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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/39696-8.txt b/39696-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..64a8a7c --- /dev/null +++ b/39696-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7106 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Odd Bits of History, by Henry W. Wolff + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: Odd Bits of History + Being Short Chapters Intended to Fill Some Blanks + +Author: Henry W. Wolff + +Release Date: May 14, 2012 [EBook #39696] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ODD BITS OF HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +ODD BITS OF HISTORY. + + + + + ODD BITS OF HISTORY + BEING + _SHORT CHAPTERS INTENDED TO FILL SOME BLANKS_ + + + BY HENRY W. WOLFF + + + LONDON + LONGMANS, GREEN & Co. + AND NEW-YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET + 1894. + + _(All rights reserved.)_ + + + + +PREFACE. + + +The chapters composing this book appeared originally in the shape of +review articles. I owe acknowledgments to the Editors of _Blackwood's +Magazine_, the _National Review_ and the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for the +permission kindly accorded me to republish them. + +To my regret I find, on receiving the clean sheets, that pressure of time +and a rather troublesome nervous affection of one eye have led me to +overlook a few printer's errors, such as: p. 70, _occassion_ for +_occasion_; p. 137, _Fuensaldana_ for _Fuensaldaña_; p. 253, _Nicephoras +Phorcas_ for _Nicephorus Phocas_; p. 267, _Polydore Virgil_ for _Polydore +Vergil_. The misprints will in every instance, I believe, explain +themselves. + +H. W. W. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE PRETENDER AT BAR-LE-DUC 1 + + II. RICHARD DE LA POLE, "WHITE ROSE" 58 + + III. THE EARLY ANCESTORS OF OUR QUEEN 91 + + IV. ABOUT A PORTRAIT AT WINDSOR 120 + + V. THE REMNANT OF A GREAT RACE 145 + + VI. VOLTAIRE AND KING STANISLAS 181 + + VII. THE PRINCE CONSORT'S UNIVERSITY DAYS 219 + + VIII. SOMETHING ABOUT BEER 248 + + + + +I.--THE PRETENDER AT BAR-LE-DUC.[1] + + +"The Pretender Charles Edward resided here three years in a house which is +still pointed out." So you may read in "Murray," under the head of +"Bar-le-Duc." The information, which is apt to suggest inquiry to those +who, like myself, are fond of picking up a little bit of neglected history +on their travels, is, as it happens, not altogether accurate. For, in the +first place, the "Pretender" who "resided" at Bar was not "Charles Edward" +at all--_could_ not have been "Charles Edward," who was not born till five +years after the Pretender who _did_ reside there had left. In the second, +so little is "the house still pointed out" that, on my first visit to Bar, +in August, 1890, I could actually not find a soul to give me even the +vaguest information as to its whereabouts. Even mine hostess of the +"Cygne," in whose stables, I afterwards discovered, some of the +Pretender's horses had been put up, had never heard of our political +exile. "_Cela doit être dans la Haute Ville_"--"_Cela doit être dans la +Basse Ville_"--"_Eh bien, moi je n'en sais rien_." Why should they know +about the Pretender? There were no thanks, surely, due to him. While in +the town, he had given himself intolerable airs, had put the town to no +end of expense and all manner of trouble, and in the end had slunk away +without so much as a word of thanks or farewell, leaving a heavy score of +debts to be paid--and, up in a cottage perched on the very brow of the +picturesque hill--for which some one else had to pay the rent--one pretty +little Barisienne disconsolate, betrayed, disgraced. There was, in fact, +but one man belonging to the town who had taken the trouble to trace the +house from the description given in the local archives--a description, +indeed, exact enough--M. Vladimir Konarski, and he was away on his +holiday. There was nothing, then, for me to do, but to go home with an +empty note-book, _quoad_ Bar, and return in 1891 to resume my inquiry. + +Even to us Englishmen the first Pretender is not a particularly attractive +personage. But he is a historical character. And about his doings at Bar +thus far very little has been made known. With the help of M. Konarski's +notes, of the local archives, freely placed at my disposal by the kindness +of M. A. Jacob, of the manuscripts in the _Archives Nationales_, in the +Archives of Nancy and in the Foreign Office at Paris, of the Stuart MSS. +in London, and of other neglected sources of information, as well as some +rather minute local research, I have managed to gather together +sufficient historical crumbs to make up a fairly substantial loaf--all +the information on the subject, I suppose, that is to be got. And, at any +rate, as a secondary side-chapter to our national history at an important +epoch, perhaps the account which within the limits of a magazine article I +shall be able to give, may prove of passing interest to more besides those +staunch surviving Jacobites who still from time to time "play at treason" +in