when she begged on +her knees to be allowed to retire to a convent Madame de Feriol turned +her back on her. Her only hope of rescue now lay in the Regent himself; +and to him she pleaded her cause with such pathetic eloquence that he +not only allowed her to depart in peace, but with words of sympathy and +promises of his protection in the pure and noble sense of the word. + +Thus by the chivalry of the most dissolute man of his age the Circassian +slave-girl was rescued from a life which to her would have been worse +than death--to spend her remaining years, happy in the love of an honest +man, the Chevalier d'Aydie, until death claimed her while she still +possessed the beauty which had been at once her glory and her inevitable +shame. + + * * * * * + +The close of the Regent's mis-spent life came with tragic suddenness. +Worn out with excesses, while still young in years, his doctors had +warned him that death might come to him any day; but with the +light-heartedness that was his to the last, he laughed at their gloomy +forebodings and refused to take the least precautions to safeguard his +health. Two days before the end came he declined point-blank to be bled +in order to avert a threatened attack of apoplexy. "Let it come if it +will," he said, with a laugh. "I do not fear death; and if it comes +quickly, so much the better!" + +On the evening of 2nd December, 1720, he was chatting gaily to the young +Duchesse de Falari, when he suddenly turned to her and asked: "Do you +think there is any hell--or Paradise?" "Of course I do," answered the +Duchesse. "Then are you not afraid to lead the life you do?" "Well," +replied Madame, "I think God will have pity on me." + +Scarcely had the words left her lips when the Regent's head fell heavily +on her shoulder, and he began to slip to the floor. A glance showed her +that he was unconscious; and, rushing out of the room, the terrified +Duchesse raced through the dark, deserted corridors of the palace +shrieking for help. When at last help arrived, it came too late. The +Regent had gone to find for himself an answer to the question his lips +had framed a few minutes earlier--"is there any hell--or Paradise?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +A DELILAH OF THE COURT OF FRANCE + +It was a cruel fate that snatched Gabrielle d'Estrées from the arms of +Henri IV., King of France and Navarre, at the moment when her long +devotion to her hero-lover was on the eve of being crowned by the bridal +veil; and for many a week there was no more stricken man in Europe than +the disconsolate King as he wailed in his black-draped chamber, "The +root of my love is dead, and will never blossom again." + +No doubt Henri's grief was as sincere as it was deep, for he had loved +his golden-haired Gabrielle of the blue eyes and dimpled baby-cheeks as +he had never loved woman before. It was the passion of a lifetime, the +passion of a strong man in his prime, that fate had thus nipped in the +fullness of its bloom; and its loss plunged him into an abyss of sorrow +and despair such as few men have known. + +But with the hero of Ivry no emotion of grief or pleasure ever endured +long. He was a man of erratic, widely contrasted moods--now on the peaks +of happiness, now in the gulf of dejection; one mood succeeding another +as inevitably and widely as the pendulum swings. Thus when he had spent +three seemingly endless months of gloom and solitude, reaction seized +him, and he flung aside his grief with his black raiment. He was still +in the prime of his strength, with many years before him. He would drink +the cup of life, even to its dregs. He had long been weary of the +matrimonial chains that fettered him to Marguerite of Valois. He would +strike them off, and in another wife and other loves find a new lease of +pleasure. + +Thus it was with no heavy heart that he turned his back on Fontainebleau +and his darkened room, and fared to Paris to find a new vista of +pleasure opening to him at his palace doors, and his ears full of the +praises of a new divinity who had come, during his absence, to grace his +Court--a girl of such beauty, sprightliness, and wit as his capital had +not seen for many a year. + +Henriette d'Entragues--for this was the divinity's name--was equipped by +fate as few women were ever equipped, for the conquest of a King. Her +mother, Marie Touchet, had been "light-o'-love" to Charles IX.; her +father was the Seigneur d'Entragues, member of one of the most +blue-blooded families of France, a soldier and statesman of fame; and +their daughter had inherited, with her mother's beauty and grace, the +clever brain and diplomatic skill of her father. A strange mixture of +the bewitching and bewildering, this daughter of a King's mistress seems +to have been. Tall and dark, voluptuous of figure, with ripe red lips, +and bold and dazzling black eyes, she was, in her full-blooded, sensuous +charms, the very "antipodes" to the childish, fairy-like Gabrielle who +had so long been enshrined in the King's heart. And to this physical +appeal--irresistible to a man of such strong passion as Henri, she added +gifts of mind which "baby Gabrielle" could never claim. + +She had a wit as brilliant as the tongue which was its vehicle; her +well-stored brain was more than a match for the most learned men at +Court, and she would leave an archbishop discomfited in a theological +argument, to cross swords with Sully himself on some abstruse problem of +statesmanship. When Sully had been brought to his knees, she would rush +away, with mischief in her eyes, to take the lead in some merry escapade +or practical joke, her silvery laughter echoing in some remote palace +corridor. A bewildering, alluring bundle of inconsistencies--beauty, +savant, wit, and madcap--such was Henriette d'Entragues when Henri, +fresh from his woes, came under the spell of her magnetism. + +Here, indeed, was an escape from his grief such as the King had never +dared to hope for. Before he had been many hours in his palace, Henri +was caught hopelessly in the toils of the new siren, and was intoxicated +by her smiles and witcheries. Never was conquest so speedy, so dramatic. +Before a week had flown he was at Henrietta's feet, as lovesick a swain +as ever sighed for a lady, pouring love into her ears and writing her +passionate letters between the frequent meetings, in which he would send +her a "good night, my dearest heart," with "a million kisses." + +In the days of his lusty youth the idol and hero of France had never +known passion such as this which consumed him within sight of his +fiftieth birthday, and which was inspired by a woman of much less than +half his years; for at the time Henri was forty-six, and Henriette was +barely twenty. + +He quickly found, however, that his wooing was not to be all "plain +sailing." When Henriette's parents heard of it, they affected to be +horrified at the danger in which their beloved daughter was placed. They +summoned her home from the perils of Court and a King's passion; and +when Henri sent an envoy to bring them to reason they sent him back with +a rebuff. Their daughter was to be no man's--not even a +King's--plaything. If Henri's passion was sincere, he must prove it by a +definite promise of marriage; and only on this condition would their +opposition be removed. + +Even to such a stipulation Henri, such was his infatuation, made no +demur. With his own hand he wrote an agreement pledging himself to make +Demoiselle Henriette his lawful wife in case, within a certain period, +she became the mother of a son; and undertaking to dissolve his marriage +with his wife, Marguerite of France, for this purpose. And this +agreement, signed with his own hand, he sent to the Seigneur d'Entragues +and his wife, accompanied by a _douceur_ of a hundred thousand crowns. + +But before it was dispatched a more formidable obstacle than even the +lady's natural guardians remained to be faced--none other than the Duc +de Sully, the man who had shared all the perils of a hundred fights with +Henri and was at once his chief counsellor and his _fidus Achates_. +When at last he summoned up courage to place the document in Sully's +hands, he awaited the verdict as nervously as any schoolboy in the +presence of a dreaded master. Sully read through the paper, was silent +for a few moments, and then spoke. "Sire," he said, "am I to give you my +candid opinion on this document, without fear of anger or giving +offence?" "Certainly," answered the King. "Well then, this is what I +think of it," was Sully's reply, as he tore the document in two pieces +and flung them on the floor. "Sully, you are mad!" exclaimed Henri, +flaring into anger at such an outrage. "You are right, Sire, I am a weak +fool, and would gladly know myself still more a fool--if I might be the +only one in France!" + +It was in vain, however, that Sully pointed out the follies and dangers +of such a step as was proposed. Henri's mind was made up, and leaving +his friend, in high dudgeon, he went to his study and re-wrote his +promise of marriage. The way was at last clear to the gratification of +his passion. Henriette was more than willing, her parents' scruples and +greed were appeased, and as for Sully--well, he must be left to get over +his tantrums. Even to please such an old and trusted friend he could not +sacrifice such an opportunity for pleasure and a new lease of life as +now presented itself! + +Halcyon months followed for Henri--months in which even Gabrielle was +forgotten in the intoxication of a new passion, compared with which the +memory of her gentle charms was but as water to rich, red wine. That +Henriette proved wilful, capricious, and extravagant--that her vanity +drained his exchequer of hundreds of thousands of crowns for costly +jewellery and dresses, was a mere bagatelle, compared with his delight +in her manifold allurements. + +But Sully had by no means said his last word. The decree for annulling +Henri's marriage with Marguerite de Valois was pronounced; and it was of +the highest importance that she should have a worthy successor as Queen +of France--a successor whom he found in Marie de Medicis. + +The marriage-contract was actually sealed before the King had any +suspicion that his hand was being disposed of, and it was only when +Sully one day entered his study with the startling words, "Sire, we have +been marrying you," that the awakening came. For a few moments Henri sat +as a man stunned, his head buried in his hands; then, with a deep sigh, +he spoke: "If God orders it so, so let it be. There seems to be no +escape; since you say that it is necessary for my kingdom and my +subjects, why, marry I must." + +It was a strange predicament in which Henri now found himself. Still +more infatuated than ever with Henriette, he was to be tied for life to +a Princess whom he had never even seen. To add to the embarrassment of +his position, the condition of his marriage promise to Henriette was +already on the way to fulfilment; and he was thus pledged to wed her as +strongly as any State compact could bind him to stand at the altar with +Marie de Medicis. One thing was clear, he must at any cost recover that +fatal document; and, while he was giving orders for the suitable +reception of his new Queen, and arranging for her triumphal progress to +Paris, he was writing to Henriette and her parents demanding the return +of his promise of marriage agreement--to her, a pleading letter in which +he prays her "to return the promise you have by you and not to compel me +to have recourse to other means in order to obtain it"; to her father, a +more imperious demand to which he expects instant obedience. + +As some consolation to his mistress, whose alternate tears, rage, and +reproaches drove him to distraction, he creates her Marquise de Verneuil +and promises that, if he should be unable to marry her, he will at least +give her a husband of Royal rank, the Due de Nevers, who was eager to +make her his wife. + +But pleadings and threats alike fail to secure the return of the fatal +document, and Henri is reduced to despair, until Henriette gives birth +to a dead child and his promise thus becomes of as little value as the +paper it was written on. The condition has failed, and he is a free man +to marry his Tuscan Princess, while Henriette, thus foiled in her great +ambition, is in danger not only of losing her coveted crown, but her +place in the King's favour. The days of her wilful autocracy are ended; +and, though her heart is full of anger and disappointment, she writes to +him a pitiful letter imploring him still to love her and not to cast her +"from the Heaven to which he has raised her, down to the earth where he +found her." "Do not let your wedding festivities be the funeral of my +hopes," she writes. "Do not banish me from your Royal presence and your +heart. I speak in sighs to you, my King, my lover, my all--I, who have +been loved by the earth's greatest monarch, and am willing to be his +mistress and his servant." + +To such humility was the proud, arrogant beauty now reduced. She was an +abject suppliant where she had reigned a Queen. Nor did her pleadings +fall on deaf ears. Her Royal lover's hand was given, against his will, +to his new Queen, but his heart, he vowed, was all Henriette's--so much +so that he soon installed her in sumptuous rooms in his palace adjoining +those of the Queen herself. + +Was ever man placed in a more delicate position than this King of +France, between the rival claims of his wife and mistress, who were +occupying adjacent apartments, and who, moreover, were both about to +become mothers? It speaks well for Henri's tactfulness that for a time +at least this _ménage à trois_ appears to have been quite amiably +conducted. When Queen Marie gave birth to a son it was to Henriette that +the infant's father first confided the good news, seasoning it with "a +million kisses" for herself. And when Henriette, in turn, became a +mother for the second time, the double Royal event was celebrated by +fêtes and rejoicings in which each lady took an equally proud and +conspicuous part. + +It was inevitable, however, that a woman so favoured by the King, and of +so imperious a nature, should have enemies at Court; and it was not long +before she became the object of a conspiracy of which the Duchesse de +Villars and the Queen were the arch-leaders. One day a bundle of letters +was sent anonymously to Henri, letters full of tenderness and passion, +addressed by his beloved Marquise, Henriette, to the Prince de +Joinville. The King was furious at such evidence of his mistress's +disloyalty, and vowed he would never see her again. But all his storming +and reproaches left the Marquise unmoved. She declared, with scorn in +her voice, that the letters were forgeries; that she had never written +to Joinville in her life, nor spoken a word to him that His Majesty +might not have heard. She even pointed out the forger, the Duc de +Guise's secretary, and was at last able to convince the King of her +innocence. + +The Duchesse de Villars and Joinville were banished from the Court in +disgrace; the Queen had a severe lecture from her husband; and Henriette +was not only restored to full favour, but was consoled by a welcome +present of six thousand pounds. + +But the days of peace in the King's household were now gone for ever. +Queen Marie, thus humiliated by her rival, became her bitter enemy and +also a thorn in the side of her unfaithful husband. Every day brought +its fierce quarrels which only stopped on the verge of violence. More +than once in fact Henri had to beat a retreat before his Queen's +clenched fist, while she lost no opportunity of insulting and +humiliating the Marquise. + +It is impossible altogether to withhold sympathy from a man thus +distracted between two jealous women--a shrewish wife, who in her most +amiable mood repelled his advances with coldness and cutting words, and +a mistress who vented on him all the resentment which the Queen's +insults and snubs roused in her. Even all Sully's diplomacy was +powerless to pour oil on such vexed waters as these. + +The Queen, however, had not long to wait for her revenge, which came +with the disclosure of a conspiracy, at the head of which were +Henriette's father and her half-brother, the Comte d'Auvergne, and in +which, it was proved, she herself had played no insignificant part. +Punishment came, swift and terrible. Her father and brother were +sentenced to death, herself to perpetual confinement in a monastery. + +But even at this crisis in her life, Henriette's stout heart did not +fail her for a moment. "The King may take my life, if he pleases," she +said. "Everybody will say that he killed his wife; for I was Queen +before the Tuscan woman came on the scene at all." None knew better than +she that she could afford thus to put on a bold front. Henri was still +her slave, to whom her little finger was more than his crown; and she +knew that in his hands both her liberty and her life were safe. And thus +it proved; for before she had spent many weeks in the Monastery of +Beaumont-les-Tours, its doors were flung open for her, and the first +news she heard was that her father was a free man, while her brother's +death-sentence had been commuted to a few years in the Bastille. + +Thus Henriette returned to the turbulent life of the palace--the daily +routine of quarrels and peacemaking with the King, and undisguised +hostility from the Queen, through all of which Henri's heart still +remained hers. "How I long to have you in my arms again," he writes, +when on a hunting excursion, which had led him to the scene of their +early romance. "As my letter brings back the memory of the past, I know +you will feel that nothing in the present is worth anything in +comparison. This, at least, was my feeling as I walked along the roads I +so often traversed in the old days on my journey to your side. When I +sleep I dream of you; when I wake my thoughts are all of you." He sends +her a million kisses, and vows that all he asks of life is that she +shall always love him entirely and him alone. + +One would have thought that such a conquest of a King and such triumph +over a Queen would have gratified the ambition of the most exacting of +women. But the Marquise de Verneuil seems to have found small +satisfaction in her victories. When she was not provoking quarrels with +Henri, which roused him to such a pitch of anger that at times he +threatened to strike her, she received his advances with a coldness or a +sullen acquiescence calculated to chill the most ardent lover. In other +moods she would drive him to despair by declaring that she had long +ceased to love him, and that all she wanted from him was a dowry to +carry in marriage to one or other of several suitors who were dying for +her hand. + +But Madame's day of triumph was drawing much nearer to an end than she +imagined. The end, in fact, came with dramatic suddenness when Henri +first set eyes on the radiantly lovely Charlotte de Montmorency. Weary +at heart of the tempers and exactions of Henriette, it needed but such a +lure as this to draw him finally from her side; and from the first +flash of Charlotte's beautiful eyes this most susceptible of Kings was +undone. Madame de Verneuil's reign was ended; the next quarrel was made +the occasion for a complete rupture, and the Court saw her no more. + +Already she had lost the bloom of her beauty; she had grown stout and +coarse through her excessive fondness for the pleasures of the table, +and the rest of her days, which were passed in friendless isolation, she +spent in indulging appetites, which added to her mountain of flesh while +robbing her of the last trace of good-looks. When the knife of Ravaillac +brought Henri's life and his new romance to a tragic end, the Marquise +was among those who were suspected of inspiring the assassin's blow; and +although her guilt was never proved, the taint of suspicion clung to her +to her last day. + +After fruitless angling for a husband--the Duc de Guise, the Prince de +Joinville, and many another who, with one consent, fled from her +advances, she resigned herself to a life of obscurity and gluttony, +until death came, one day in the year 1633, to release her from a world +of vanity and disillusionment. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE "SUN-KING" AND THE WIDOW + + +Search where you will in the record of Kings, you will find nowhere a +figure more splendid and more impressive than that of the fourteenth +Louis, who for more then seventy years ruled over France, and for more +than fifty eclipsed in glory his fellow-sovereigns as the sun pales the +stars. Nearly two centuries have gone since he closed his weary and +disillusioned eyes on the world he had so long dominated; but to-day he +shines in history in the galaxy of monarchs with a lustre almost as +great as when he was hailed throughout the world as the "Sun-King," and +in his pride exclaimed, "_I_ am the State." + +Placed, like his successor, on the greatest throne in Europe, a child of +five, fortune exhausted itself in lavishing gifts on him. The world was +at his feet almost before he had learned to walk. He grew to manhood +amid the adulation and flatteries of the greatest men and the fairest of +women. And that he might lack no great gift, he was dowered with every +physical perfection that should go to the making of a King. + +There was no more goodly youth in France than Louis when he first +practised the arts of love-making, in which he later became such an +adept, on Mazarin's lovely niece, Marie Mancini. Tall, with a well-knit, +supple figure, with dark, beautiful eyes illuminating a singularly +handsome face, with a bearing of rare grace and distinction, this son of +Anne of Austria was a lover whom few women could resist. + +Such conquests came to him with fatal ease, and for thirty years at +least, until satiety killed passion, there was no lack of beautiful +women to minister to his pleasure and to console him for the lack of +charms in the Spanish wife whom Mazarin thrust into his reluctant arms +when he was little more than a boy, and when his heart was in Marie +Mancini's keeping. + +Among all the fair and frail women who succeeded one another in his +affection three stand out from the rest with a prominence which his +special favour assigned to each in turn. For ten early years it was +Louise de la Baume-Leblanc (better known to fame as the Duchesse de +Lavallière) who reigned as his uncrowned Queen, and who gave her life to +his pleasure and to the care of the children she bore to him. But such +constancy could not last for ever in a man so constitutionally +inconstant as Louis. When the Marquise de Montespan, in all her radiant +and sensuous loveliness, came on the scene, she drew the King to her +arms as a flame lures the moth. Her voluptuous charms, her abounding +vitality and witty tongue, made the more refined beauty and the +gentleness of the Duchesse flavourless in comparison; and Louise, +realising that her sun had set, retired to spend the rest of her life in +the prayers and piety of a convent, leaving her brilliant rival in +undisputed possession of the field. + +For many years Madame de Montespan, the most consummate courtesan who +ever enslaved a King, queened it over Louis in her magnificent +apartments at Versailles and in the Tuileries. He was never weary of +showering rich gifts and favours on her; and, in return, she became the +mother of his children and ministered to his every whim, little dreaming +of the day when she in turn was to be dethroned by an insignificant +widow whom she regarded as the creature of her bounty, and who so often +awaited her pleasure in her ante-room. + + * * * * * + +When Françoise d'Aubigné was cradled, one November day in the year 1635, +within the walls of a fortress-prison in Poitou, the prospect of a +Queendom seemed as remote as a palace in the moon. She had good blood in +her veins, it is true. Her ancestors had been noblemen of Normandy +before the Conqueror ever thought of crossing the English Channel, and +her grandfather, General Theodore d'Aubigné, had won distinction as a +soldier on many a battlefield. It was to her father, profligate and +spendthrift, who, after squandering his patrimony, had found himself +lodged in jail, that Françoise owed the ignominy of her birthplace, for +her mother had insisted on sharing the captivity of her ne'er-do-well +husband. + +When at last Constant d'Aubigné found his prison doors opened, he shook +the dust of France off his feet and took his wife and young children +away to Martinique, where at least, he hoped, his record would not be +known. On the voyage, we are told, the child was brought so near to +death's door by an illness that her body was actually on the point of +being flung overboard when her mother detected signs of life, and +rescued her from a watery grave. A little later, in Martinique, she had +an equally narrow escape from death as the result of a snakebite. A +child thus twice miraculously preserved was evidently destined for +better things than an early tomb, more than one declared; and so indeed +it proved. + +When the father ended his mis-spent days in the West Indian island, the +widow took her poverty and her fledgelings back to France, where +Françoise was placed under the charge of a Madame de Villette, to pick +up such education as she could in exchange for such menial work as +looking after Madame's poultry and scrubbing her floors. When her mother +in turn died, the child (she was only fifteen at the time) was taken to +Paris by an aunt, whose miserliness or poverty often sent her hungry to +bed. + +Such was Françoise's condition when she was taken one day to the house +of Paul Scarron, the crippled poet, whose satires and burlesques kept +Paris in a ripple of merriment, and to whom the child's poverty and +friendless position made as powerful an appeal as her budding beauty and +her modesty. It was a very tender heart that beat in the pain-racked, +paralysed body of the "father of French burlesque"; and within a few +days of first setting eyes on his "little Indian girl," as he called +her, he asked her to marry him. "It is a sorry offer to make you, my +dear child," he said, "but it is either this or a convent." And, to +escape the convent, Françoise consented to become the wife of the +"bundle of pains and deformities" old enough to be her father. + +In the marriage-contract Scarron, with characteristic buffoonery, +recognises her as bringing a dower of "four louis, two large and very +expressive eyes, a fine bosom, a pair of lovely hands, and a good +intellect"; while to the attorney, when asked what his contribution was, +he answered, "I give her my name, and that means immortality." For eight +years Françoise was the dutiful wife of her crippled husband, nursing +him tenderly, managing his home and his purse, redeeming his writing +from its coarseness, and generally proving her gratitude by a ceaseless +devotion. Then came the day when Scarron bade her farewell on his +death-bed, begging her with his last breath to remember him sometimes, +and bidding her to be "always virtuous." + +Thus Françoise d'Aubigné was thrown once more on a cold world, with +nothing between her and starvation but Scarron's small pension, which +the Queen-mother continued to his widow, and compelled to seek a cheap +refuge within convent walls. She had however good-looks which might +stand her in good stead. She was tall, with an imposing figure and a +natural dignity of carriage. She had a wealth of light-brown hair, eyes +dark and brilliant, full of fire and intelligence, a well-shaped nose, +and an exquisitely modelled mouth. + +Beautiful she was beyond doubt, in these days of her prime; but there +were thousands of more beautiful women in France. And for ten years +Madame Scarron was left to languish within the convent walls with never +a lover to offer her release. When the Queen-mother died, and with her +the pitiful pension, her plight was indeed pitiful. Her petitions to the +King fell on deaf ears, until Montespan, moved by her tears and +entreaties, pleaded for her; and Louis at last gave a reluctant consent +to continue the allowance. + +It was a happy inspiration that led Scarron's widow to the King's +favourite, for Madame de Montespan's heart, ever better than her life, +went out to the gentle woman whom fate was treating so scurvily. Not +content with procuring the pension, she placed her in charge of her +nursery, an office of great trust and delicacy; and thus Madame Scarron +found herself comfortably installed in the King's palace with a salary +of two thousand crowns a year. Her day of poverty and independence was +at last ended. She had, in fact, though she little knew it, placed her +foot on the ladder, at the summit of which was the dazzling prize of the +King's hand. + +Those were happy years which followed. High in the favour of the King's +mistress, loving the little ones given into her charge as if they were +her own children, especially the eldest born, the delicate and +warm-hearted Duc de Maine, who was also his father's darling, Madame had +nothing left to wish for in life. Her days were full of duty, of peace, +and contentment. Even Louis, as he watched the loving care she lavished +on his children, began to thaw and to smile on her, and to find pleasure +in his visits to the nursery, which grew more and more frequent. There +was a charm in this sweet-eyed, gentle-voiced widow, whose tongue was so +skilful in wise and pleasant words. Her patient devotion deserved +recognition. He gave orders that more fitting apartments should be +assigned to Madame--a suite little less sumptuous than that of Montespan +herself; and that money should not be lacking, he made her a gift of two +hundred thousand francs, which the provident widow promptly invested in +the purchase of the castle and estate of Maintenon. + +Such marked favours as these not unnaturally set jealous tongues +wagging. Even Montespan began to grow uneasy, and to wonder what was +coming next. When she ventured to refer sarcastically to the use +"Scarron's widow" had made of his present, Louis silenced her by +answering, "In my opinion, _Madame de Maintenon_ has acted very wisely"; +thus by a word conferring noble rank on the woman his favourite was +already beginning to fear as a rival. + +And indeed there were soon to be sufficient grounds for Montespan's +jealously and alarm. Every day saw Louis more and more under the spell +of his children's governess--the middle-aged woman whose musical voice, +gentle eyes, and wise words of counsel were opening a new and better +world to him. She knew, as well as himself, how sated and weary he was +of the cup of pleasure he had now drained to its last dregs of +disillusionment; and he listened with eager ears to the words which +pointed to him a surer path of happiness. Even reproof from her lips +became more grateful to him than the sweetest flatteries from those of +the most beautiful woman who counted but half of her years. + +The growing influence of the widow Scarron over the "Sun-King" had +already become the chief gossip of the Court. From the allurements of +Montespan, of Mademoiselle de Fontanges, and of de Ludre he loved to +escape to the apartments of the soft-voiced woman who cared so much more +for his soul than for his smiles. "His Majesty's interviews with Madame +de Maintenon," Madame de Sevigné writes, "become more and more frequent, +and they last from six in the morning to ten at night, she sitting in +one arm-chair, he in another." + +In vain Montespan stormed and wept in her fits of jealous rage; in vain +did the beautiful de Fontanges seek to lure him to her arms, until death +claimed her so tragically before she had well passed her twentieth +birthday. The King had had more than enough of such Delilahs. Pleasure +had palled; peace was what he craved now--salve for his seared +conscience. + +When Madame de Maintenon was appointed principal lady-in-waiting to the +Dauphine and when, a little later, Louis' unhappy Queen drew her last +breath in her arms, Montespan at last realised that her day of power was +over. She wrote letters to the King begging him not to withdraw his +affection from her, but to these appeals Louis was silent; he handed +the letters to Madame de Maintenon to answer as she willed. + +The Court was quick to realise that a new star had risen; ministers and +ambassadors now flocked to the new divinity to consult her and to win +her favour. The governess was hailed as the new Queen of Louis and of +France. The climax came when the King was thrown one day from his horse +while hunting, and broke his arm. It was Madame de Maintenon alone who +was allowed to nurse him, and who was by his side night and day. Before +the arm was well again she was standing, thickly veiled, before an +improvised altar in the King's study, with Louis by her side, while the +words that made them man and wife were pronounced by Archbishop de +Harlay. + +The prison-child had now reached the loftiest pinnacle in the land of +her birth. Though she wore no crown, she was Queen of France, wielding a +power which few throned ladies have ever known. Princes and Princesses +rose to greet her entry with bows and curtsies; the mother of the coming +King called her "aunt"; her rooms, splendid as the King's, adjoined his; +she had the place of honour in the King's Council Room; the State's +secrets were in her keeping; she guided and controlled the destinies of +the nation. And all this greatness came to her when she had passed her +fiftieth year, and when all the grace and bloom of youth were but a +distant memory. + +The King himself, two years her junior, and still in the prime of his +manhood, was her shadow, paying to the plain, middle-aged woman such +deference and courtesy as he had never shown to the youth and beauty of +her predecessors in his affection. And she--thus translated to dizzy +heights--kept a head as cool and a demeanour as modest as when she was +"Scarron's widow," the convent protégée. For power and splendour she +cared no whit. Her ambition now, as always, was to be loved for herself, +to "play a beautiful part in the world," and to deserve the respect of +all good men. + +Her chief pleasure was found away from the pomp and glitter of the +Court, among "her children" of the Saint Cyr Convent, which she had +founded for the education of the daughters of poor noblemen, over whom +she watched with loving and unflagging care. And yet she was not +happy--not nearly as happy as in the days of her obscure widowhood. "I +am dying of sorrow in the midst of luxury," she wrote. And again. "I +cannot bear it. I wish I were dead." Why she was so unhappy, with her +Queendom and her environment of love and esteem, and her life of good +works, it is impossible to say. The fact remains, inscrutable, but still +fact. + +Twenty-five years of such life of splendid sadness, and Louis, his last +days clouded by loss and suffering, died with her prayers in his ears, +his coverlet moistened by her tears. Two years later--years spent in +prayers and masses and charitable work--the "Queen Dowager" drew the +last breath of her long life at St Cyr, shortly after hearing that her +beloved Due de Maine, her pet nursling of other days, had been arrested +and flung into prison. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +A THRONED BARBARIAN + + +The dawn of the eighteenth century saw the thrones of France and Russia +occupied by two of the most remarkable sovereigns who ever wore a +crown--Louis XIV., the "Sun-King," whose splendours dazzled Europe, and +whose power held it in awe; and Peter I. of Russia, whose destructive +sword swept Europe from Sweden to the Dardenelles, and whose clever +brain laid sure the foundation of his country's greatness. Each of these +Royal rivals dwarfed all other fellow-monarchs as the sun pales the +stars; and yet it would scarcely have been possible to find two men more +widely different in all save their passion for power and their love of +woman, which alone they had in common. + +Of the two, Peter is unquestionably to-day the more arresting, +dominating figure. Although nearly two centuries have gone since he made +his exit from the world, we can still picture him in his pride, towering +a head higher than the tallest of his courtiers, swart of face, "as if +he had been born in Africa," with his black, close-curling hair, his +bold, imperious eyes, his powerful, well-knit frame--"the muscles and +stature of a Goliath"--a kingly figure, with majesty in every movement. + +We see him, too, wilfully discarding the kingliness with which nature +had so liberally dowered him--now receiving ambassadors "in a short +dressing-gown, below which his bare legs were exposed, a thick nightcap, +lined with linen, on his head, his stockings dropped down over his +slippers"--now walking through the Copenhagen streets grotesque in a +green cap, a brown overcoat with horn buttons, worsted stockings full of +darns, and dirty, cobbled shoes; and again carousing, red of face and +loud of voice, with his meanest subjects in some low tavern. + +As the mood seizes him he plays the rôle of fireman for hours together; +goes carol-singing in his sledge, and reaps his harvest of coppers from +the houses of his subjects; rides a hobby-horse at a village fair, and +shrieks with laughter until he falls off; or plies saw and plane in a +shipbuilding yard, sharing the meals and drinking bouts of his +fellow-workmen. + +The French Ambassador, Campredon, wrote of him in 1725:--"It is utterly +impossible at the present moment to approach the Tsar on serious +subjects; he is altogether given up to his amusements, which consist in +going every day to the principal houses in the town with a suite of 200 +persons, musicians and so forth, who sing songs on every sort of +subject, and amuse themselves by eating and drinking at the expense of +the persons they visit." "He never passed a single day without being +the worse for drink," Baron Pöllnitz tells us; and his drinking +companions were usually chosen from the most degraded of his subjects, +of both sexes, with whom he consorted on the most familiar terms. + +When his muddled brain occasionally awoke to the knowledge that he was a +King, he would bully and hector his boon-comrades like any drunken +trooper. On one occasion, when a young Jewess refused to drain a goblet +of neat brandy which he thrust into her hand, he promptly administered +two resounding boxes on her ears, shouting, "Vile Hebrew spawn! I'll +teach thee to obey." + +There was in him, too, a vein of savage cruelty which took remarkable +forms. A favourite pastime was to visit the torture-chamber and gloat +over the sufferings of the victims of the knout and the strappado; or to +attend (and frequently to officiate at) public executions. Once, we are +told, at a banquet, he "amused himself by decapitating twenty Streltsy, +emptying as many glasses of brandy between successive strokes, and +challenging the Prussian envoy to repeat the feat." + +Mad? There can be little doubt that Peter had madness in his veins. He +was a degenerate and an epileptic, subject to brain storms which +terrified all who witnessed them. "A sort of convulsion seized him, +which often for hours threw him into a most distressing condition. His +body was violently contorted; his face distorted into horrible grimaces; +and he was further subject to paroxysms of rage, during which it was +almost certain death to approach him." Even in his saner moods, as +Waliszewski tells us, he "joined to the roughness of a Russian _barin_ +all the coarseness of a Dutch sailor." Such in brief suggestion was +Peter I. of Russia, half-savage, half-sovereign, the strangest jumble of +contradictions who has ever worn the Imperial purple--"a huge mastodon, +whose moral perceptions were all colossal and monstrous." + +It was, perhaps, inevitable that a man so primitive, so little removed +from the animal, should find his chief pleasures in low pursuits and +companionships. During his historic visit to London, after a hard day's +work with adze and saw in the shipbuilding yard, the Tsar would adjourn +with his fellow-workmen to a public-house in Great Tower Street, and +"smoke and drink ale and brandy, almost enough to float the vessel he +had been helping to construct." + +And in his own kingdom the favourite companions of his debauches were +common soldiers and servants. + +"He chose his friends among the common herd; looked after his household +like any shopkeeper; thrashed his wife like a peasant; and sought his +pleasure where the lower populace generally finds it." His female +companions were chosen rather for their coarseness than their charms, +and pleased him most when they were drunk. It was thus fitting that he +should make an Empress of a scullery-maid, who, as we have seen in an +earlier chapter, had no vestige of beauty to commend her to his favour, +and whose chief attractions in his eyes were that she had a coarse +tongue and was a "first-rate toper." + +It was thus a strange and unhappy caprice of fate that