out-of-the-way places. + +What sent the Pretender to Bar every schoolboy knows. We had fought with +France and were, in 1713, about to conclude peace. Our court had, as a +Stuart MS. in Paris puts it, showed itself extremely "_chatouilleuse et +susceptible_" with respect to the countenance given at Versailles to +James, and to his residence in France--where he seemed to us perpetually +on the spring for mischief. Louis XIV., we were aware, had expressed his +desire to render to the Pretender's family "_de plus grands et plus +heureux services_" than he had yet been able to give. And so, very +naturally, before engaging to suspend hostilities, we insisted that James +should be turned out of France. Once we were about it, we might as well +have asked a little more, and pressed for his removal to a farther +distance from our shores. Considering all the commotion which afterwards +arose upon this point, how Queen Anne was periodically pestered with +addresses calling upon her to demand his removal, one might have thought +that so much forethought might have been exercised. However, the idea +seems never to have suggested itself to our wise statesmen at the proper +time. On the contrary, the one thing which in 1712 and 1713 they appeared +eager for was, that James should _not_ be allowed to settle in +"papistical" Italy--the very country into which afterwards, just _because_ +it was papistical, so M. de Robethon's official letters admit in the +plainest terms, the Court of Hanover was extremely anxious to see its +enemy decoyed. If he would but go to Rome, that would be best of all. For +it would do for him entirely at home, M. de Robethon thinks. However, in +1713 we took a different view, and, as Lorraine lay particularly handy and +convenient, from the French point of view--being near, and though +nominally an independent duchy, entirely under French influence--to +Lorraine James was sent. There was some talk of his going to Nancy. He +himself did not at first fancy Bar-le-Duc. He feared that he might find it +slow. The French king believed that in a large town like Nancy, which had +still some poor remnants of its once famous fortifications left, he would +be safer. And when Duke Leopold had gone to all the trouble of putting the +half-dilapidated château of Bar into habitable order, taking to it the +pick of his own furniture from the palace at Nancy, and embarking in +additional large purchases--in order to make James thoroughly comfortable, +as Louis had told him that he must--he not unnaturally became, as the +French envoy M. d'Audriffet reports, "_fort agité_," on being unexpectedly +advised that after all the Chevalier was to go elsewhere. "Very well," +said he in high dudgeon, "I will take back all my furniture. But I wash my +hands of the whole business. At Bar I could have answered for the +Chevalier's safety within reasonable limits. At Nancy the king will have +to see to it himself. That is a 'neutral' town, and every dangerous +character from any part of Europe--cut-throat, assassin, Hanoverian +emissary--has access to it. You will have to watch every stranger, to keep +the exile perpetually under lock and key, to give him a large escort every +time he leaves the town. To mark my refusal of all responsibility, I shall +at once withdraw my little garrison of a company of guards from the +place"--a brilliant little troop, decked out gaily in scarlet-and-silver. +James, who was at the time at Châlons, awaiting the king's +pleasure--waiting also for a passport and safe conduct (a most important +requisite in those days)--and waiting, not least, for money, of which he +was chronically, and at that moment most acutely, in want--his mother says +that he had none at all--did not relish the idea of so much restraint and +danger. So he begged Louis to change his mind back again, and to allow him +after all to go to Bar. And Louis, having put poor Leopold to more +trouble--for he had at once set eighty men at work at Nancy, turning his +palace, "_pillé, dégradé, négligé_" that it was, to rights--coolly has +Leopold informed that his first choice is again to hold good, with not a +word of regret added to sweeten the pill, except it be, that all the +trouble incurred "_sera bientost reparé_." Later, James found the air at +Bar "_trop vif_" and accordingly thought of moving to Saint Mihiel. After +that, his courtiers hoped that he would prevail upon the Duke to lend him +his rather magnificent palace of Einville, near Lunéville. And in one of +the despatches it is shown that their suspicion that Lord Middleton was +opposing this proposal was one of the reasons why they so very much +disliked him. But, after all, with the interruptions caused by very +frequent, and often prolonged, visits to Lunéville, to Commercy, and to +Nancy--as well as to Plombières, and one or two sly expeditions to Paris +and St Germains--in the interesting and picturesque little capital of the +Barrois, washed by the foaming Ornain, did the Chevalier remain, hatching +schemes, writing despatches to the Pope, _quâ_ king, moreover making love +to his nameless fair one, and beguiling the time with the games of the +period, until the _Fata Morgana_ of rather hoped for than anticipated +success lured him on that unhappy expedition into Scotland. + +James tries to make a serious hardship of his "exile" at Bar. But he +might, without much trouble, have fixed upon a very much worse spot. Bar +was not in his day the important town that it had been. The resident +dukes, with their courts and knighthood, their tourneys and banquets, and +all the pageantry of the days of early chivalry, had passed away. The +famous University of de Tholozan, highly praised by Jodocus Sincerus, had +likewise disappeared. Nor was the town anything like as accessible as it +is now. There was no railway leading to it, no Rhine-Marne +Canal--beautifying the scene wherever it passes--to carry life and +business into the place. The roads were simply execrable. The surrounding +woods swarmed with brigands, outlaws, and other bad characters, whom +special _chasse-coquins_ were retained to keep in awe. Whenever "His +Majesty" moved from one place to another, the forest-roads had to be +literally lined with troops to ensure his safety. But all this was no +drawback peculiar to Bar. The entire duchy of Lorraine was suffering from +the same trouble--the after-effect of French ravages and French +occupation. Leave that out of account, and Bar must have been attractive +enough. Its situation is remarkably picturesque. The castle-hill rises up +steeply, all but isolated from the surrounding heights, above the smiling +valley of the Ornain, with delightfully green and tempting side-valleys +curling around it, like natural fosses, on either side. The view of the +long, bright green stretch of meadows bordering the river; the laughing +gardens, full of flowers and shrubs; the luxuriant fruit-trees and hedges; +the half-archaic-looking streets, venerable with their churches and +monasteries, and the eleven old turreted gates, as they were then; the +soft, rounded _côtes_, covered with clustering vines, but looking at a +distance as if carpeted with velvety lawn; the picturesque range of hills +on the opposite bank, contoured into a telling sky-line; the dark forests +of richly varied foliage, and the charming "hangers" which drop down +gracefully here and there, with pleasingly effective irregularity, into +the plain; the pretty little cottage plots, bright with flowers, shady +with overhanging trees, which then as now lined that useful _Canal +Urbain_; and the peculiarly engaging perspective of the landscape +spreading out right and left--all this combines to form a truly +fascinating picture. The view of the castle-hill from below is no less +pleasing. In James's day the hill was still crowned with the old historic +castle, built in the tenth century, but embodying in its masonry the +remains of the much more ancient structure in which Childéric I. had, like +the Stuart prince, found a welcome refuge--the castle in which Francis of +Guise was born, who drove us out of Calais--the castle in which Mary +Queen of Scots, bright with youthful beauty, and radiant with happiness, +delighted with her cheering presence the gay Court of her cousin and +playmate, Charles III., fresh to his ducal coronet, as she was to the +second crown which decked her head--for she was newly married to Francis +II., newly crowned Queen of France at Rheims. The daughter of Marie de +Lorraine, brought up in Lorrain Condé, she reckoned herself a Lorraine +princess, and as a Lorraine princess the Lorrains have ever regarded, and +idolised, her. To the memory of this unhappy queen, round which time had +gathered a bright halo of romance, not least was due that hearty welcome +which the Lorrains readily extended to her exiled kinsman. Most +picturesque must the castle have been in olden days, when those seventeen +medieval towers (removed by order of Louis XIV. in 1670) still stood round +about it like sturdy sentries, each laden with historic memories. Even now +the view of the hill is pleasing enough--with its winding roads, its steep +steps, its antique clock-tower, its terraced gardens and rambling lanes, +with that rather imposing convent-school raising its walls perpendicularly +many storeys high, the quaint church of St Peter[2] topping the southern +summit with its tower flattened to resist the wind, with those +delightfully green and shady Pâquis just beyond, densely wooded with +trees, including the two largest elms in France--the Pâquis which, with +their _paslemaile_, formed the favourite resort of James while at Bar, and +in the shady seclusion of which he spun his web of deceiving flattery +round the guileless heart of the girl whom he betrayed. Only to please +him, we read in the archives, it was that the town council put up benches +in that shade, which cost the town nine livres. + +At James's time Bar was still a rather considerable provincial capital, +the _chef-lieu_ of the largest _bailliage_ in Lorraine. And in that little +"West End" of the _Haute Ville_, where a cluster of Louis-Quatorze houses +still stand in decayed grandeur, to recall past fashionableness, the +nobility of the little