united Peter, +while still a youth, to his first Empress, the refined and sensitive +Eudoxia, a woman as remote from her husband as the stars. Never was +there a more incongruous bride than this delicately nurtured girl +provided by the Empress Nathalie for her coarse-grained son. From the +hour at which they stood together at the altar the union was doomed to +tragic failure; before the honeymoon waned Peter had terrified his bride +by his brutality and disgusted her by the open attentions he paid to his +favourites of the hour, the daughters of Botticher, the goldsmith, and +Mons, the wine-merchant. + +For five years husband and wife saw little of each other; and when, in +1694, Nathalie's death removed the one influence which gave the union at +least the outward form of substance, Peter lost no time in exhibiting +his true colours. He dismissed all Eudoxia's relatives from the Court, +and sent her father into exile. One brother he caused to be whipped in +public; another was put to the torture, which had its horrible climax +when Peter himself saturated his victim's clothes with spirits of wine, +and then set them on fire. For Eudoxia a different fate was reserved. +Not only had he long grown weary of her insipid beauty and of her +refinement and gentleness, which were a constant mute reproach to his +own low tastes and hectoring manners--he had grown to hate the very +sight of her, and determined that she should no longer stand between him +and the unbridled indulgence of his pleasure. + +During his visit to England he never once wrote to her, and on his +return to Moscow his first words were a brutal announcement of his +intention to be rid of her. In vain she pleaded and wept. To her tearful +inquiries, "What have I done to offend you? What fault have you to find +with me?" he turned a deaf ear. "I never want to see you again," were +his last inexorable words. A few days later a hackney coach drove up to +the palace doors; the unhappy Tsarina was bundled unceremoniously into +it, and she was carried away to the nunnery of the "Intercession of the +Blessed Virgin," whose doors were closed on her for a score of years. + +Pitiful years they were for the young Empress, consigned by her husband +to a life that was worse than death--robbed of her rank, her splendours, +and luxuries, her very name--she was now only Helen, the nun, faring +worse than the meanest of her sister-nuns; for while they at least had +plenty to eat, the Tsarina seems many a time to have known the pangs of +hunger. The letters she wrote to one of her brothers are pathetic +evidence of the straits to which she was reduced. "For pity's sake," she +wrote, "give me food and drink. Give clothes to the beggar. There is +nothing here. I do not need a great deal; still I must eat." + +It is not to be wondered at, that, in her misery, she should turn +anywhere for succour and sympathy; and both came to her at last in the +guise of Major Glebof, an officer in the district, whose heart was +touched by the sadness of her fate. He sent her food and wine to restore +her strength, and warm furs to protect her from the iciness of her cell. +In response to her letters of thanks, he visited her again and again, +bringing sunshine into her darkened life with his presence, and soothing +her with words of sympathy and encouragement, until gratitude to the +"good Samaritan" grew into love for the man. + +When she learned that the man who had so befriended her was himself +poor, actually in money difficulties, she insisted on giving him every +rouble she could wring, by any abject appeal, out of her friends and +relatives. She became his very slave, grovelling at his feet. "Where thy +heart is, dearest one," she wrote to him, "there is mine also; where thy +tongue is, there is my head; thy will is also mine." She loved him with +a passion which broke down all barriers of modesty and prudence, +reckless of the fact that he had a wife, as she had a husband. + +When Major Glebof's visits and letters grew more and more infrequent, +she suffered tortures of anxiety and despair. "My light, my soul, my +joy," she wrote in one distracted letter, "has the cruel hour of +separation come already? O, my light! how can I live apart from thee? +How can I endure existence? Rather would I see my soul parted from my +body. God alone knows how dear thou art to me. Why do I love thee so +much, my adored one, that without thee life is so worthless? Why art +thou angry with me? Why, my _batioushka_, dost thou not come to see me? +Have pity on me, O my lord, and come to see me to-morrow. O, my world, +my dearest and best, answer me; do not let me die of grief." + +Thus one distracted, incoherent letter followed another, heart-breaking +in their grief, pitiful in their appeal. "Come to me," she cried; +"without thee I shall die. Why dost thou cause me such anguish? Have I +been guilty without knowing it? Better far to have struck me, to have +punished me in any way, for this fault I have innocently committed." And +again: "Why am I not dead? Oh, that thou hadst buried me with thy own +hands! Forgive me, O my soul! Do not let me die.... Send me but a crust +of bread thou hast bitten with thy teeth, or the waistcoat thou hast +often worn, that I may have something to bring thee near to me." + +What answers, if any, the Major vouchsafed to these pathetic letters we +know not. The probability is that they received no answer--that the +"good Samaritan" had either wearied of or grown alarmed at a passion +which he could not return, and which was fraught with danger. It was +accident only that revealed to the world the story of this strange and +tragic infatuation. + +When the Tsarevitch, Alexis, was brought to trial in 1718 on a charge of +conspiracy against his father, Peter, suspecting that Eudoxia had had a +hand in the rebellion, ordered a descent on the nunnery and an inquiry. +Nothing was found to connect her with her son's ill-fated venture; but +the inquiry revealed the whole story of her relations with the too +friendly officer. The evidence of the nuns and servants alone--evidence +of frequent and long meetings by day and night, of embraces +exchanged--was sufficiently conclusive, without the incriminating +letters which were discovered in the Major's bureau, labelled "Letters +from the Tsarina," or Eudoxia's confession which was extorted from her. + +This was an opportunity of vengeance such as exceeded all the Tsar's +hopes. Glebof was arrested and put on his trial. Evidence was forced +from the nuns by the lashing of the knout, so severe that some of them +died under it. Glebof, subjected to such frightful tortures that in his +agony he confessed much more than the truth, was sentenced to death by +impalement. In order to prolong his suffering to the last possible +moment, he was warmly wrapped in furs, to protect him from the bitter +cold, and for twenty-eight hours he suffered indescribable agony, until +at last death came to his release. + +As for Eudoxia, her punishment was a public flogging and consignment to +a nunnery still more isolated and miserable than that in which she had +dragged out twenty years of her broken life. Here she remained for seven +years, until, on the Tsar's death, an even worse fate befell her. She +was then, by Catherine's orders, taken from the convent, and flung into +the most loathsome, rat-infested dungeon of the fortress of +Schlussenberg, where she remained for two years of unspeakable horror. + +Then at last, after nearly thirty years of life that was worse than +death, the sun shone again for her. One day her dungeon door flew open, +and to the bowing of obsequious courtiers, the prisoner was conducted to +a sumptuous apartment. "The walls were hung with splendid stuffs; the +table was covered with gold-plate; ten thousand roubles awaited her in +a casket. Courtiers stood in her ante-chamber; carriages and horses +were at her orders." + +Catherine, the "scullery-Empress," was dead; Eudoxia's grandson, Peter +II., now wore the crown of Russia; and Eudoxia found herself +transported, as by the touch of a magic wand, from her loathsome +prison-cell to the old-time splendours of palaces--the greatest lady in +all Russia, to whom Princesses, ambassadors, and courtiers were all +proud to pay respectful homage. But the transformation had come too +late; her life was crushed beyond restoration; and after a few months of +her new glory she was glad to find an asylum once more within convent +walls, until Death, the great healer of broken hearts, took her to +where, "beyond these voices, there is peace." + + * * * * * + +While Eudoxia was eating her heart out in her convent cell, her husband +was finding ample compensation for her absence in Bacchanalian orgies +and the company of his galaxies of favourites, from tradesmen's +daughters to servant-maids of buxom charms, such as the Livonian +peasant-girl, in whom he found his second Empress. + +Of the almost countless women who thus fell under his baneful influence +one stands out from the rest by reason of the tragedy which surrounds +her memory. Mary Hamilton was no low-born maid, such as Peter especially +chose to honour with his attentions. She had in her veins the blood of +the ducal Hamiltons of Scotland, and of many a noble family of Russia, +from which her more immediate ancestors had taken their wives; and it +was an ill fate that took her, when little more than a child, to the +most debased Court of Europe to play the part of maid-of-honour, and +thus to cross the path of the most unprincipled lover in Europe. + +Peter's infatuation for the pretty young "Scotswoman," however, was but +short-lived. She had none of the vulgar attractions that could win him +to any kind of constancy; and he quickly abandoned her for the more +agreeable company of his _dienshtchiks_, leaving her to find consolation +in the affection of more courtly, if less exalted, lovers--notably the +young Count Orloff, who proved as faithless as his master. + +Such was Mary's infatuation for the worthless Count that, under his +influence, she stooped to various kinds of crime, from stealing the +Tsarina's jewels to fill her lover's purse, to infanticide. The climax +came when an important document was missing from the Tsar's cabinet. +Suspicion pointed to Orloff as the thief; he was arrested, and, when +brought into Peter's presence, not only confessed to the thefts and to +his share in making away with the undesirable infants, but betrayed the +partner of his guilt. + +There was short shrift for poor Mary Hamilton when she was put on her +trial on these grave charges. She made full confession of her crimes; +but no torture could wring from her the name of the man for love of whom +she had committed them, and of whose treachery to her she was ignorant. +She was sentenced to death; and one March day, in the year 1719, she +was led to the scaffold "in a white silk gown trimmed with black +ribbons." + +Then followed one of the grimmest scenes recorded in history. Peter, the +man who had been the first to betray her, and who had refused her pardon +even when her cause was pleaded by his wife, was a keenly interested +spectator of her execution. At the foot of the scaffold he embraced her, +and exhorted her to pray, before stepping aside to give place to the +headsman. When the axe had done its deadly work, he again stepped +forward, picked up the lifeless and still beautiful head which had +rolled into the mud, and calmly proceeded to give a lecture on anatomy +to the assembled crowd, "drawing attention to the number and nature of +the organs severed by the axe." His lecture concluded, he kissed the +pale, dead lips, crossed himself, and walked away with a smile of +satisfaction on his face. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +A FRIEND OF MARIE ANTOINETTE + + +There is scarcely a spectacle in the whole drama of history more +pathetic than that of Marie Antoinette, dancing her light-hearted way +through life to the guillotine, seemingly unconscious of the eyes of +jealousy and hate that watched her every step; or, if she noticed at +all, returning a gay smile for a frown. + +Wedded when but a child, full of the joy of youth, with laughter +bubbling on her pretty lips and gaiety dancing in her eyes, to a +dull-witted clown to whom her fresh young beauty made no appeal; +surrounded by Court ladies jealous of her charms; feared for her foreign +sympathies, and hated by a sullen, starving populace for her +extravagance and her pursuit of pleasure, the Austrian Princess with all +her young loveliness and the sweetness of her nature could please no one +in the land of her exile. Her very amiability was an offence; her +unaffected simplicity a subject of scorn; and her love of pleasure a +crime. + +Had she realised the danger of her position, and adapted herself to its +demands, her story might have been written very differently; but her +tragedy was that she saw or heeded none of the danger-signals that +marked her path until it was too late to retrace a step; and that her +most innocent pleasures were made to pave the way to her doom. + +Nothing, for instance, could have been more harmless to the seeming than +Marie Antoinette's friendship for Yolande de Polignac; but this +friendship had, beyond doubt, a greater part in her undoing than any +other incident in her life, from the affair of the "diamond necklace" to +her innocent infatuation for Count Fersen; and it would have been well +for the Queen of France if Madame de Polignac had been content to remain +in her rustic obscurity, and had never crossed her path. + +When Yolande Gabrielle de Polastron was led to the altar, one day in the +year 1767, by Comte Jules de Polignac, she never dreamt, we may be sure, +of the dazzling rôle she was destined to play at the Court of France. +Like her husband, she was a member of the smaller _noblesse_, as proud +as they were poor. Her husband, it is true, boasted a long pedigree, +with its roots in the Dark Ages; but his family had given to France only +one man of note, that Cardinal de Polignac, accomplished scholar, +courtier, and man of affairs, who was able to twist Louis XIV. round his +dexterous thumb; and Comte Jules was the Cardinal's great-nephew, and, +through his mother, had Mazarin blood in his veins. + +But the young couple had a purse as short as their descent was long; and +the early years of their wedded life were spent in Comte Jules' +dilapidated château, on an income less than the equivalent of a pound a +day--in a rustic retirement which was varied by an occasional jaunt to +Paris to "see the sights," and enjoy a little cheap gaiety. + +Comte Jules, however, had a sister, Diane, a clever-tongued, ambitious +young woman, who had found a footing at Court as lady-in-waiting to the +Comtesse d'Artois, and whom her brother and his wife were proud to visit +on their rare journeys to the capital. And it was during one of these +visits that Marie Antoinette, who had struck up an informal friendship +with the sprightly, laughter-loving Diane, first met the woman who was +to play such an important and dangerous part in her life. + +It was, perhaps, little wonder that the French Queen, craving for +friendship and sympathy, fell under the charm of Yolande de Polignac--a +girl still, but a few years older than herself, with a singular +sweetness and winsomeness, and "beautiful as a dream." The beauty of the +young Comtesse was, indeed, a revelation even in a Court of fair women. +In the extravagant words of chroniclers of the time, "she had the most +heavenly face that was ever seen. Her glance, her smile, every feature +was angelic." No picture could, it was said, do any justice to this +lovely creature of the glorious brown hair and blue eyes, who seemed so +utterly unconscious of her beauty. + +Such was the woman who came into the life of Marie Antoinette, and at +once took possession of her heart. At last the Queen of France, in her +isolation, had found the ideal friend she had sought so long in vain; a +woman young and beautiful like herself, with kindred tastes, eager as +she was to enjoy life, and with all the qualities to make a charming +and sympathetic companion. It was a case of love at first sight, on +Marie Antoinette's part at least; and each subsequent meeting only +served to strengthen the link that bound these two women so strangely +brought together. + +The Comtesse must come oftener to Court, the Queen pleaded, so that they +might have more opportunities of meeting and of learning to know each +other; and when the Comtesse pleaded poverty, Marie Antoinette brushed +the difficulty aside. That could easily be arranged; the Queen had a +vacancy in the ranks of her equerries. M. le Comte would accept the +post, and then Madame would have her apartments at the Court itself. + +Thus it was that Comte Jules' wife was transported from her poor country +château to the splendours of Versailles, installed as _chère amie_ of +the Queen in place of the Princesse de Lamballe, and with the ball of +fortune at her pretty feet. And never did woman adapt herself more +easily to such a change of environment. It was, indeed, a great part of +the charm of this remarkable woman that, amid success which would have +turned the head of almost any other of her sex, she remained to her last +day as simple and unaffected as when she won the Queen's heart in Diane +de Polignac's apartment. + +So absolutely indifferent did she seem to her new splendours, that, when +jealousy sought to undermine the Queen's friendship, she implored Marie +Antoinette to allow her to go back to her old, obscure life; and it was +only when the Queen begged her to stay, with arms around her neck and +with streaming tears, that she consented to remain by her side. + +If the Queen ever had any doubt that she had at last found a friend who +loved her for herself, the doubt was now finally dissipated. Such an +unselfish love as this was a treasure to be prized; and from this moment +Queen and waiting-woman were inseparable. When they were not strolling +arm-in-arm in the corridors or gardens of Versailles, Her Majesty was +spending her days in Madame's apartments, where, as she said, "We are no +longer Queen and subject, but just dear friends." + +So unhappy was Marie Antoinette apart from her new friend that, when +Madame de Polignac gave birth to a child at Passy, the Court itself was +moved to La Muette, so that the Queen could play the part of nurse by +her friend's bedside. + +Such, now, was the Queen's devotion that there was no favour she would +not have gladly showered on the Comtesse; but to all such offers Madame +turned a deaf ear. She wanted nothing but Marie Antoinette's love and +friendship for herself; but if the Queen, in her goodness, chose to +extend her favour to Madame's relatives--well, that was another matter. + +Thus it was that Comte Jules soon blossomed into a Duke, and Madame +perforce became a Duchess, with a coveted tabouret at Court. But they +were still poor, in spite of an equerry's pay, and heavily in debt, a +matter which must be seen to. The Queen's purse satisfied every +creditor, to the tune of four hundred thousand livres, and Duc Jules +found himself lord of an estate which added seventy thousand livres +yearly to his exchequer, with another annual eighty thousand livres as +revenue for his office of Director-General of Posts. + +Of course, if the Queen _would_ be so foolishly generous, it was not the +Duchesse's fault, and when Marie Antoinette next proposed to give a +dowry of eight hundred thousand livres to the Duchesse's daughter on her +marriage to the Comte de Guiche, and to raise the bridegroom to a +dukedom--well, it was "very sweet of Her Majesty," and it was not for +her to oppose such a lavish autocrat. + +Thus the shower of Royal favours grew; and it is perhaps little wonder +that each new evidence of the Queen's prodigality was greeted with +curses by the mob clamouring for bread outside the palace gates; while +even her father's minister, Kaunitz, in far Vienna, brutally dubbed the +Duchesse and her family, "a gang of thieves." + +Diane de Polignac, the Duchesse's sister-in-law, had long been made a +Countess and placed in charge of a Royal household; and the grateful +shower fell on all who had any connection with the favourite. Her +father-in-law, Cardinal de Polignac's nephew, was rescued from his +rustic poverty to play the exalted rôle of ambassador; an uncle was +raised _per saltum_ from _curé_ to bishop. The Duchesse's widowed aunt +was made happy by a pension of six thousand livres a year; and her +son-in-law, de Guiche, in