Barrois, locally always a powerful and influential +body--the Bassompierres, the Haraucourts, the Lenoncourts, the +Stainvilles, the Romécourts--had their town houses, and there also dwelt +the pick of the bureaucracy, all ready to pay their court to the Stuart +"king," to whom even the French envoy reckoned it "an honour" to be +introduced. The town had its own municipal government--at one time with +its own _clergé_, _noblesse_, and _tiers état_; in James's day still with +its _syndic_, to represent the Crown, its elected _mayeur_, _Maître des +Comptes_, so many _eschargeots_, _esvardeurs_, _gouverneurs de +carrefours_, and so on. It had a wall all round with no fewer than eleven +gates. When James was there, Bar was famed throughout France and Lorraine +for its peculiarly "elegant" _poignées d'épée_ (sword-hilts) and other +cutlery. Corneille tells us that the whole street of Entre Deux Ponts was +full of cutlers' shops, and no visitor ever came to the place but he must +carry off at least one sword-hilt as a keepsake. The town already +manufactured its famous _dragées_ and _confitures_, and pressed that same +sour wine which "Murray" will have it--on what ground I know +not--"resembles champagne," and which then was appreciated as a delicacy. +The sanitary arrangements were not perfect. The _Canal Urbain_ +occasionally overflowed its banks and swamped the entire Rue des Tanneurs, +in which the Pretender's house was situated. And, together with the rest +of Bar and Lorraine, the town was still a little bit destitute after the +havoc wrought by French and Swedes, Croats and Germans, _Cravates_ (local +brigands) and Champenois peasants, and all that "omnium bipedum +sceleratissima colluvies," which had again and again overrun the duchy, +robbing, burning, pillaging, violating, desecrating, torturing, exacting, +and sucking the country dry to the very bone. Of all the world "only +Jerusalem" had experienced worse horrors, so a pious Lorrain chronicler +affirms. Oh, how the Lorrains of that day--and long after--hated and +detested the French! When in November, 1714, those habitual invaders at +length evacuated Nancy, the mob dressed up a straw figure in a French +uniform, and led it forth amid jeers and execrations to an _auto-da-fé_. +Even after annexation, a Nancy housewife declared herself most grossly +"insulted" by a French officer, who simply explained the benefits which he +thought that annexation must bring with it, and in anger she threw the +_friture_, just frizzling in her pan, straight in his face. + +Lorraine had been sadly afflicted indeed with long years of warfare. But +in 1713 things were beginning to mend. Leopold, restored by the Treaty of +Ryswick to his duchy--in which, as duke, his father had never set +foot--had been on the throne getting on for sixteen years. And what with +the excellent counsels of that best of Chancellors, Irish Earl +Carlingford, and his own intuitive judgment and enlightened and paternal +despotism, Lorraine was becoming populous and prosperous, happy and +contented, once more. Leopold earned himself a name for a shrewd and +prudent ruler. His brother-in-law, Philip of Orleans (the Regent), said of +him, that of all rulers of Europe he did not know one who was his superior +"_en expérience, en sagesse, et en politique_." And Voltaire has +immortalised his virtues by saying: "_Il est à souhaiter que la dernière +postérité apprenne qu'un des plus petits souverains de l'Europe a été +celui qui fit le plus de bien à son peuple_." In fact, he was the very +ruler whom Lorraine at that juncture wanted. Autocratic he was, and vain, +and self-important, notwithstanding the homely _bourgeoisie_ of his +manner. But he knew exactly where the shoe pinched, and how to devise a +remedy. He it was who first conceived the idea, which has helped to make +France prosperous, of a wide network of canals. He it was, who, in 1724, +set Europe an example, which at the time made him famous, of covering his +country with a network of model roads. And though he again and again +proposed, for the benefit of his own family, to "swap" poor little +Lorraine--for the Milanais, for a bit of the Low Countries, or for other +valuable possessions--while he was duke, he managed to make himself +popular, and he was resolved to do his duty. "_Je quitterais demain ma +souveraineté si je ne pouvais faire du bien_," so he said. Under his +father, that brilliant general, Charles V., he had given proof of his +pluck and prowess at Temeswar, of his military ability before Ebersburg. +But in Lorraine, he knew, the one thing needful was peace. And with a +dogged determination which was bound to overcome all difficulties, though +the stars in their courses seemed to be fighting against him, that peace +he managed to maintain, in the midst of a raging sea of war all round, +which had drawn all neighbouring countries into its whirl. He did it--it +is worth recording, because it materially affected James's position at his +Court--by as adroit balancing between the two great belligerent Powers of +the Continent as ever diplomatist managed to achieve. Born and bred in +Austria, allied to the Imperial family by the closest ties of blood--his +mother was an archduchess--trained in Austrian etiquette, an officer in +the Austrian army, beholden to Austria for many past favours--and keenly +alive to the fact that for any favours which might yet be to come he must +look exclusively to the Court of Vienna--in his leanings and +prepossessions he was entirely Austrian. But under his father and +great-uncle history had taught his country the severe lesson, that without +observing the best, though they be the most obsequious, relations towards +France, at whose mercy the country lay, no Lorraine was possible. +Accordingly, almost Leopold's very first act as Duke was to send M. de +Couvange to Paris, to solicit on his behalf the hand of "Mademoiselle," +the Princess of Orleans. Her hand was gladly accorded. There was a +tradition--with a very obvious object--at Paris in favour of Lorrain +marriages. This was the thirty-third, and there remained a thirty-fourth +to conclude--the ill-starred marriage of Marie Antoinette. King James II. +and his Queen attended the wedding at Fontainebleau, and Elizabeth +Charlotte became one of the best of wives, and best and most popular of +Lorraine duchesses, bearing her husband no less than fourteen children. +Balancing between Austria and France, maintaining his private relations +with the one, giving way in everything to the other, was Leopold's prudent +maxim throughout his reign. So long as he adhered to that he felt himself +safe. Whenever he departed from it, he found himself getting into +mischief. + +Leopold has been much abused by our writers and politicians, as if he had +been a deliberate anti-English plotter and Jacobite accomplice. It is but +fair to him to explain why he afforded our Pretender such liberal +hospitality. The real fact is, that he could not help himself. He was +bound to. France demanded it, and he _could not_ refuse--nor yet refuse to +make his hospitality generous and lavish. There was the additional +attraction, indeed, of a show of importance, of a little implication in +diplomatic negotiations and playing a part in European high politics, +which to Leopold must have been strongly seductive. A good deal is also +said about religious motives, the suggestion of which must have helped +Leopold equally with the Curia and the Imperial Court, with both of whom +he was anxious to stand well. The Pope--it is true, under pressure from +James--subsequently thanked Leopold in a special brief, "_ample et bien +exprimé_," for the proof of attachment which he had rendered to the Church +by his reception of the English Pretender, the emblem to all Europe of the +Church of Rome under persecution. Leopold was an exceptionally devout +Roman Catholic. He heard mass religiously every day, spent an hour in +prayer after dinner, and "adored the Sacrament" every evening. He had +revived Charles III.'s stringent provisions against Protestants, +interdicting all public worship and, in theory at any rate, declaring +Protestantism a crime deserving of hanging. In his excessive zeal he would +not even allow the Cistercian monks of Beaupré to retain in their service +a Protestant shepherd, though they pleaded hard that he was the best +shepherd whom they had ever had. So zealous a believer was of course a man +after the very heart of the widow and son of that "_fort bon homme_," as +Archbishop Le Tellier scoffingly termed James II., who had "sacrificed +three kingdoms for a mass." To himself, on the other hand, it seemed +something of a sacred act to open his house to the "Woman persecuted by +the dragon." However, all this was but as dust in the balance by the side +of the compelling necessity of French dictation, doubly compelling at that +particular period. For Leopold had of late been playing his own little +game. Things had gone against France in the field, and he had put his +money on the other horse. He was always after a fashion a gambling and +speculative ruler, willing to stake almost his very existence on the +_roulette_ of high politics. At that moment he was flattering himself with +hopes that the Congress of Utrecht would do something for him. Both +Austria and England had privately promised--at least some of their +statesmen had--that he was to have a seat at the Congress table. That +would add immensely to his dignity and prestige. Then he was to have a +slice of the Low Countries. To ensure this result, he was "casting his +bread upon the waters" with a vengeance--spending money wholesale, bribing +English, and Dutch, and Austrian statesmen with the most profuse +generosity--more particularly Marlborough, in whom he appears to have +retained a belief throughout, who most faithlessly "sold" him, and who +cost him a fortune. At the very time here spoken of our great general had +been favoured with a fresh mark of favour from Leopold--a magnificent +_carosse_, horsed with six splendid dapple-greys (Leopold was a great +horse-fancier), hung with most costly trappings. All this--which proved in +the event to have been entirely thrown away--very naturally gave umbrage +to