addition to his dukedom, was rewarded further +for his fortunate nuptials by valuable sinecure offices at Court. + +So the tide of benefactions flowed until it was calculated that the +Polignac family were drawing half a million livres every year as the +fruits of the Queen's partiality for her favourite. Little wonder that, +at a time when France was groaning under dire poverty, the volume of +curses should swell against the "Austrian panther," who could thus +squander gold while her subjects were starving; or that the Court should +be inflamed by jealousy at such favours shown to a family so obscure as +the Polignacs. + +To the warnings of her own family Marie Antoinette was deaf. What cared +she for such exhibitions of spite and jealousy? She was Queen; and if +she wished to be generous to her favourite's family, none should say her +nay. And thus, with a smile half-careless, half-defiant, she went to +meet the doom which, though she little dreamt it, awaited her. + +The Duchesse was now promoted to the office of governess of the Queen's +children, a position which was the prerogative of Royalty itself, or, at +least, of the very highest nobility. With her usual modesty, she had +fought long against the promotion; but the Queen's will was law, and she +had to submit to the inevitable as gracefully as she could. And now we +see her installed in the most splendid apartments at Versailles, holding +a _salon_ almost as regal as that of Marie Antoinette herself. + +She was surrounded by sycophants and place-seekers, eager to capture the +Queen's favour through her. And such was her influence that a word from +her was powerful enough to make or mar a minister. She held, in fact, +the reins of power and was now more potent than the weak-kneed King +himself. + +It was at this stage in her brilliant career that the Duchesse came +under the spell of the Comte de Vaudreuil--handsome, courtly, an +intriguer to his finger-tips, a man of many accomplishments, of a supple +tongue, and with great wealth to lend a glamour to his gifts. A man of +rare fascination, and as dangerous as he was fascinating. + +The woman who had carried a level head through so much unaccustomed +splendour and power became the veriest slave of this handsome, +honey-tongued Comte, who ruled her, as she in turn ruled the Queen. At +his bidding she made and unmade ministers; she obtained for him pensions +and high offices, and robbed the treasury of nearly two million livres +to fill his pockets. When Marie Antoinette at last ventured to thwart +the Comte in his ambition to become the Dauphin's Governor, he +retaliated by poisoning the Duchesse's mind against her, and bringing +about the first estrangement between the friends. + +Torn between her infatuation for Vaudreuil and her love of the Queen, +the Duchesse was in an awkward dilemma. It became necessary to choose +between the two rivals; and that Vaudreuil's spell proved the stronger, +her increasing coldness to Marie Antoinette soon proved. It was the +"rift within the lute" which was to make the music of their friendship +mute. The Queen gradually withdrew herself from the Duchesse's _salon_, +where she was sure to meet the insolent Vaudreuil; and thus the gulf +gradually widened until the severance was complete. + + * * * * * + +Evil days were now coming for Marie Antoinette. The affair of the +diamond necklace had made powerful enemies; the Polignac family, taking +the side of Vaudreuil and their protectress, were arrayed against her; +France was rising on the tide of hate to sweep the Austrian and her +husband from the throne. The horrors of the Revolution were being +loosed, and all who could were flying for safety to other lands. + +At this terrible crisis the Queen's thoughts were less for herself than +for her friend of happier days. She sought the Duchesse and begged her +to fly while there was still time. Then it was that, touched by such +unselfish love, the Duchesse's pride broke down, and all her old love +for her sovereign lady returned in full flood. Bursting into tears, she +flung herself at Marie Antoinette's feet, and begged forgiveness from +the woman whose friendship she had spurned, and whose life she had, +however innocently, done so much to ruin. + +A few hours later the Duchesse, disguised as a chambermaid and sitting +by the coachman's side, was making her escape from France in company +with her husband and other members of her family, while the Queen who +had loved her so well was left to take the last tragic steps that had +the guillotine for goal. + +Just before the carriage started on its long and perilous journey, a +note was thrust into the "chambermaid's" hand--"Adieu, most tender of +friends. How terrible is this word! But it is necessary. Adieu! I have +only strength left to embrace you. Your heart-broken Marie." + +Then ensued for the Duchesse a time of perilous journeying to safety. +At Sens her carriage was surrounded by a fierce mob, clamouring for the +blood of the "aristos." "Are the Polignacs still with the Queen?" +demanded one man, thrusting his head into the carriage. "The Polignacs?" +answered the Abbé de Baliviere, with marvellous presence of mind. "Oh! +they have left Versailles long ago. Those vile persons have been got rid +of." And with a howl of baffled rage the mob allowed the carriage to +continue its journey, taking with it the most hated of all the +Polignacs, the chambermaid, whose heart, we may be sure, was in her +mouth! + +Thus the Duchesse made her way through Switzerland, to Turin, and to +Rome, and to Venice, where news came to her of the fall ot the monarchy +and Louis' execution. By the time she reached Vienna on her restless +wanderings, her health, shattered by hardships and by her anxiety for +her friend, broke down completely. She was a dying woman; and when, a +few months later, she learned that Marie Antoinette was also dead--"a +natural death," they mercifully told her--"Thank God!" she exclaimed; +"now, at last, she is free from those bloodthirsty monsters! Now I can +die in peace." + +Seven weeks later the Duchesse drew her last breath, with the name she +still loved best in all the world on her lips. In death she and her +beloved Queen were not divided. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE RIVAL SISTERS + + +It was an unkind fate that linked the lives of the fifteenth Louis of +France and Marie Leczinska, Princess of Lorraine, and daughter of +Stanislas, the dethroned King of Poland; for there was probably no +Princess in Europe less equipped by nature to hold the fickle allegiance +of the young French King, and no Royal husband less likely to bring +happiness into the life of such a consort. + +When Princess Marie was called to the throne of France, she found +herself transported from one of the most penurious and obscure to the +most splendid of the Courts of Europe--"frightened and overwhelmed," as +de Goncourt tells us, "by the grandeur of the King, bringing to her +husband nothing but obedience, to marriage only duty; trembling and +faltering in her queenly rôle like some escaped nun lost in Versailles." +Although by no means devoid of good-looks, as Nattier's portrait of her +at this time proves, her attractions were shy ones, as her virtues were +modest, almost ashamed. + +She shrank alike from the embraces of her husband and the gaieties of +his Court, finding her chief pleasure in music and painting, in long +talks with the most serious-minded of her ladies, in Masses and +prayers--spending gloomy hours in her oratory with its death's head, +which she always carried with her on her journeys. Such was the nun-like +wife whom Louis XV. led to the altar shortly after he had entered his +sixteenth year, and had already had his initiation into that career of +vice which he pursued with few intervals to the end of his life. + +Already, at fifteen, the King, who has been mockingly dubbed "_le bien +aimé_" was breaking away from the austere hands of his boyhood's mentor, +Cardinal Fleury, and was beginning to snatch a few "fearful joys" in the +company of his mignons, such as the Duc de La Tremouille, and the Duc de +Gesvres, and a few gay women of whom the sprightly and beautiful +Princesse de Charolois was the ringleader. But he was still nothing more +than "a big and gloomy child," whose ill-balanced nature gravitated +between fits of profound gloom and the wild abandonment of debauch; one +hour, torn and shaken by religious terrors, fears of hell and of death; +the next, the very soul of hysterical gaiety, with words of blasphemy on +his lips, the gayest member of a band of Bacchanals in some midnight +orgy. + +To such a youth, feverishly seeking distraction from his own black +moods, the demure, devout Princess, ignorant of the caresses and +coquetry of her sex, moving like a spectre among the brilliant, +light-hearted ladies of his Court, was the most unsuitable, the most +impossible of brides. He quickly wearied of her company, and fled from +her sighs and her homilies to seek forgetfulness of her and of himself +in the society of such sirens of the Court as Mademoiselle de +Beaujolais, Madame de Lauraguais, and Mademoiselle de Charolois, whose +coquetries and high spirits never failed to charm away his gloomy +humours. + +But although one lady after another, from that most bewitching of +madcaps, Mademoiselle de Charolois, to the dark-eyed, buxom Comtesse de +Toulouse, practised on him all their allurements, strove to awake his +senses "by a thousand coquetries, a thousand assaults, the King's +timidity eluded these advances, which amused and alarmed, but did not +tempt his heart; that young monarch's heart was still so full of the +aged Fleury's terrifying tales of the women of the Regency." + +Such coyness, however, was not long to stand in the way of the King's +appetite for pleasure which every day strengthened. One day it began to +be whispered that at last Louis had been vanquished--that, at a supper +at La Muette, he had proposed the health of an "Unknown Fair," which had +been drunk with acclamation by his boon-companions; and the Court was +full of excited speculation as to who his mysterious charmer could be. +That some new and powerful influence had come into the young sovereign's +life was abundantly clear, from the new light that shone in his eyes, +the laughter that was now always on his lips. He had said "good-bye" to +melancholy; he astonished all by his new vivacity, and became the leader +in one dissipation after another, "whose noisy merriment he led and +prolonged far into the night." + +It was not long before the identity of the worker of this miracle was +revealed to the world. She had been recognised more than once when +making her stealthy way to the King's apartments; she was his chosen +companion on his journey to Compiègne; and it was soon public knowledge +that Madame de Mailly was the woman who had captured the King's elusive +heart. And indeed there was little occasion for surprise; for Madame de +Mailly, although she would never see her thirtieth birthday again, was +one of the most seductive women in all France. + +Black-eyed, crimson-lipped, oval-faced, Madame de Mailly was one of +those women who "with cheeks on fire, and blood astir, eyes large and +lustrous as the eyes of Juno, with bold carriage and in free toilettes, +step forward out of the past with the proud and insolent graces of the +divinities of some Bacchanalia." With the provocative and sensual charm +which is so powerful in its appeal, she had a rare skill in displaying +her beauty to its fullest advantage. Her cult of the toilette, the Duc +de Luynes tells us, went with her even by night. She never went to bed +without decking herself with all her diamonds; and her most seductive +hour was in the morning, when, in her bed, with her glorious dishevelled +hair veiling her pillow, a-glitter with her jewels, she gave audience to +her friends. + +Such was the ravishing, ardent, passionate woman who was the first of +many to carry Louis' heart by storm, and to be established in his palace +as his mistress--to inaugurate for him a new life of pleasure, and to +estrange him still more from his unhappy Queen, shut up with her +prayers and her tears in her own room, with her tapestry, her books of +history, and her music for sole relaxation. "The most innocent +pleasures," Queen Marie wrote sadly at this time, "are not for me." + +Under Madame de Mailly's rule the Court of Versailles awoke to a new +life. "The little apartments grow animated, gay to the point of licence. +Noise, merriment, an even gayer and livelier clash of glasses, madder +nights." Fête succeeded fête in brilliant sequence. Each night saw its +Royal debauch, with the King and his mistress for arch-spirits of the +revels. There were nightly banquets, with the rarest wines and the most +costly viands, supplemented by salads prepared by the dainty hands of +Mademoiselle de Charolois, and ragouts cooked by Louis himself in silver +saucepans. And these were followed by orgies which left the celebrants, +in the last excesses of intoxication, to be gathered up at break of day +and carried helpless to bed. + +Such wild excesses could not fail sooner or later to bring satiety to a +lover so unstable as Louis; and it was not long before he grew a little +weary of his mistress, who, too assured of her conquest, began to +exhibit sudden whims and caprices, and fits of obstinacy. Her jealous +eyes followed him everywhere, her reproaches, if he so much as smiled on +a rival beauty, provoked daily quarrels. He was drawn, much against his +will, into her family disputes, and into the disgraceful affairs of her +father, the dissolute Marquis de Nesle. + +Meanwhile Madame de Mailly's supremacy was being threatened in a most +unexpected quarter. Among the pupils of the convent school at Port Royal +was a young girl, in whose ambitious brain the project was forming of +supplanting the King's favourite, and of ruling France and Louis at the +same time. The idle dream of a schoolgirl, of course! But to Félicité de +Nesle it was no vain dream, but the ambition of a lifetime, which +dominated her more and more as the months passed in her convent +seclusion. If her sister, Madame de Mailly, had so easily made a +conquest of the King, why should she, with less beauty, it is true, but +with a much cleverer brain, despair? And thus it was that every letter +Madame received from her "little sister" pleaded for an invitation to +Court, until at last Mademoiselle de Nesle found herself the guest of +Louis' mistress in his palace. + +Thus the first important step was taken. The rest would be easy; for +Mademoiselle never doubted for a moment her ability to carry out her +programme to its splendid climax. It was certainly a bold, almost +impudent design; for the girl of the convent had few attractions to +appeal to a monarch so surrounded by beauty as the King of France. What +the courtiers saw, says the Duc de Richelieu, was "a long neck clumsily +set on the shoulders, a masculine figure and carriage, features not +unlike those of Madame de Mailly, but thinner and harder, which +exhibited none of her flashes of kindness, her tenderness of passion." + +Even her manners seemed calculated to repel, rather than attract the man +she meant to conquer; for she treated him, from the first, with a +familiarity amounting almost to rudeness, and a wilfulness to which he +was by no means accustomed. There was, at any rate, something novel and +piquant in an attitude so different from that of all other Court ladies. +Resentment was soon replaced by interest, and interest by attraction; +until Louis, before he was aware of it, began to find the society of the +impish, mocking, defiant maid from the convent more to his taste than +that of the most fascinating women of his Court. + +The more he saw of her, the more effectually he came under her spell. +Each day found her in some new and tantalising mood; and as she drew him +more and more into her toils, she kept him there by her ingenuity in +devising novel pleasures and entertainments for him, until, within a +month of setting eyes on her, he was telling Madame de Mailly, he "loved +her sister more than herself." One of the first evidences of his favour +was to provide her with a husband in the Comte de Vintimille, and a +dower of two hundred thousand livres. He promised her a post as +lady-in-waiting to Madame la Dauphine and gave her a sumptuous suite of +rooms at Versailles. He even conferred on her husband the honour of +handing him his shirt on the wedding-night, an evidence of high favour +such as no other bridegroom had enjoyed. + +It was thus little surprise to anyone to find the Comtesse-bride not +only her sister's most formidable rival, but actually usurping her place +and privileges. Nor was it long before this place, on which she had set +her heart first within the walls of the Port Royal Convent, was +unassailably hers; and Madame de Mailly, in tears and sadness, saw an +unbridgeable gulf widen between her and the man she undoubtedly had +grown to love. + +That Félicité de Nesle had not over-estimated her powers of conquest was +soon apparent. Louis became her abject slave, humouring her caprices and +submitting to her will. And this will, let it be said to her credit, she +exercised largely for his good. She weaned him from his vicious ways; +she stimulated whatever good remained in him; she tried, and in a +measure succeeded in making a man of him. Under her influence he began +to realise that he was a King, and to play his exalted part more +worthily. He asserted himself in a variety of directions, from looking +personally after the ordering of his household to taking the reins of +State into his own hands. + +Nor did she curtail his pleasures. She merely gave them a saner +direction. Orgies and midnight revelry became things of the past, but +their place was taken by delightful days spent at the Château of Choisy, +that regal little pleasure-house between the waters of the Seine and the +Forest of Sénart, with all its marvels of costly and artistic +furnishing. Here one entertainment succeeded another, from the hunting +which opened, to the card-games which closed the day. A time of innocent +delights which came sweet to the jaded palate of the King. + +Thus the halcyon months passed, until, one August day in 1741, the +Comtesse was seized with a slight fever; Louis, consumed by anxiety, +spending the anxious hours by her bedside or pacing the corridor +outside. Two days later he was stooping to kiss an infant presented to +him on a cushion of cramoisi velvet. His happiness was crowned at last, +and life spread before him a prospect of many such years. But tragedy +was already brooding over this scene of pleasure, although none, least +of all the King, seemed to see the shadow of her wings. + +One early day in December, Madame de Vintimille was seized with a severe +illness, as sudden as it was mysterious. Physicians were hastily +summoned from Paris, only, to Louis' despair, to declare that they could +do nothing to save the life of the Comtesse. "Tortured by excruciating +pain," says de Goncourt, "struggling against a death which was full of +terror, and which seemed to point to the violence of poison, the dying +woman sent for a confessor. She died almost instantly in his arms before +the Sacraments could be administered. And as the confessor, charged with +the dead woman's last penitent message to her sister, entered Madame de +Mailly's _salon_, he dropped dead." + +Here, indeed, was tragedy in its most sudden and terrible form! The King +was stunned, incredulous. He refused to believe that the woman he had so +lately clasped in his arms, so warm, so full of life, was dead. And when +at last the truth broke on him with crushing force, he was as a man +distraught. "He shut himself up in his room, and listened half-dead to a +Mass from his bed." He would not allow any but the priest to come near +him; he repulsed all efforts at consolation. + +And whilst Louis was thus alone with his demented grief, "thrust away in +a stable of the palace, lay the body of the dead woman, which had been +kept for a cast to be taken; that distorted countenance, that mouth +which had breathed out its soul in a convulsion, so that the efforts of +two men were required to close it for moulding, the already decomposing +remains of Madame de Vintimille served as a plaything and a +laughing-stock to the children and lackeys." + +When the storm of his grief at last began to abate, the King retired to +his remote country-seat of Saint Leger, carrying his broken