France. And Louis XIV. had not missed his opportunity of letting +Leopold know that a score was being marked up against him at Versailles. +France had never stood on much ceremony with Lorraine, from Henry II. +downward. Louis XIV., more particularly, had done his best to equal his +grandfather's notorious and most capricious hostility. In 1702, in the +teeth of international law and of Leopold's protests, as well as Elizabeth +Charlotte's prayers, he had marched his troops into Lorraine. They were +still there, indeed, in larger numbers than before. When 1709 brought its +"_grand hiver_"--still remembered as a time of grievous tribulation--when +the crops froze in the fields, the vines in the vineyards, the children in +the nursery, the sacramental wine in the chalice, the water by the fire, +when Dearth and Famine once more laid their grim hand upon all +Lorraine--Louis XIV. had given Leopold a little additional cut with his +tyrant's whip, seizing some of the provisions providently laid up for the +relief of his subjects, and appropriating them to the use of his own +armies, which moreover, he reinforced by a fresh contingent of 20,000 men, +sent with orders to live "_à discrétion_." Louis was quite ready to do +something of the same sort again. Therefore, when Louis said: Receive +James, Leopold had no choice but to receive him. His letters and +despatches make this perfectly clear. There is a good deal of talk about +the Pretender's "estimable qualities," how the Duke and Duchess admire +him, how happy they are that he has not gone to Aix-la-Chapelle. And no +doubt the two managed to be for a time excellent friends. But every now +and then, through all this polite buncombe, out comes the frank admission +that all is done "to please the king." And we know how promptly and +unhesitatingly Leopold's hospitality was withdrawn, once French pressure +ceased, in 1716. To ourselves, by receiving an exiled Pretender into his +neutral realm, as we have received many such, Leopold never dreamt that he +was giving cause for legitimate umbrage. No one could be more surprised +than he seems to have been when our Parliament took up the matter as a +grievance. + +And, to be fair, he never appears to have afforded to James the slightest +encouragement for a forcible assertion of his claims. His counsel was all +the other way. It was the French, it was the Pretender's own followers at +home, it was Roman Cardinal Gualterio, who countenanced, and occasionally +urged, warlike measures. Cardinal Gualterio, more in particular, prodded +the Catholic prince very vigorously, in the interest of his Church, +arguing that "_il falloit hazarder quelque chose et meme affronter le +sort, ce qui ne se fait pas sans risque_." Leopold, on the other hand, +was all dissuasion. He wanted James to keep _near_ England, in order to be +handy in the event of his being recalled--which he seems to have thought a +likely contingency. When James began to talk of armaments and invasions, +Leopold dwelt upon the difficulties, the all-but-hopelessness of such a +move. When, in June, 1714, shortly before Queen Anne's death, James wrote +from Plombières, that he _must_ go into England, since he learnt that his +rival, the Electoral Prince of Hanover, had gone there, Leopold, who was +admirably informed from Hanover, through his brother, the +Elector-Archbishop of Trèves, sent a message back post-haste with the +trustworthy tidings that George was neither gone nor going. The reasons +which led George's father to forbid his visit read a little strange at the +present day. In the first place, there was that Hanoverian economy--which, +it is true, was ostensibly disclaimed. In the second, the Prince was not +to be received in England as heir-presumptive--so that he would not really +better his chances by going. Moreover, the Elector, "_connoissant l'humeur +brusque et fort emportée de son fils, apprehendoit beaucoup qu'il ne se +rendit odieux aux anglais_." Lastly, and mainly, he was afraid of dropping +between two stools, if he were to stake his son's chances too decidedly on +the English succession. It was quite on the cards, he thought, that "_par +un effet des resolutions que l'inconstance de la nation y a rendues si +ordinaire_," the British nation would _chasser_ its next sovereign as it +had _chassé_ its last-but-one. And then, where would his son be? For if +his son went to England, it was much to be feared that his brother, who +had been not quite rightfully excluded from the succession, might make +good his claim to Hanover. And there would George be, out in the cold! So +his father was resolved to play a waiting game. + +The first difficulty which James found himself confronted with, and which +Leopold had to overcome for him--for French good offices were obviously +out of the question--was the procuring of a passport. Such credential was +at the time indispensable, for Europe was swarming with bad characters. +Besides, there was nominally war still; and public roads and even walled +towns were altogether insecure. In the Foreign Office papers we come +across correspondence relating to the robbing of the public coach running +between Strassburg and Paris, at Benameny, in Lorrain territory, by +Palatine soldiers, who had come over from Caub. And even in carefully +locked and watched Bar-le-Duc, Leopold advises King Louis that, with "a +fourth company of his regiment of guards" added to the local force, +besides twenty-five _chevaux-legers_ and twenty-five _gardes-du-corps_ to +act as escort, he can answer for the Pretender's safety only against +attacking parties of not more than fifty or a hundred at the outside, +which, he says, ought to be borne in mind, "_si armées se mettoient en +campagne_." Queen Mary only expresses what everyone felt when she says +that it is to be apprehended "_que quelque méchant en se servissent de +l'occasion pour faire un méchant coup_." She accordingly begs the +"_commnoté_" of Chaillot to pray for "the king's" safety. + +In 1714 the Emperor, who was the principal sovereign to be petitioned, +would not make out a passport for James, to enable him to move into +Germany--though professedly willing to give the Stuart his niece in +marriage, and avowedly not a little put out with England, but yet desirous +of avoiding offence to King George. In 1713 he raised no difficulty. +Indeed, at Leopold's instance he was obliging enough to supplement his +passport with a special letter of commendation very kindly worded. And he +carefully avoided treading on corns either way by not naming James in the +document--for all of which Leopold takes great credit. But it appears that +plenty more potentates besides the Emperor had to be solicited. And the +two Electors, of Hanover and of Brandenburg, were obdurate in their +refusal--in agreement for once. It was a ticklish matter; for without +their safe-conduct James could scarcely be counted secure. On the other +hand, if their safe-conducts were to be waited for, the Emperor would of a +surety take offence, as if his own passport were judged insufficient. +Leopold, being great on etiquette, took the last-named to be the more +serious danger, and advised running the risk--more particularly since he +had been advised by his envoy in London, Baron Förstner, that Queen Anne +had privately granted what amounted to a passport to her brother for going +into Lorraine. That was taken to settle the matter, and James put himself +_en route_. + +It was on the 22d of February, 1713, that he reached Bar, closely guarded +and travelling _incognito_, on which account an official reception in Bar +was dispensed with, though the French artillery at Toul had fired a +salute. The council were under strict injunctions to omit nothing which +might conduce to their visitor's safety, or minister to his comfort, or +that was conventionally due to a crowned head. Accordingly, we find them +in their next sitting, on the 25th February, passing a whole string of +votes and resolutions having reference to his arrival and his safety in +the town. The police and _chasse-coquins_ are forthwith put on the alert, +sentries are placed at all corners, and, to accommodate them, a whole +number of new sentry-boxes are put up. The authorities are directed to +question every stranger coming into the town carefully, and, if there +should appear to be anything suspicious about any one, rigorously to +detain him and report the case at once by express courier to Lunéville. +Iron _grilles_ are put up. All the postern-gates are walled up, so is one +of the principal entrances, and so is--in spite of sanitary +considerations--a main sewer passing through the wall. Soldiers were a +good deal less squeamish in those days than they are now, and sewers had +served for many a surprise in the Thirty Years' War. The remaining ten +gates are to be carefully watched, and never opened before 5 A.M., nor +left open after 8 P.M. Billets are issued for the overflow of James's +suite, which appears to have been numerous, and stable-room is bespoken +for his horses. James evidently was an inconvenient visitor to house. For +he would have all his large apparatus of Court and Household close to +him--chamberlains, kitchen, kennel, and all. Mrs Strickland praises his +habitual economy. His doings in Lorraine do not bear out that praise. From +the Nairne MSS. in the British Museum (which give a full list) we know +that in 1709 and 1710 his household comprised above 120 persons, from the +secretaries down to the grooms' helper, drawing salaries of from 12 to 675 +livres _per mensem_. There was the Comptroller, Mr. Bous, who retailed +the anecdotes of the Court to Lady Middleton; a clerk of the green cloth, +a yeoman baker, a yeoman confectioner, a yeoman of the chaundry, Jeremiah +Browne, "Esq.," master-cook, a water-carrier, and a scourer. There were +yeomen's scullery assistants, confessors and chaplains, a doctor, a +"chyrurgien," and an apothecary, a "rideing purveyor," and a "chaiseman," +"Lady Maclane, laundress," pursuivants, and necessary women--all that +belongs to a royal household. And the whole establishment cost "19,412 +lstrs. _per mensem_." All these people did not go to Bar, but a good many +did. And there were a crowd more, for