heart with +him--and also Madame de Mailly, as sharer of his sorrow; for it was to +the woman whom he had so lightly discarded that he first turned for +solace. At Saint Leger he passed his days in reading and re-reading the +two thousand letters the dead Comtesse had written to him, sprinkling +their perfumed pages with his tears. And when he was not thus burying +himself in the past, he was a prey to the terrors that had obsessed his +childhood--the fear of death and of hell. + +At supper--the only meal which he shared with others, he refused to +touch meat, "in order that he might not commit sin on every side"; if a +light word was spoken he would rebuke the speaker by talk of death and +judgment; and if his eyes met those of Madame de Mailly, he burst into +tears and was led sobbing from the room. + +The communion of grief gradually awoke in him his old affection for +Madame de Mailly; and for a time it seemed not unlikely that she might +regain her lost supremacy. But the discarded mistress had many enemies +at Court, who were by no means willing to see her re-established in +favour--the chief of them, the Duc de Richelieu, the handsomest man and +the "hero" of more scandalous amours than any other in France--a man, +moreover, of crafty brain, who had already acquired an ascendancy over +the King's mind. + +With Madame de Tencin, a woman as scheming and with as evil a reputation +as himself, for chief ally, the Due determined to find another mistress +who should finally oust Madame de Mailly from Louis' favour; and her he +found in a woman, devoted to himself and his interests, and of such +surpassing loveliness that, when the King first saw her at Petit Bourg, +he exclaimed, "Heavens! how beautiful she is!" + +Such was the involuntary tribute Louis paid at first sight to the charms +of Madame de la Tournelle, who was now fated to take the place of her +dead sister, Madame de Vintimille, just as the Comtesse had supplanted +another sister, Madame de Mailly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +THE RIVAL SISTERS--_continued_ + + +Louis XV.'s involuntary exclamation when he first set eyes on the +loveliness of Madame de la Tournelle, "Heavens! how beautiful she is!" +becomes intelligible when we look on Nattier's picture of this fairest +of the de Nesle sisters in his "Allegory of the Daybreak," and read the +contemporary descriptions of her charms. + +"She ravished the eye," we are told, "with her skin of dazzling +whiteness, her elegant carriage, her free gestures, the enchanting +glance of her big blue eyes--a gaze of which the cunning was veiled by +sentiment--by the smile of a child, moist lips, a bosom surging, +heaving, ever agitated by the flux and reflux of life, by a physiognomy +at once passionate and mutinous." And to these seductions were added a +sunny temperament, an infectious gaiety of spirit, and a playful wit +which made her infinitely attractive to men much less susceptible that +the amorous Louis. + +It is little wonder then that in the reaction which followed his stormy +grief for his dead love, the Comtesse de Vintimille, he should turn from +the lachrymose companionship of Madame de Mailly to bask in the +sunshine of this third of the beautiful sisters, Madame de la Tournelle, +and that the wish to possess her should fire his blood. But Madame de la +Tournelle was not to prove such an easy conquest as her two sisters, who +had come almost unasked to his arms. + +At the time when she came thus dramatically into his life she was living +with Madame de Mazarin, a strong-minded woman who had no cause to love +Louis, who had thwarted and opposed him more than once, and who was +determined at any cost to keep her protégée and pet out of his clutches. +And his desires had also two other stout opponents in Cardinal Fleury, +his old mentor, and Maurepas, the most subtle and clever of his +ministers, each of whom for different reasons was strongly averse to +this new and dangerous liaison, which would make him the tool of +Richelieu's favourite and Richelieu's party. + +Thus, for months, Louis found himself baffled in all his efforts to win +the prize on which he had set his heart until, in September, 1742, one +formidable obstacle was removed from his path by the death of Madame de +Mazarin. To Madame de la Tournelle the loss of her protectress was +little short of a calamity, for it left her not only homeless, but +practically penniless; and, in her extremity, she naturally turned +hopeful eyes to the King, of whose passion she was well aware. At least, +she hoped, he might give her some position at his Court which would +rescue her from poverty. When she begged Maurepas, Madame de Mazarin's +kinsman and heir, to appeal to the King on her behalf, his answer was +to order her and her sister, Madame de Flavacourt, to leave the Hotel +Mazarin, thus making her plight still more desperate. + +But, fortunately, in this hour of her greatest need she found an +unexpected friend in Louis' ill-used Queen, who, ignorant of her +husband's infatuation for the beautiful Madame de la Tournelle, sent for +her, spoke gracious words of sympathy to her, and announced her +intention of installing her in Madame de Mazarin's place as a lady of +the palace. Thus did fortune smile on Madame just when her future seemed +darkest. But her troubles were by no means at an end. Fleury and +Maurepas were more determined than ever that the King should not come +into the power of a woman so alluring and so dangerous; and they +exhausted every expedient to put obstacles in her path and to discover +and support rival claimants to the post. + +For once, however, Louis was adamant. He had not waited so long and +feverishly for his prize to be baulked when it seemed almost in his +grasp. Madame de la Tournelle should have her place at his Court, and it +would not be his fault if she did not soon fill one more exalted and +intimate. Thus it was that when Fleury submitted to him the list of +applicants, with la Tournelle's name at the bottom, he promptly re-wrote +it at the head of the list, and handed it back to the Cardinal with the +words, "The Queen is decided, and wishes to give her the place." + +We can picture Madame de Mailly's distress and suspense while these +negotiations were proceeding. She had, as we have seen in the previous +chapter, been supplanted by one sister in the King's affection; and just +as she was recovering some of her old position in his favour, she was +threatened with a second dethronement by another sister. In her alarm +she flew to Madame de la Tournelle, to set her fears at rest one way or +the other. "Can it be possible that you are going to take my place?" she +asked, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "Quite impossible, my +sister," answered Madame, with a smile; and Madame de Mailly, thus +reassured, returned to Versailles the happiest woman in France--to +learn, a few days later, that it was not only possible, it was an +accomplished fact. For the second time, and now, as she knew well, +finally, she was ousted from the affection of the King she loved so +sincerely; and again it was a sister who had done her this grievous +wrong. She was determined, however, that she would not quit the field +without a last fight, and she knew she had doughty champions in Fleury +and Maurepas, who still refused to acknowledge defeat. + +Although Madame de la Tournelle was now installed in the palace, the day +of Louis' conquest had not arrived. The gratification of his passion was +still thwarted in several directions. Not only was Madame de Mailly's +presence a difficulty and a reproach to him; his new favourite was by no +means willing to respond to his advances. Her heart was still engaged to +the Due d'Agenois, and was not hers to dispose of. Richelieu, however, +was quick to dispose of this difficulty. He sent the handsome Duc to +Languedoc, exposed him to the attractions of a pretty woman, and before +many weeks had passed, was able to show Madame de la Tournelle +passionate letters addressed to her rival by her lover, as evidence of +the worthlessness of his vows; thus arming her pride against him and +disposing her at last to lend a more favourable ear to the King. + +As for Madame de Mailly, her shrift was short. In spite of her tears, +her pleadings, her caresses, Louis made no concealment of his intention +to be rid of her. "No sorrow, no humiliation was lacking in the +death-struggle of love. The King spared her nothing. He did not even +spare her those harsh words which snap the bonds of the most vulgar +liaisons." And the climax came when he told the heart-broken woman, as +she cringed pitifully at his feet, "You must go away this very day." "My +sacrifices are finished," she sobbed, a little later to the "Judas," +Richelieu, when, with friendly words, he urged her to humour the King +and go away at least for a time; "it will be my death, but I will be in +Paris to-night." + +And while Madame de Mailly was carrying her crushed heart through the +darkness to her exile, the King and Richelieu, disguised in large +perukes and black coats, were stealing across the great courtyards to +the rooms of Madame de la Tournelle, where the King's long waiting was +to have its reward. And, the following day, the usurper was callously +writing to a friend, "Doubtless Meuse will have informed you of the +trouble I had in ousting Madame de Mailly; at last I obtained a mandate +to the effect that she was not to return until she was sent for." + +"No portrait," says de Goncourt, referring to this letter, "is to be +compared with such a confession. It is the woman herself with the +cynicism of her hardness, her shameless and cold-blooded ingratitude.... +It is as though she drives her sister out by the two shoulders with +those words which have the coarse energy of the lower orders." + +Louis, at last happy in the achievement of his desire, was not long in +discovering that in the third of the Nesle sisters he had his hands more +full than with either of her predecessors. Madame de Mailly and the +Comtesse de Vintimille had been content to play the rôle of mistress, +and to receive the King's none too lavish largesse with gratitude. +Madame de la Tournelle was not so complaisant, so easily satisfied. She +intended--and she lost no time in making the King aware of her +intention--to have her position recognised by the world at large, to +reign as Montespan had reigned, to have the Treasury placed at her +disposal, and her children, if she had any, made legitimate. Her last +stipulation was that she should be made a Duchess before the end of the +year. And to all these proposals Louis gave a meek assent. + +To show further her independence, she soon began to drive her lover to +distraction by her caprices and her temper: "She tantalised, at once +rebuffed and excited the King by the most adroit comedies and those +coquetries which are the strength of her sex, assuring him that she +would be delighted if he would transfer his affection to other ladies." +And while the favourite was thus revelling in the insolence of her +conquest, her supplanted sister was eating out her heart in Paris. "Her +despair was terrible; the trouble of her heart refused consolation, +begged for solitude, found vent every moment in cries for Louis. Those +who were around her trembled for her reason, for her life.... Again and +again she made up her mind to start for the Court, to make a final +appeal to the King, but each time, when the carriage was ready, she +burst into tears and fell back upon her bed." + +As for Louis, chilled by the coldness of his mistress, distracted by her +whims and rages, his heart often yearned for the woman he had so cruelly +discarded; and separation did more than all her tears and caresses could +have done, to awake again the love he fancied was dead. + +When Madame de la Tournelle paid her first visit as _Maîtresse en titre_ +to Choisy, nothing would satisfy her but an escort of the noblest ladies +in France, including a Princess of the Blood. Her progress was that of a +Queen; and in return for this honour, wrung out of the King's weakness, +she repaid him with weeks of coldness and ill-humour. She refused to +play at _cavagnol_ with him; she barricaded herself in her room, +refusing to open to all her lover's knocking; and vented her vapours on +him with, or without, provocation, until, as she considered, she had +reduced him to a becoming submission. Then she used her power and her +coquetries to wheedle out of him one concession after another, +including a promise by the King to return unopened any letters Madame de +Mailly might send to him. Nor was she content until her sister was +finally disposed of by the grant of a small pension and a modest lodging +in the Luxembourg. + +Before the year closed Madame de la Tournelle was installed in the most +luxurious apartments at Versailles, and Louis, now completely caught in +her toils, was the slave of her and his senses, flinging himself into +all the licence of passion, and reviving the nightly debauches from +which the dead Comtesse had weaned him. And while her lover was thus +steeped in sensuality, his mistress was, with infinite tact, pursuing +her ambition. Affecting an indifference to affairs of State, she was +gradually, and with seeming reluctance, worming herself into the +position of chief Counsellor, and while professing to despise money she +was draining the exchequer to feed her extravagance. + +Never was King so hopelessly in the toils of a woman as Louis, the +well-beloved, in those of Madame de la Tournelle. He accepted as meekly +as a child all her coldness and caprices, her jealousies and her rages; +and was ideally happy when, in a gracious mood, she would allow him to +assist at her toilette as the reward for some regal present of diamonds, +horses, or gowns. + +It was after one such privileged hour that Louis, with childish +pleasure, handed to his favourite the patent, creating her Duchesse de +Chateauroux, enclosed in a casket of gold; and with it a rapturous +letter in which he promised her a pension of eighty-thousand livres, +the better to maintain her new dignity! + +Having thus achieved her greatest ambition, the Duchesse (as we must now +call her) aspired to play a leading part in the affairs of Europe. +France and Prussia were leagued in war against the forces of England, +Austria, and Holland. This was a seductive game in which to take a hand, +and thus we find her stimulating the sluggard kingliness in her lover, +urging him to leave his debauches and to lead his armies to victory, +assuring him of the gratitude and admiration of his subjects. Nothing +less, she told him, would save his country from disaster. + +To this appeal and temptation Louis was not slow to respond; and in May, +1744, we find him, to the delight of his soldiers and all France, at the +seat of war, reviewing his troops, speaking words of high courage to +them, visiting hospitals and canteens, and actually sending back a +haughty message to the Dutch: "I will give you your answer in Flanders." +No wonder the army was roused to enthusiasm, or that it exclaimed with +one voice, "At last we have found a King!" + +So strong was Louis in his new martial resolve that he actually refused +Madame de Chateauroux permission to accompany him. France was delighted +that at last her King had emancipated himself from petticoat influence, +but the delight was short-lived, for before he had been many days in +camp the Duchesse made her stately appearance, and saws and hammers +were at work making a covered way between the house assigned to her and +that occupied by the King. A fortnight later Ypres had fallen, and she +was writing to Richelieu, "This is mighty pleasant news and gives me +huge pleasure. I am overwhelmed with joy, to take Ypres in nine days. +You can think of nothing more glorious, more flattering to the King; and +his great-grandfather, great as he was, never did the like!" + +But grief was coming quickly on the heels of joy. The King was seized +with a sudden and serious illness, after a banquet shared with his ally, +the King of Prussia; and in a few days a malignant fever had brought him +face to face with death. Madame de Chateauroux watched his sufferings +with the eyes of despair. "Leaning over the pillow of the dying man, +aghast and trembling, she fights for him with sickness and death, terror +and remorse." With locked door she keeps her jealous watch by his +bedside, allowing none to enter but Richelieu, the doctors, and nurses, +whilst outside are gathered the Princes of the Blood and the great +officers of the Court, clamouring for admittance. + +It was a grim environment for the death-bed of a King, this struggle for +supremacy, in which a frail woman defied the powers of France for the +monopoly of his last hours. And chief of all the terrors that assailed +her was the dread of that climax to it all, when her lover would have to +make his last confession, the price of his absolution being, as she well +knew, a final severance from herself. + +Over this protracted and unseemly duel, in which blows were exchanged, +entrance was forced, and Princes and ministers crowded indecently around +the King's bed; over the Duchesse's tearful pleadings with the confessor +to spare her the disgrace of dismissal, we must hasten to the crowning +moment when Louis, feeling that he was dying, hastily summoned a +confessor, who, a few moments later, flung open the door of the closet +in which the Duchesse was waiting and weeping, and pronounced the fatal +words, "The King commands you to leave his presence immediately." + +Then followed that secret flight to Paris, "amidst a torrent of +maledictions," the Duchesse hiding herself from view as best she could, +and at each town and village where horses were changed, slinking back +and taking refuge in some by-road until she could resume her journey. +Then it was that in her grief and despair she wrote to Richelieu, "Oh, +my God! what a thing it all is! I give you my word, it is all over with +me! One would need to be a poor fool to start it all over again." + +But Louis was by no means a dead man. From the day on which he received +absolution from his manifold sins he made such haste to recover that, +within a month, he was well again and eager to fly to the arms of the +woman he had so abruptly abandoned with all other earthly vanities. It +was one thing, however, to dismiss the Duchesse, and quite another to +call her back. For a time she refused point-blank to look again on the +King who had spurned her from fear of hell; and when at last she +consented to receive the penitent at Versailles she let him know, in no +vague terms, that "it would cost France too many heads if she were to +return to his Court." + +Vengeance on her enemies was the only price she would accept for +forgiveness, and this price Louis promised to pay in liberal measure. +One after the other, those who had brought about her humiliation were +sent to disgrace or exile--from the Duc de Chatillon to La Rochefoucauld +and Perusseau. Maurepas, the most virulent of them all, the King +declined to exile, but he consented to a compromise. He should be made +to offer Madame an abject apology, to grovel at her feet, a punishment +with which she was content. And when the great minister presented +himself by her bedside, in fear and trembling, to express his profound +penitence and to beg her to return to Court, all she answered was, "Give +me the King's letters and go!" + +The following Saturday she fixed on as the day of her triumphant +return--"but it was death that was to raise her from the bed on which +she had received the King's submission at the hands of his Prime +Minister." Within twenty-four hours she was seized with violent +convulsions and delirium. In her intervals of consciousness she shrieked +aloud that she had been poisoned, and called down curses on her +murderer--Maurepas. For eleven days she passed from one delirious attack +to another, and as many times she was bled. But all the skill of the +Court physicians was powerless to save her, and at five o'clock in the +morning of the 8th December the Duchesse drew her last tortured breath +in the arms of Madame de Mailly, the sister she had so cruelly wronged. + +Two days later, de Goncourt tells us, she was buried at Saint Sulpice, +an hour before the customary time for interments, her coffin guarded by +soldiers, to protect it from the fury of the mob. + +As for Madame de Mailly, she spent the last years of her troubled life +in the odour of a tardy sanctity--washing the feet of the poor, +ministering to the sick, bringing consolation to those in prison; and +she was laid to rest amongst the poorest in the Cimetière des Innocents, +wearing the hair-shirt which had been part of her penance during life, +and with a simple cross of wood for all monument. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +A MISTRESS OF INTRIGUE + + +"On 11th September," Madame de Motteville says, "we saw arrive from +Italy three nieces of Cardinal Mazarin and a nephew. Two Mancini sisters +and the nephew were the children of the youngest sister of his Eminence; +and of the sisters Laure, the elder, was a pleasing brunette with a +handsome face, about twelve or thirteen years of age; the second +(Olympe), also a brunette, had a long face and pointed chin. Her eyes +were small, but lively; and it might be expected that, when fifteen +years of age, she would have some charm. According to the rules of +beauty, it was impossible to grant her any, save that of having dimples +in her cheeks." + +Such, at the age of nine or ten, was Olympe Mancini, who, in spite of +her childish lack of beauty, was destined to enslave the handsomest King +in Europe; and, after a life of discreditable intrigues, in which she +incurred the stigma of witchcraft and murder, to end her career in +obscurity, shunned by all who had known her in her day of splendour. + +It was a singular freak of fortune which translated the Mancini girls +from their modest home in Italy to the magnificence of the French +Court, as the adopted children of their uncle, Cardinal Mazarin, the +virtual ruler of France, and the avowed lover (if not, as some say, the +husband) of Anne of Austria, the Queen-mother. "See those little girls," +said the wife of Maréchal de Villeroi to Gaston d'Orléans, pointing to +the Mancini children, the centre of an admiring crowd of courtiers. +"They are not rich now; but some day they will have fine châteaux, large +incomes, splendid jewels, beautiful silver, and perhaps great +dignities." + +And how true this prophecy proved, we know; for, of the Cardinal's five +Mancini nieces (for three others came, later, as their uncle's +protégées), Laure found a husband in the Duc de Mercoeur, grandson of +Henri IV.; two others lived to wear the coronet of Duchess; Olympe, as +we shall see, became Comtesse de Soissons; and Marie, after narrowly +missing the Queendom of France, became the wife of the Constable +Colonna, one of the greatest nobles of Italy. + +Nor is there anything in such high alliances to cause surprise; for +their future was in the hands of the most powerful, ambitious, and +wealthy man in France. From their first appearance as his guests they +were received with open arms by Louis' Court. They were speedily +transferred to the Palais Royal, to be brought up with the boy-King, +Louis XIV., and his brother, the Prince of Anjou; while the Queen +herself not only paid them the most flattering attentions and treated +them as her own children, but herself undertook part of their education. + +It was under such enviable conditions that the young daughters of a +poor Roman baron grew up to girlhood--the pets of the Queen and the +Court, the playfellows of the King, and the acknowledged heiresses of +their uncle's millions; and of them all, not one had a keener eye to the +future than Olympe of the long face, pointed chin, and dimples. It was +she who entered with the greatest zest into the romps and games of her +playmate, Louis XIV., who surrounded him with the most delicate +flatteries and attentions, and practised all her childish arts and +coquetries to win his favour. And she succeeded to such an extent that +it was always the company of Olympe, and not of her more beautiful +sisters, Hortense, Laure, or Marie, that Louis most sought. + +Not that Olympe was always to remain the plain, unattractive child +Madame de Motteville describes in 1647. Each year, as it passed, added +some touch of beauty, developed some latent charm, until at eighteen she +was very fair to look upon. "Her eyes now" says Madame de Motteville, +"were full of fire, her complexion had become beautiful, her face less +thin, her cheeks took dimples which gave her a fresh charm, and she had +fine arms and beautiful hands. She certainly seemed charming in the eyes +of the King, and sufficiently pretty to indifferent spectators." + +That she had wooers in plenty, even before she was so far advanced in +the teens, was inevitable; but her personal preferences counted for +little in face of the Cardinal's determination to find for her, as for +all his nieces, a splendid alliance which should shed lustre on himself. +And thus it was that, without any consultation of her heart, Olympe's +hand was formally given to Prince Eugene de Savoie, Comte de Soissons, a +man in whose veins flowed the Royal strains of Savoy and France. + +It was a brilliant match indeed for the daughter of a petty Italian +baron; and Mazarin saw that it was celebrated with becoming +magnificence. On the 20th February, 1657, we see a brilliant company +repairing to the Queen's apartments, "the Comte de Soissons escorting +his betrothed, dressed in a gown of silver cloth, with a bouquet of +pearls on her head, valued at more than 50,000 livres, and so many +jewels that their splendour, joined to the natural éclat of her beauty, +caused her to be admired by everyone. Immediately afterwards, the +nuptials were celebrated in the Queen's chapel. Then the illustrious +pair, after dining with the Princesse de Carignan-Savoie, ascended to +the apartments of his Eminence, the Cardinal, where they were +entertained to a magnificent supper, at which the King and Monsieur did +the company the honour of joining them." + +Then followed two days of regal receptions; a visit to Notre Dame to +hear Mass, with the Queen herself as escort; and a stately journey to +the Hôtel de Soissons, where the Comtesse's mother-in-law "testified to +her, by her joy and the rich presents which she made her, how great was +the satisfaction with which she regarded this marriage." + +Thus raised to the rank of a Princess of the Blood, Olympe was by no +means the proud and happy woman she ought to have been. She had, in +fact, aspired much higher; she had had dreams of sharing the throne of +France with her handsome young playmate, the King; and to Louis, wife +though she now was, she had lost none of the attraction she possessed +when he called her his "little sweetheart" in their childish games +together. "He continued to visit her with the greatest regularity," to +quote Mr Noel Williams; "indeed, scarcely a day went by on which His +Majesty's coach did not stop at the gate of the Hôtel de Soissons; and +Olympe, basking in the rays of the Royal favour, rapidly took her place +as the brilliant, intriguing great lady Nature intended her to be." + +It is little wonder, perhaps, that Olympe's foolish head was turned by +such flattering attentions from her sovereign, or that she began to give +herself airs and to treat members of the Royal family with a haughty +patronage. Even La Grande Mademoiselle did not escape her insolence; +for, as she herself records, "when I paid her a thousand compliments and +told her that her marriage had given me the greatest joy and that I +hoped we should always be good friends, she answered me not a word." + +But Olympe's supremacy was not to remain much longer unchallenged. The +King's vagrant fancy was already turning to her younger sister, Marie, +whose childish plainness had now ripened to a beauty more dazzling than +her own--the witchery of large and brilliant black eyes, a complexion of +pure olive, luxuriant, jet-black hair, a figure of singular suppleness +and grace, and a sprightliness of wit and a _gaieté de coeur_ which the +Comtesse could not hope to rival. It soon began to be rumoured in Court +that Louis spent hours daily in the company of Mazarin's beautiful +niece; a rumour which Hortense Mancini supports in her "Memoirs." "The +presence of the King, who seldom stirred from our lodging, often +interrupted us," she says; "my sister, Marie, alone was undisturbed; and +you can easily understand that his assiduity had charms for her, who was +the cause of it, because it had none for others." + +And as Louis' visits to the Mancini lodging became more and more +frequent, each adding a fresh link to the chain that was binding him to +her young sister, Madame de Soissons saw less and less of him, until an +amused tolerance gave place to a genuine alarm. It was nothing less than +an outrage that she, who had so long held first place in the King's +favour, should be ousted by a "mere child," the last person in the world +whom she could have thought of as a rival. But the Comtesse was no woman +to be easily dethroned. Although at every Court ball, fête, or ballet, +Louis was now inseparable from her sister, she affected to ignore these +open slights and lost no opportunity in public of vaunting her intimacy +with His Majesty, even to the extent on one occasion, as Mademoiselle +records, of taking Louis' seat at a ball supper and compelling him to +share it with her. + +But such shameless arrogance only served to estrange the King still +further, and to make him seek still more the company of the young +sister, who had already captured his heart as the Comtesse had never +captured it. When Louis made his memorable journey to Lyons to meet the +Princess Margaret of Savoy, it was to Marie that he paid the most +courtly and tender attentions. "During the journey," says Mademoiselle, +"he did not address a word to the Comtesse de Soissons"; and, indeed, on +more than one occasion he showed a marked aversion to her. + +At St Jean d'Angely, Louis not only himself escorted Marie to her +lodging; he stayed with her until two o'clock in the morning. "Nothing," +her sister Hortense records, "could equal the passion which the King +showed, and the tenderness with which he asked of Marie her pardon for +all she had suffered for his sake." It was, indeed, no secret at Court +that he had offered her marriage, and had taken a solemn vow that +neither Margaret of Savoy nor the Infanta of Spain should be his wife. +But, as we have seen in a previous chapter, both the Queen and Mazarin +were determined that the Infanta should be Queen of France; and that his +foolish romance with the Mancini girl should be nipped in the bud. + +There was also another powerful influence at work to thwart his passion +for Marie. The indifference of the Comtesse de Soissons had given place +to a fury of resentment; and she needed no instigation of her uncle to +determine at any cost to recover the place she had lost in Louis' +favour. She brought all her armoury of coquetry and flatteries to bear +on him, and so far succeeded that, we read, "the King has resumed his +relations with the Comtesse; he has recommenced to talk and laugh with +her; and three days since he entertained M. and Madame de Soissons with +a ball and a play, and afterwards they partook of _medianoche_ (a +midnight banquet) together, passing more than three hours in +conversation with them." + +Meanwhile Marie, realising the hopelessness of her passion in face of +the opposition of her uncle and the Queen, and of Louis' approaching +marriage to the Spanish Princess, had given him unequivocally to +understand that their relations must cease, and the rupture was complete +when the Comtesse told the King of her sister's dallying with Prince +Charles of Lorraine, of their assignations in the Tuileries, of their +mutual infatuation, and of the rumours of an arranged marriage. "_Cela +est bien_" was all Louis remarked, but the dark flush of anger that +flooded his face was a sweet reward to the Comtesse for her treachery. + +A few days later her revenge was complete when, in the King's presence, +she rallied her sister on her low spirits. "You find the time pass +slowly when you are away from Paris," she said; "nor am I surprised, +since you have left your lover there"; to which Marie answered with a +haughty toss of the head, "That is possible, Madame." + +One formidable rival thus removed from her path, Madame de Soissons was +not long left to enjoy her triumph; for another was quick to take the +place abandoned by the broken-hearted Marie--the beautiful and gentle La +Vallière, who was the next to acquire an ascendancy over the King's +susceptible heart. Once more the Comtesse, to her undisguised chagrin, +found herself relegated to the background, to look impotently on while +Louis made love to her successor, and to meditate new schemes of +vengeance. It was in vain that Louis, by way of amende, found for her a +lover in the Marquis de Vardes, the most handsome and dissolute of his +courtiers, for whom she soon developed a veritable passion. Her vanity +might be appeased, but her bitterness--the _spretoe injuria +formoe_--remained; and she lost no time in plotting further mischief. + +With the help of M. de Vardes and the Comte de Guiche, she sent an +anonymous letter to the Queen, containing a full and intimate account of +her husband's amour with La Vallière--the letter enclosed in an envelope +addressed in the handwriting of the Queen of Spain. Fortunately for +Maria Theresa's peace of mind the letter fell into the hands of Louis +himself, who was naturally furious at such treachery and determined to +make those responsible for it suffer--when he should discover them. As, +however, the investigation of the matter was entrusted to de Vardes, it +is needless to say that the culprits escaped detection. + +Madame de Soissons' next attempt to bring about a rupture between the +King and La Vallière, by bringing forward a rival in the person of the +seductive Mlle de la Motte-Houdancourt, proved equally futile, when +Louis discovered by accident that she was but a tool in Madame's +designing hands; and for a time the Comtesse was sent in disgrace from +the Court to nurse her jealousy and to devise more effectual plans of +vengeance. + +What form these took seems clear from an investigation held at the +close of 1678 into a supposed plot to poison the King and the Dauphin--a +plot of which La Voisin, one of the greatest criminals in history, was +suspected of being the ringleader. During this inquiry La Voisin +confessed that the Comtesse de Soissons had come to her house one day +"and demanded the means of getting rid of Mile de la Vallière"; and, +further, that the Comtesse had avowed her intention to destroy not only +Louis' mistress, but the King himself. + +Such a confession was well calculated to rouse a storm of indignation in +France, where Madame de Soissons had made many powerful enemies. The +Chambre unanimously demanded her arrest; but before it could be +effected, Madame, stoutly declaring her innocence, had shaken the dust +of Paris off her feet, and was on her way to Brussels. + +During her flight to safety, we are told, "the principal inns in the +towns and villages through which she passed refused to receive her"; and +more than once she was compelled to sleep on straw and suffer the +insults of the populace, which reviled her as sorceress and poisoner. +"We are assured," Madame de Sevigné writes, "that the gates of Namur, +Antwerp, and other towns have been closed against the Countess, the +people crying out, 'We want no poisoner here'!" Even at Brussels, +whenever she ventured into the streets she was assailed by a storm of +insults; and on one occasion, when she entered a church, "a number of +people rushed out, collected all the black cats they could find, tied +their tails together, and brought them howling and spitting into the +porch, crying out that they were devils who were following the +Comtesse." + +In the face of such chilling hospitality Madame de Soissons was not +tempted to make a long stay in Brussels; and after a few months of +restless wandering in Flanders and Germany, she drifted to Spain where +she succeeded in ingratiating herself with the Queen. She found little +welcome however from the King, who, as the French Ambassador to Madrid +wrote, "was warned against her. He accused her of sorcery, and I learn +that, some days ago, he conceived the idea that, had it not been for a +spell she had cast over him, he would have had children.... The life of +the Comtesse de Soissons consists in receiving at her house all persons +who desire to come there, from four o'clock in the evening up to two or +three hours after midnight. There is, sire, everything that can convey +an air of familiarity and contempt for the house of a woman of quality." + +That Carlos' suspicions were not without reason was proved when one day +his Queen, after, it is said, drinking a glass of milk handed to her by +the Comtesse, was taken suddenly ill and expired after three days of +terrible suffering. That she died of poison, like her mother, the +ill-fated sister of our second Charles, seems probable; but that the +poison was administered by the Comtesse, whose friend and protectress +she was and who had every reason to wish her well, is less to be +believed, in spite of Saint-Simon's unequivocal accusation. Certainly +the crime was not proved against her; for we find her still in Spain in +the following spring, when Carlos, his patience exhausted, ordered her +to leave the country. + +After a short stay in Portugal and Germany, Madame de Soissons was back +in Brussels, where she spent the brief remainder of her days--"all the +French of distinction who visited the City" (to quote Saint-Simon) +"being strictly forbidden to visit her." Here, on the 9th October, 1690, +her beauty but a memory, bankrupt in reputation, friendless and poor, +the curtain fell on the life so full of mis-used gifts and baffled +ambitions. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +AN ILL-FATED MARRIAGE + + +Few Kings have come to their thrones under such brilliant auspices as +Milan I. of Servia; few have abandoned their crowns to the greater +relief of their subjects, or have been followed to their exile by so +much hatred. But a fortnight before Milan's accession, his cousin and +predecessor, Prince Michael, had been foully done to death by hired +assassins as he was walking in the park of Topfschider, with three +ladies of his Court; and the murdered man had been placed in a carriage, +sitting upright as in life, and had been driven back to his palace +through the respectful greetings of his subjects, who little knew that +they were saluting a corpse. + +There was good reason for this mockery of death, for Prince Alexander +Karageorgevitch had long set ambitious eyes on the crown of Servia, and +resolved to wrest it by fair means or foul from the boy-heir to the +throne; and it was of the highest importance that Michael's death, which +he had so brutally planned, should be concealed from him until the +succession had been secured to his young rival, Milan. And thus it was +that, before Karageorgevitch could bring his plotting to the head of +achievement, Milan was hailed with acclamation as Servia's new Prince, +and, on the 23rd June, 1868, made his triumphal entry into Belgrade to +the jubilant ringing of bells and the thunderous cheers of the people. + +Twelve days later, Belgrade was _en fête_ for his crowning, her streets +ablaze with bunting and floral decorations, as the handsome boy made his +way through the tumults of cheers and avenues of fluttering +handkerchiefs to the Metropolitan Church. The men, we are told, "took +off their cloaks and placed them under his feet, that he might walk on +them; they clustered round him, kissing his garments, and blessing him +as their very own; they worshipped his handsome face and loved his +boyish smile." And when his young voice rang clearly out in the words, +"I promise you that I shall, to my dying day, preserve faithfully the +honour and integrity of Servia, and shall be ready to shed the last drop +of my blood to defend its rights," there was scarcely one of the +enthusiastic thousands that heard him who would not have been willing to +lay down his life for the idolised Prince. + +It was by strange paths that the fourteen-year-old Milan had thus come +to his Principality. The son of Jefrenn Obrenovitch, uncle of the +reigning Michael, he was cradled one August day in 1854, his mother +being Marie Catargo, of the powerful race of Roumanian "Hospodars," a +woman of strong passions and dissolute life. When her temper and +infidelities had driven her husband to the drinking that put a premature +end to his days, Marie transferred her affection, without the sanction +of a wedding-ring, to Prince Kusa, a man of as evil repute as herself. +In such a home and with such guardians her only child, Milan, the future +ruler of Servia, spent the early years of his life--ill-fed, neglected, +and supremely wretched. + +Thus it was that, when Prince Michael summoned the boy to Belgrade, in +order to make the acquaintance of his successor, he was horrified to see +an uncouth lad, as devoid of manners and of education as any in the +slums of his capital. The heir to the throne could neither read nor +write; the only language he spoke was a debased Roumanian, picked up +from the servants who had been his only associates, while of the land +over which he was to rule one day he knew absolutely nothing. The only +hope for him was his extreme youth--he was at the time only twelve years +old--and Michael lost no time in having him trained for the high station +he was destined to fill. + +The progress the boy made was amazing. Within two years he was +unrecognisable as the half-savage who had so shocked the Court of +Belgrade. He could speak the Servian tongue with fluency and grace; he +had acquired elegance of manners and speech, and a winning courtesy of +manner which to his last day was his most marked characteristic; he had +mastered many accomplishments, and he excelled in most manly exercises, +from riding to swimming. And to all this remarkable promise the +finishing touches were put by a visit to Paris under the tutorship of a +courtly and learned professor. + +Thus when, within two years of his emancipation, he came to his crown, +the uncouth lad from Roumania had blossomed into a Prince as goodly to +look on as any Europe could show--a handsome boy of courtly graces and +accomplishments, able to converse in several languages, and singularly +equipped in all ways to win the homage of the simple people over whom he +had been so early called to rule. As Mrs Gerard says, "They idolised +their boy-Prince. Every day they stood in long, closely packed lines +watching to see him come out of the castle to ride or drive; as he +passed along, smiling affectionately on his people, blessings were +showered on him. There was, however, another side to this picture of +devotion. There were those who hated the boy because he had thwarted +their plans." And this hatred, as persistent as it was malignant, was to +follow him throughout his reign, and through his years of unhappy exile, +to his grave. + +But these days were happily still remote. After four years of minority +and Regency, when he was able to take the reins of government into his +own hands, his empire over the hearts of his subjects was more firmly +based than ever. His youth, his modesty, and his compelling charm of +manner made friends for him wherever his wanderings took him, from Paris +to Constantinople. He was the "Prince Charming" of Europe, as popular +abroad as he was idolised at home; and when the time arrived to find a +consort for him he might, one would have thought, have been able to pick +and choose among the fairest Princesses of the Continent. + +But handsome and gallant and popular as he was, the overtures of his +ministers were coldly received by one Royal house after another. Milan +might be a reigning Prince and a charming one to boot, but it was not +forgotten that the first of his line had been a common herdsman, and the +blood of Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns could not be allowed to mingle with +so base a strain. Even a mere Hungarian Count, whose fair daughter had +caught Milan's fancy, frowned on the suit of the swineherd's successor. +But fate had already chosen a bride for the young Prince, who was more +than equal in birth to any Count's daughter; who would bring beauty and +riches as her portion; and who, after many unhappy years, was to crown +her dower with tragedy. + +It was at Nice, where Prince Milan was spending the winter months of +1875, that he first set eyes on the woman whose life was to be so +tragically linked with his own. Among the visitors there was the family +of a Russian colonel, Nathaniel Ketschko, a man of high lineage and +great wealth. He claimed, in fact, descent from the Royal race of +Comnenus, which had given many a King to the thrones of Europe, and +whose sons for long centuries had won fame as generals, statesmen, and +ambassadors. And to this exalted strain was allied enormous wealth, of +which the Colonel's share was represented by a regal revenue of four +hundred thousand roubles a year. + +But proud as he was of his birth and his riches, Colonel Nathaniel was +still prouder of his two lovely daughters, each of whom had inherited in +liberal measure the beauty of their mother, a daughter of the princely +house of Stourza; and of the two the more beautiful, by common consent, +was Natalie, whose charms won this spontaneous tribute from Tsar +Nicholas, when first he saw her, "I would I were a beggar that I might +every day ask your alms, and have the happiness of kissing your hand." +She had, says one who knew her in her radiant youth, "an irresistible +charm that permeated her whole being with such a harmony of grace, +sweetness, and overpowering attraction that one felt drawn to her with +magnetic force; and to adore her seemed the most natural and indeed the +only position." + +Such was the high tribute paid to Servia's future Queen at the first +dawning of that beauty which was to make her also Queen of all the fair +women of Europe, and which at its zenith was thus described by one who +saw her at Wiesbaden ten years or so later: "She walked along the +promenade with a light, graceful movement; her feet hardly seemed to +touch the ground, her figure was elegant, her finely cut face was lit up +by those wonderful eyes, once seen never forgotten--brilliant, tender, +loving; her luxuriant hair of raven black was loosely coiled round the +well-set head, or fell in curls on the beautifully arched neck. For each +one she had a pleasant smile, a gracious bow, or a few words, spoken in +a musical voice." No wonder the Germans, who looked at this apparition +of grace and beauty, "simply fell down and adored her." + +Such was the vision of beauty of which Prince Milan caught his first +glimpse on the promenade at Nice in the winter of 1875, and which +haunted him, day and night, until chance brought their paths together +again, and he won her consent to share his throne. That such a high +destiny awaited her, Natalie had already been told by a gipsy whom she +met one day in the woods of her father's estate near Moscow--a meeting +of which the following story is told. + +At sight of the beautiful young girl the gipsy stooped in homage and +kissed the hem of her dress. "Why do you do that?" asked Natalie, half +in alarm and half in pleasure. "Because," the woman answered, "I salute +you as the chosen bride of a great Prince. Over your head I see a crown +floating in the air. It descends lower and lower until it rests on your +head. A dazzling brilliance adorns the crown; it is a Royal diadem." + +"What else?" asked Natalie eagerly, her face flushed with excitement and +delight. "Oh! do tell me more, please!" "What more shall I say," +continued the gipsy, "except that you will be a Queen, and the mother of +a King; but then--" + +"But then, what?" exclaimed the eager and impatient girl; "do go on, +please. What then?" and she held out a gold coin temptingly. "I see a +large house; you will be there, but--take care; you will be turned out +by force.... And now give me the coin and let me go. More I must not +tell you." + +Such were the dazzling and mysterious words spoken by the gipsy woman in +the Russian forest, a year or more before Natalie first saw the Prince +who was destined to make them true. But it was not at Nice that +opportunity came to Milan. It was an accidental meeting in Paris, some +months later, that made his path clear. During a visit to the French +capital he met a young Servian officer, a distant kinsman, one Alexander +Konstantinovitch, who confided to him, over their wine and cigarettes, +the story of his infatuation for the daughter of a Russian colonel, who +at the time was staying with her aunt, the Princess Murussi. He raved of +her beauty and her charm, and concluded by asking the Prince to +accompany him that he might make the acquaintance of the Lieutenant's +bride-to-be. + +Arrived at their destination, the Prince and his companion were +graciously received by the Princess Murussi, but Milan had no eyes for +the dignified lady who gave him such a flattering reception; they were +drawn as by a magnet to the girl by her side--"a child with a woman's +grace and an angel's soul smiling in her eyes"; the incarnation of his +dreams, the very girl whose beauty, though he had caught but one passing +glimpse of it, had so intoxicated his brain a few months earlier at +Nice. + +"Allow me," said the Lieutenant, "to introduce to Your Highness Natalie +Ketschko, my affianced wife." Milan's face flushed with surprise and +anger at the words. What was this trick that had been played on him? Had +Konstantinovitch then brought him here only to humiliate him? But before +he could recover from his indignation and astonishment, the Princess +said chillingly, "Pardon me, Monsieur Konstantinovitch, you are not +speaking the truth. My niece, Colonel Ketschko's daughter, is not your +affianced wife. You are too premature." + +Thus rebuffed, the Lieutenant was not encouraged to prolong his stay; +and Milan was left, reassured, to bask in the smiles of the Princess and +her lovely niece, and to pursue his wooing under the most favourable +auspices. This first visit was quickly followed by others; and before a +week had passed the Prince had won the prize on which his heart was set, +and with it a dower of five million roubles. Now followed halcyon days +for the young lovers--long hours of sweet communion, of anticipation of +the happy years that stretched in such a golden vista before them. It +was a love-idyll such as delighted the romantic heart of Paris; and +congratulations and presents poured on the young couple; "the very +beggars in the streets," we are told, "blessing them as they drove by." + +"Happy is the wooing that is not long a-doing," and Milan's wooing was +as brief as it was blissful. He was all impatience to possess fully the +prize he had won; preparations for the nuptials were hastened, but, +before the crowning day dawned, once more the voice of warning spoke. + +A few days before the wedding, as Milan was leaving the Murussi Palace, +he was accosted by a woman, who craved permission to speak to him, a +favour which was smilingly accorded. "I know you," said the woman, thus +permitted to speak, "although you do not know me. You are the Prince of +Servia; I am a servant in the household of the Princess Murussi. Your +Highness, listen! I love Natalie. I have known and loved her since she +was a child; and I beg of you not to marry her. Such a union is doomed +to unhappiness. You love to rule, to command. So does Natalie; and it is +_she_ who will be the ruler. You are utterly unsuited for each other, +and nothing but great unhappiness can possibly come from your union." + +To this warning Milan turned a smiling face and a deaf ear, as Natalie +had done to the voice of the gipsy. A fig for such gloomy prophecy! They +were ideally happy in the present, and the future should be equally +bright, however ravens might croak. Thus, one October day in 1875, +Vienna held high holiday for the nuptials of the handsome Prince and his +beautiful bride; and it was through avenues densely packed with cheering +onlookers that Natalie made her triumphal progress to the altar, in her +flower-garlanded dress of white satin, a tiara of diamonds flashing from +the blackness of her hair, no brighter than the brilliance of her eyes, +her face irradiated with happiness. + +That no Royalty graced their wedding was a matter of no moment to Milan +and Natalie, whose happiness was thus crowned; and when at the +subsequent banquet Milan said, "I wish from my very heart that every one +of my subjects, as well as everybody I know, could be always as happy as +I am this moment," none who heard him could doubt the sincerity of his +words, or see any but a golden future for so ideal a union of hearts. + +By Servia her young Princess was received with open arms of welcome. +"Her reception," we are told, "was beyond description. The festivities +lasted three days, and during that time the love of the people for +their Prince, and their admiration of the beauty and charm of his bride, +were beyond words to describe." Never did Royal wedded life open more +full of bright promise, and never did consort make more immediate +conquest of the affections of her husband's subjects. "No one could have +believed that this marriage, which was contracted from love and love +alone, would have ended in so tragic a manner, or that hate could so +quickly have taken the place of love." + +But the serpent was quick to show his head in Natalie's new paradise. +Before she had been many weeks a wife, stories came to her ears of her +husband's many infidelities. Now the story was of one lady of her Court, +now of another, until the horrified Princess knew not whom to trust or +to respect. Strange tales, too, came to her (mostly anonymously) of +Milan's amours in Paris, in Vienna, and half a dozen of his other haunts +of pleasure, until her love, poisoned at its very springing, turned to +suspicion and distrust of the man to whom she had given her heart. + +Other disillusions were quick to follow. She discovered that her husband +was a hopeless gambler and spendthrift, spending long hours daily at the +card-tables, watching with pale face and trembling lips his pile of gold +dwindle (as it usually did) to its last coin; and often losing at a +single sitting a month's revenue from the Civil List. Her own dowry of +five million roubles, she knew, was safe from his clutches. Her father +had taken care to make that secure, but Milan's private fortune, large +as it had been, had already been squandered in this and other forms of +dissipation; and even the expenses of his wedding, she learned, had been +met by a loan raised at ruinous interest. + +Such discoveries as these were well calculated to shatter the dreams of +the most infatuated of brides, and less was sufficient to rouse +Natalie's proud spirit to rebellion. When affectionate pleadings proved +useless, reproaches took their place. Heated words were exchanged, and +the records tell of many violent scenes before Natalie had been six +months Princess of Servia. "You love to rule," the warning voice had +told Milan--"to command. So does Natalie"; and already the clashing of +strong wills and imperious tempers, which must end in the yielding of +one or the other, had begun to be heard. + +If more fuel had been needed to feed the flames of dissension, it was +quickly supplied by two unfortunate incidents. The first was Milan's +open dallying with Fräulein S----, one of Natalie's maids-of-honour, a +girl almost as beautiful as herself, but with the _beauté de diable_. +The second was the appearance in Belgrade of Dimitri Wasseljevitchca, +who was suspected of plotting to assassinate the Tsar. Russia demanded +that the fugitive should be given up to justice, and enlisted Natalie's +co-operation with this object. Milan, however, was resolute not to +surrender the plotter, and turned a deaf ear to all the Princess's +pleadings and cajoleries. "The most exciting scene followed. Natalie, +abandoning entreaties, threatened and even commanded her husband to obey +her"; and when threats and commands equally failed, she gave way to a +paroxysm of rage in which she heaped the most unbridled scorn and +contempt on her husband. + +Thus jealousy, a thwarted will, and Milan's low pleasures combined to +widen the breach between the Royal couple, so recently plighted to each +other in the sacred name of love, and to prepare the way for the +troubled and tragic years to come. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +AN ILL-FATED MARRIAGE--_continued_ + + +If anything could have restored happiness to Milan of Servia and his +Princess, Natalie, it should surely have been the birth of the +baby-Prince, Alexander, whom both equally adored and equally spoiled. +But, instead of linking his parents in a new bond of affection "Sacha" +was from his cradle the innocent cause of widening the breach that +severed them. + +For a time, fortunately, Milan had little opportunity of continuing the +feud of recrimination with his high-spirited and hot-tempered spouse. +More serious matters claimed him. Servia was plunged into war with +Turkey, and his days were spent in camp and on the battlefield, until +the intervention of Russia put an end to the long and hopeless struggle, +and Milan found himself one February day in 1882, thanks to the Berlin +Conference, hailed the first King of his country, under the title of +Milan I. + +Then followed a disastrous war with Bulgaria into which the headstrong +King rushed in spite of Natalie's warning--"Draw back, Milan, and have +no share in what will prove a bloody drama. You have no chance of +conquering, for Alexander is made of the stuff of the Hohenzollerns." +And indeed the struggle was doomed to failure from the first; for Milan +was no man to lead an army to victory. Read his method of conducting a +campaign, as described by one of his aides-de-camp-- + +"Our troops continue to retreat--I never imagined a campaign could be so +jolly. We do nothing but dance and sing and fiddle. Yesterday the King +had some guests and the champagne literally flowed. We had the Belgrade +singers, who used to delight us in the theatre-café. They sang and +danced delightfully. The last two days we have had plenty of fun, and +yesterday a lot of jolly girls came to enliven us." Such was Milan's +method of conducting a great war, on which the very existence of his +kingdom hung. Wine and women and song were more to his taste than forced +marches, strategy, and hard-fought battles. But once again foreign +intervention came to his rescue; and his armies were saved from +annihilation. + +When his sword was finally sheathed, if not with honour, he returned to +Belgrade to resume his gambling, his dallyings with fair women--and his +daily quarrels with his Queen, whose bitterness absence had done nothing +to assuage. So far from Natalie's spirit being crushed, it was higher +and prouder than ever. She would die before she would yield; but she was +in no mood to die, this autocratic, fiery-tempered, strong-willed +daughter of Russia. She gave literally a "striking" proof of the spirit +that was in her at the Easter reception of 1886, when the wife of a +Greek diplomat--a beautiful woman, to whom her husband had been more +than kind--presented herself smilingly to receive the "salute courteous" +from Her Majesty. With a look of scorn Natalie coolly surveyed her rival +from head to foot; and then, in the presence of the Court, gave her a +resounding slap on the cheek. + +But the Grecian lady was only one of many fair women who basked +successively (or together) in Milan's favour. A much more formidable +rival was Artemesia Christich, a woman as designing as she was lovely, +who was quick to envelop the weak King in the toils of her witchery. Not +content with his smiles and favours she aspired to take Natalie's place +as Queen of Servia; and, it is said, had extorted from him a promise +that he would make her his Queen as soon as his existing marriage tie +could be dissolved. And to this infamous compact Artemesia's husband, a +man as crafty and unscrupulous as herself, consented, in return for his +promotion to certain high and profitable offices in the State. + +In vain did the Emperor and the Crown Prince of Austria, with many +another high-placed friend, plead with Milan not to commit such a folly. +He was driven to distraction between such powerful appeals and the +allurement of the siren who had him so effectually under her spell, +until in his despair he entertained serious thoughts of suicide as +escape from his dilemma. Meanwhile, we are told, "a perfect hell" raged +in the castle; each day brought its scandalous scene between his +outraged Queen and himself. His unpopularity with his subjects became so +acute that he was hissed whenever he made his appearance in the streets +of his capital; and Artemesia was obliged to have police protection to +shield her from the vengeance of the mob. + +As for Natalie, this crowning injury decided her to bear her purgatory +no longer. She would force her husband to abdicate and secure her own +appointment as Regent for her son; or, failing that, she would leave her +husband and seek an asylum out of Servia. And with the object of still +further embittering his subjects against the King she made the full +story of her injuries public, and enlisted the sympathy, not only of +Milan's most powerful ministers, but of the entire country. + +"The castle is in utter confusion," wrote an officer of the Belgrade +garrison, in October, 1886. "The King looks ill, and as if he never +slept. Poor fellow! he flies for refuge to us in the guard-house, and +plays cards with the officers. Card-playing is his worst enemy. He loves +it passionately, and plays excitedly and for high points--and he always +loses." + +Matters were now hastening to a crisis. Hopelessly in debt, scorned by +his subjects, and hated by his wife, Milan's plight was pitiful. The +scenes between the King and the Queen were becoming more violent and +disgraceful every day. "There was no peace anywhere, nor did anyone +belonging to the Court enjoy a moment of tranquillity." So intolerable +had life become that, early in 1887, Milan decided to dissolve his +marriage; and it was only at the pleading of the Austrian Emperor that +he consented to abandon this design, on condition that his wife left +Servia; and thus it was that one day in April Queen Natalie left +Belgrade, accompanied by her son "Sacha," ostensibly that he might +continue his education in Germany. + +But, although husband and wife were thus at last separated, Milan's +resolve to divorce her remained firm. "I have to inform you," he wrote +shortly after her departure, "that I have this day sent in my +application to our Holy National Church for permission to dissolve our +marriage." And that nothing might be lacking to Natalie's suffering and +humiliation, he sent General Protitsch to Wiesbaden with a peremptory +demand that his son, "Sacha," should return to Servia. + +In vain did Natalie protest against both indignities. Milan might +divorce her; but at least he should not rob her of her son, the only +solace left to her in life. And when General Protitsch, seeing that +milder measures were futile, gave orders for the Prince to be removed by +force, the distracted mother flung one protecting arm round her boy; +and, pointing a loaded pistol with the other, threatened to shoot dead +the man who dared approach her. + +Opposition, however, was futile; the following evening the boy-Prince +was in his father's arms, and the weeping mother was left disconsolate. +Thus robbed of her darling "Sacha," it was not long before the second +blow fell. The divorce proceedings were rushed through the Synod. A deaf +ear was turned to Natalie's petition to be allowed, at least, to defend +herself in person; and on the 12th October, 1888, the "marriage between +King Milan I. and Natalie, born Ketschko," was formally dissolved. Well +might this most unhappy of Queens write, "The position is embittered by +my conscience assuring me that I have neglected no duty, and that there +is not a single action of my life which could be cited against me as a +grave offence, or could put me to shame were it brought before the whole +world. My fate should draw tears from the very stones; but I do not ask +for pity; I demand justice." + +If anything could have increased Milan's unpopularity it was this brutal +treatment of his Queen. The very men who, at his coronation, had taken +off their cloaks that he might walk on them, and the women who had +kissed his garments, now hissed him in the streets of his capital. In +his own Court he had no friend except the infamous Christitch; the +general hatred even took the form of repeated attempts on his life. If +he would save it, he realised he must abandon his crown; and one March +morning in 1889, after informing his ministers of his intention to +abdicate, he awoke his twelve-year-old son with the greeting, "Good +morning, Your Majesty!" Milan was no longer King of Servia; his son, +Alexander, reigned in his stead. + +Probably no King ever laid down his crown more willingly. He had put +aside for ever his Royal trappings, with all their unhappy memories, and +their present discomforts and danger; but in distant Paris he knew a +life of new pleasure awaited him, remote from the wranglings of Courts +and the assassin's knife. And within a week of greeting his successor as +King, he was gaily riding in the Bois, attending the theatres, supping +hilariously with ladies of the ballet, or dining with his friends at +Verrey's "where his somewhat rough manner and coarse jokes (the legacy +of his swineherd ancestry) caused him sometimes to be mistaken for a +parvenu," until a waiter would correct the impression by a whispered, +"That gentleman with the dark moustache is Milan, ex-King of Servia." + +While her husband was thus drinking the cup of Paris pleasure, his wife +was still doomed to exile from her kingdom and her son, with permission +only to pay two brief visits each year. But Natalie, who had so long +defied a King, was not the woman to be daunted by mere Regents. She +would return to Belgrade, and at least make her home where she could +catch an occasional glimpse of her boy. And to Belgrade she went, to +make her entry over flower-strewn streets, and through a tornado of +cheers and shouts of "Zivela Rufe!" It was a truly Royal welcome to the +great warm heart of the Servian people; but no official of the Court was +there to greet her coming, and as she drove past the castle which held +all she counted dear in life, not even the flutter of a handkerchief +marked the passing of Servia's former Queen. + +Had she but played her cards now with the least discretion, she might +have been allowed to remain in Belgrade in peace. But Natalie seems +fated to have been the harbinger of storm. For a time, it is true, she +was content to lie _perdue_, entertaining her friends at her house in +Prince Michael Street, driving through the streets of her capital behind +her pair of white ponies, or walking with her pet goat for companion, +greeted everywhere with respect and affection. But her restless, +vengeful spirit, still burning from the indignities she had suffered, +would not allow her to remain long in the background. She threw herself +into political agitation, and thus brought herself into open conflict +with the Regents; she inaugurated a campaign of abuse against her +husband, whom she still pursued with a relentless hatred; and generally +made herself so objectionable to the authorities that the Skupshtina was +at last compelled to order her banishment. + +When the deputies presented themselves before her with the decree of +expulsion, she laughed in their very faces, declaring that she would +only submit to force. "I refuse to go," she said defiantly, "unless I am +expelled by the hands of the police." A few hours later she was forcibly +removed from her weeping and protesting ladies, hurried into a carriage, +and driven off, with a strong escort of soldiers, on her journey to +exile. + +But the good people of Belgrade, who had got wind of the proposed +abduction, were by no means disposed to look on while their beloved +Queen was thus brutally taken from them. When the cortège reached the +Cathedral Square, it was stopped by a formidable and menacing mob; the +escort, furiously assailed with sticks and showers of stones, was beaten +off; the horses were taken from the carriage, and the Queen was drawn +back in triumph by scores of willing hands, to her residence. + +Natalie's victory, however, was short-lived. At midnight, when her +stalwart champions were sleeping in their beds, the police, crawling +over the roofs of the houses in Prince Michael Street, and descending +into the Queen's courtyard, found it a very simple matter to complete +their dastardly work. The Queen was again bundled unceremoniously into a +carriage, and before Belgrade was well awake, she was far on her way to +her new exile in Hungary. A few days later a formal decree of banishment +was pronounced against her, forbidding her, under any pretext whatever, +to enter Servia again without the Regent's permission. + +Only once more did Natalie and Milan set eyes on each other--when the +ex-King presented himself at Biarritz, to bring her news of their son's +projected _coup d'état_, by which he designed to depose the Regents and +to take the reins of government into his own hands. Taken by surprise, +the Queen received Milan, but when she saw him standing before her, an +aged, broken man, her composure gave way. She could not speak; she +trembled like a leaf. + +With Alexander's dramatic accession to his full Kingship a new, if +brief, era of happiness opened to Natalie. The Regents were no longer +able to exclude her from Servia, and by her son's invitation she +returned to Belgrade to resume her old position of Queen. + +Still beautiful, in spite of all her suffering, she played for a time +the rôle of Queen-mother to perfection, holding her Courts, presiding at +balls and soirées, taking a prominent part in affairs of State, and +gradually acquiring more power than her easy-going son himself enjoyed. +At last, after long years of unrest and unhappiness, she seemed assured +of peaceful years, secure in the affection of her son and her people, +and far removed from the husband who had brought so much misery into her +life. + +But Natalie was fated never to be happy long, and once more her evil +Destiny was to snatch the cup from her lips, assuming this time the form +of Draga Maschin, one of her own ladies-in-waiting, under the spell of +whose black eyes and voluptuous charms her son quickly fell, after that +first dramatic incident at Biarritz, when she plunged into the sea to +his rescue and saved him from drowning. + +Many months earlier a clairvoyante at Paris had told Natalie, "Your +Majesty is cherishing in your bosom a poisonous snake, which one day +will give you a mortal wound." She had smiled incredulously at the +warning, but she was soon to learn what truth it held. Certainly Draga +Maschin was the last person she would have suspected of being a source +of danger--a woman many years older than her son, the penniless widow of +a drunken engineer--a woman, moreover, of whose life, before Natalie had +taken pity on her poverty, many strange stories were told--how, for +instance, she had often been seen in low resorts, "with the arm of a +forester or a tradesman round her, singing the old Servian songs." + +But she had not taken into account Draga's sensuous beauty, before which +her son was powerless. Each meeting left him more and more involved in +her toils, until, to the consternation of Servia and the horror of his +mother, he announced his intention of making her his Queen. Even Milan, +degraded as he was, was horror-struck when the news came to him in +Paris. "And this," he exclaimed, "is the act of 'Sacha'--my own son. He +is a monster, a thing of evil in the eyes of all men! The Maschin will +be Queen of Servia. What a reproach! What an evil! A creature like her! +A sordid creature! Could he not have put aside his love for this +low-born woman? But I could never make the fool understand that a King +has duties; he has something else to think of but love-making." + +When taking leave of the friend who had brought him this evil news Milan +said, "I shall never see Servia again. My experience has been a bitter +one--everywhere treachery and deceit. And now my own son--_that_ has +broken my heart." A few months later, worn out by his excesses, +prematurely old and broken-hearted, the man who had prostituted life's +best gifts drew his last breath at Vienna at the age of forty-six. + +As for Natalie, this crowning calamity of her son's disgrace did more +than all her past sufferings to crush her proud spirit. But fate had not +yet dealt the last and most cruel blow of all. That fell on that fatal +June day of 1902 when her beloved "Sacha's" mutilated body was flung by +his assassins out of his palace window, to be greeted with shouts of +derisive laughter and cries of "Long live King Peter," from the dense +crowds who had come to gloat over this last scene in the tragedy of the +House of the Obrenvoie. + + + + +INDEX + + +Agenois, Duc, d', 284, 285 +Aissé, Mlle, 221-224 +Albany, Count of, 13-20 + " Countess of, 15-22 +Alberoni, Cardinal, 184 +Alexander, King of Servia, 319-329 +Alexander III., of Russia, 93 +Alexis, Tsarevitch, 10, 255 +Alfieri, Vittorio, 19-22 +Anjou, Duc d', 59 +Anna, Empress, 26 +Anne of Austria, 159, 163, 164 +Arcimbaldo, 92 +Aubigné, Constant d', 240, 241 + " Françoise d', 240-247 +Audouins, Diane d', 37 +Augustus, of Saxony, 93-102 +Austin, William, 205, 213 +Auvergne, Comte d', 235 + +Babou, Françoise, 35 +Baireuth, Margravine of, 7 +Baratinski, Prince, 155 +Barry, Guillaume du, 47 + " Jean du, 47 + " Madame du, 47-54 +Bavaria, Elizabeth of, 215 +Beaufort, Duchesse de, 41-44 +Beauharnais, Eugène, 135 + " Hortense, 135 + " Josephine, 127-137 +Beauvallon, 143 +Bécu, Jeanne, 45-54 +Bellegarde, Count di, 205-206 +" Duc de, 37-39 +Berry, Duc de, 57-61 + " Duchesse de, 55-65, 182, 217 +Bestyouzhev, 30, 31 +Beuchling, 98 +Blanguini, 111 +Blois, Mlle de, 56 +Bonaparte, Elisa, 104 + " Letizia, 104, 105 + " Napoleon, 104-112, 127-137 +Bonaparte, Pauline, 104-113 +Bonaventuri, Pietro, 170-175 +"Bonnie Prince," 13-22 +Borghese, Prince Camillo, 110 +Borghese, Princess Pauline, 110-113 +Bossi, Giuseppe, 205 +Bourgogne, Duc de, 59 + " Duchesse de, 181 +Brissac, Duc de, 50-53 +Bristol, Lord, 121, 122 +Brougham, 212 +Brunswick, Augusta, Duchess of, 194 +Brunswick, Charles Wm., Duke of, 194 +Byron, Lord, 138 + +Campbell, Lady Charlotte, 193, 194 +Campredon, 249 +Capello, Bartolomeo, 172 + " Bianca, 169-179 +Carlos, King of Spain, 304, 305. +Caroline, Princess of Wales, 191-202 +Caroline, Queen of Naples, 120 +Catargo, Marie, 307 +Catherine I., of Russia, 1-12, 23 +Catherine II., of Russia, 23, 29, 32, 72, 73, 76, 80, 149-158 +Charles V., Emperor, 88 +Charles VII., Emperor, 29 +Charles IX., King of France, 227 +Charles, Monsieur, 133, 134 +Charlotte, Princess, 199, 202, 211 +Charlotte, Queen, 197 +Chartres, Duc de, 56 +Chateauroux, Duchesse de, 288-293 +Christian II, of Denmark, 81-92 +Christich, Artemesia, 321, 322 +Clary, Desirée, 104, 127 +Colonna, Prince, 167, 295 + " Princess, 167, 168, 295 +Cosse, Louis, Duc de, 48-50 + +Domanski, 70-72, 74, 77, 79 +Douglas, Lady, 200 + " Sir John, 200 +Dubois, Cardinal, 215, 216 +Dujarrier, M., 143 +Dyveke, 83-89 + +Elizabeth I., of Russia, 23-32, 72, 150, 153 +"Elizabeth II." of Russia, 74, 76, 77 +Embs, Baron von, 67 +Emilie, 220, 221 +Encke, Charlotte, 115, 116 + " Wilhelmine, 114-126 +Entragues, Henriette d', 44, 227-237 +Entragues, Seigneur d', 227, 229 +Esterle, Countess, 102 +Estrées, Antoine d', 36 + " Gabrielle d', 35-44, 226 +Estrées, Jean d', 36 +Eudoxia, Empress, 252-257 + +Faaborg, Hans, 90-91 +Fabre, François X., 21 +Falari, Duchesse de, 224 +Feriol, Comte de, 222 + " Madame de, 223 +Fersen, Count, 261 +Fimarcon, Marquis de, 221 +Fitzherbert, Mrs, 199 +Flavacourt, Madame de, 283 +Fleury, Cardinal, 271, 272, 282, 283, 284 +Fontanges, Mlle de, 245 +Forbin, 111 +François I, 36 +Frederick the Great, 114-118 +Frederick William II, of Prussia, 115-124 +Frederick William III., of Prussia, 124 +Frèron, 106 + +Gacé, Comte De, 183 +Galitzin, Prince, 79 +George III., 197, 201, 211 +George IV., 191-202 +Giovanna, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, 174-177 +Glebof, Major, 253-256 +Goncourt, de, 46, 270, 286 +Guiche, Comte de, 265, 302 +Guise, Duc de, 237 +Gustav, Adolf, 15 + +Hamilton, Mary, 257-259 + " Sir William, 75, 77 +Haye, La, 60 +Henri IV., of France (and Navarre), 35-44, 226-237 +Holbein, Francis, 126 +Hornstein, 69 +Hutchinson, Lord, 212 + +Isabella, Princess, 88 +Ivan, 26 + +Jersey, Lady, 198, 199 +Joachim Murat, King, 207 +Joinville, Prince de, 234, 237 +Josephine, Empress, 110-112, 127-137 +Junot, 107 + +Karageorgevitch, Alex., 306 +Ketschko, Natalie, 311-329 + " Nathaniel, 310 +Königsmarck, Aurora von, 94-103 +Königsmarck, Conrad von, 94 + " Philip von, 94-96 +Konstantinovitch, Alex., 313 +Kristenef, 77 +Kusa, Prince, 308 + +Lamballe, Princesse de, 263 +Landsfeld, Countess of, 146-148 +Languet, Abbé, 63 +Lauzun, Duc de, 62 +Lavallière, Duchesse de, 239 +Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 201 +Leclerc, General, 108, 109 +Lichtenau, Countess, 120-126 +Limburg, Duke of, 67, 68 +Lorraine, Prince Charles of, 167, 301 +Louis XIV., 159, 162-167, 238-247, 248, 295 +Louis XV., 45, 47-49, 270-292 +Louise, Countess of Albany, 15-22 +Löwenhaupt, Count Axel, 94 + " Countess, 94, 97-99 +Ludwig I., of Bavaria, 144-147 +Luynes, Duc de, 273 + +Mailly, Madame de, 273-293 +Maine, Duc de, 243, 247 +Maintenon, Madame de, 57, 244-247 +Malmesbury, Lord, 195-198 +Manby, Captain, 201 +Mancini, Hortense, 162, 167, 168 +Mancini, Laure, 294 + " Madame, 159-163 + " Marie, 160-168, 239, 298-301 +Mancini, Olympe, 294-305 +Maria Theresa, Queen of Spain, 302, 304 +Marie Antoinette, 260-269 +Marie Leczinska, 270 +Marie Louise, Empress, 112, 136, 204 +Marine, Monsieur de, 67 +Marke, Count de la, 117 +Marmont, General, 107 +Maschin, Draga, 328, 329 +Masson, 32, 135 +Maurepas, 282-284, 292 +Mazarin, Cardinal, 159-163, 239, 295, 297 +Mazarin, Madame de, 282, 283 +Medici, Cardinal de, 176-176 + " Francesco de, 172-179 + " Marie de, 231-235 +Menshikoff, 3, 6, 12 +Mercoeur, Duc de, 295 +Mexent, Marquis de Saint, 123 +Michael, Prince, of Servia, 306, 308 +Michelin, Madame, 181 +Milan I., of Servia, 306-329 +Modena, Duke of, 185-189 + " Duchess of, 182, 186-189 +Monceaux, Marquise de, 41 +Mons, William, 11 +Montespan, Madame de, 55, 56, 239, 240, 243-245 +Montez, Lola, 138-148 +Montmorency, Charlotte de, 236, 237 +Mortemart, Duchesse de, 54 +Motte-Houdancourt, Mlle de la, 302 +Motteville, Madame de, 294, 296 +Mouchy, Madame de, 62-65, 217 +Murussi, Princess, 313, 314 + +Napoleon I., 104-112, 127-137 +Natalie, Queen of Servia, 311-329 +Nathalie, Empress, 252 +Nesle, Félicité de, 275-279 + " Marquise de, 182 +Nevers, Duc de, 232 +Noailles, Cardinal, 64 + +Obrenovitch Jefrenn, 307 +Ompteda, Baron, 206 +Orleans, Philippe, Duc de, 55-57, 60-64, 184, 214-225 +Orloff, Alexis, 74, 76-79, 155 + " Count, 258 + " Gregory, 29, 32, 76, 153-158 + +Palatine, Princess, Elizabeth, 56, 59, 62, 64 +Panine, 157 +Paskevitch, General, 141, 142 +Patiomkin, 23 +Perdita, 199 +Pergami, 206-213 +Permon, Albert, 107 + " Madame, 109 +Peter the Great, 3-12, 23, 248-259 +Peter II., of Russia, 28, 257 +Peter III., of Russia, 149-155 +Pinneberg, Countess of, 73 +Platen, Countess, 94 +Polignac, Cardinal de, 261 + " Diane de, 262, 265 + " Jules, Comte de, 261-264 +Polignac, Madame de, 182 + " Yolande, de, 261-269 +Pöllnitz, Von, 7 +Poniatowski, 151, 152 +Porte, Armande de la, 162 +Protitsch, General, 323 +Pugatchef, 73 + +Radziwill, Prince Charles, 73, 74 +Ravaillac, 35 +Razoum, Alexis, 23-34, 72 + " Cyril, 26-28 + " Gregory, 24 +Richelieu, Duc de, 180-190, 275, 280, 285, 290, 291 +Richelieu, Duchesse de, 185 +Rietz, Herr, 117 + " Wilhelmine, 117-120 +Ringlet, Father, 62 +Riom, Comte de, 62-64 + +Saint-Simon, Duc de, 57, 60, 62, 305 +Saint-Simon, Madame de, 58 +Savoie, Chevalier de, 65 +Savoy, Charles Emmanuel, Duke of, 168 +Savoy, Margaret, Princess of, 164, 165, 299, 300 +Scarron, Paul, 241, 242 +Schenk, Baron von, 67 +Sevigné, Madame de, 245, 303 +Seymour, Henry, 48 +Shouvalov, 29 +Sigbrit, Frau, 83-92 +Skovronski, I, 23 +Smith, Sydney, Captain, 200 +Soissons, Comte de, 297 + " Comtesse de, 295, 297-305 +Soltykoff, Sergius, 151 +Sophia Dorothea, of Celle, 94 +Spencer, Lord Henry, 119 +Stanley, Sir John, 193 +Stendhal, 21 +Stuart, Charles, 13-20 +Sully, Duc de, 41, 42, 229-231 + +Tencin, Madame de, 223, 280 +Teplof, 155 +Thackeray, 192, 198, 200 +Toebingen, Major, 199 +Torbern, Oxe, 90-92 +Touchet, Marie, 227 +Tourel-Alégre, Marquess, 36 +Tournelle, Mme de la, 280-293 +Tuscany, Bianca, Grand Duchess of, 169-179 +Tuscany, Francesco, Grand Duke of, 172-179 + +Valkendorf, Chancellor, 81-85, 89 +Vallière, La, 301-303 +Valois, Marguerite de, Queen of France, 42, 229, 231 +Valois, Mlle de, 182, 184, 185 +Vardes, Marquis de, 302 +Vaudreuil, Comte de, 267, 268 +Verneuil, Marquise de, 231-237 +Villars, Duchesse de, 233, 234 +Vintimille, Comtesse de, 276-279 +Vishnevsky, Colonel, 24 +Vlodimir, Princess Aly de, 66-80 +Voisin, La, 303 +Voltaire, 46, 57, 149 +Vorontsov, 32, 33 + +Walewska, Madame, 127 +Waliszewski, 3, 5, 251 +Wasseljevitchca, Dimitri, 317 + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Love affairs of the Courts of Europe +by Thornton Hall + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12309 *** |