whom the town had to provide. For we +read in the Macpherson Papers that all "Peacock's family"--_i.e._, all +Protestant refugees who had been at "Stanley," _i.e._, at St. +Germains--had followed the Chevalier to Bar. There was not one of them +left. So writes the Queen. And the Duke states, quite independently of +this, that the Pretender is surrounded with Protestant exiles. Altogether +James's Court ran up a goodly bill, which it was disappointing to the town +afterwards to find that, though incurred by express order of the Duke, the +burgesses were expected to meet out of their own funds. To enable them to +do so, Leopold allowed the council to appropriate the _deniers_ of the +_octroi_ to their involuntary hospitality. + +The more or less Protestant colouring given to the refugee establishment +was scarcely palatable to the very orthodox population of Bar. But James +was playing, not to the Bar pit, but to the English gallery. "Downs or +Leslie should at once go there," so we find O'Rourke writing to Middleton +early in 1713. Leslie did go soon after, and the Chevalier, as his +advocates take credit, prevailed upon the Duke to relax his rigid rule in +one instance, and allow Protestant service in an upper room in James's +house. That was in the "Rue Nève." The upper room, which, we read, was +just over James's own apartment, cannot have been large. So it is to be +feared that the service was not over well attended. But it was enough to +save appearances, and to give the Jacobites of England a shadow of reason +for declaring, as they did, that James really was a Protestant. James +himself spoke a very different language. "He would rather abandon all than +act against his conscience and his honour." He protested over and over +again that "all the crowns in the world would not make him change his +religion." + +Thanks to King Louis's perpetual ordering and countermanding, when James +got to Bar, the château was once more as bare and uninhabitable as ever it +had been, and for a few days the Pretender had to be content with the same +rather humble house which he was destined subsequently to occupy for a +considerable time, in the "Rue des Tanneurs"--Number 22, Rue Nève, it is +now--a plain, square, three-storeyed building (counting the upper range of +rooms, which is very low, as a storey). This is described as at the time +"the principal house" in the town, the property of one of the most +distinguished residents, Councillor of State M. Marchal. It has eight +windows frontage, facing severally the Rue Nève and the Rue des Pressoirs, +and abutting width-ways on the very narrow passage Rue St. Antoine. A few +days later, however, we find the Pretender safely established in the +château, and there on the 9th of March he receives the Duke of Lorraine +and his brother François, Abbé of Stavelot, with an amount of circumstance +and scrupulous weighing of precedences which is described with rather +amusing minuteness in the 'Gazette de France.' Not to hurt James's +feelings--to whom royal honours could not be openly shown, out of +consideration for Queen Anne--Leopold ordered that he himself should not +be received with the usual ceremonial, troops under arms, and councillors +presenting addresses. But the Lorrains were a devotedly loyal population. +They would not be forbidden. The whole population of the town and of all +the surrounding district crowded into the streets, to receive the ruler of +the land with shouts of welcome. James, being the resident, played the +host at Bar. There was, a dinner, a supper, and a long private talk in the +château, with the result, we read, that the two princes at once became +fast friends. James, we know, though wanting in most of the qualities +which are regarded as specifically manly, was a good-looking and agreeable +fellow enough. As for Leopold, with his experience of Courts, and his kind +and considerate disposition, he could not very well prove otherwise than a +pleasant companion and a kind patron. We have plenty of portraits of him +left, limned both with pen and with brush. Short and stumpy, +round-bellied, red-faced, with a free allowance of pimples, and, moreover, +with those abnormally stout legs which remained his most striking outward +characteristic to his dying day, he must have looked a veritable _Jacques +Bonhomme_ put into a full-bottomed wig and court-dress. There is a tale to +those legs. Leopold came into the world about two months before his time, +_very_ sickly and _very_ delicate. More particularly his legs were very +spindles. Under a special treatment designed to remedy this defect, they +grew just as much too big as previously they had been too thin. Terrible +stickler for etiquette that Leopold was, and intent upon lavish display, +when occasion seemed to demand it, both himself and his wife were +simplicity itself when such occasion was withdrawn. They could talk to a +peasant in the peasant's brogue about his _ouïettes_ and his hemp. One of +the princesses thought nothing of accepting a lift home in a market-cart, +and, as the driver commendingly related, showed herself "_bien sage_." +"_Cousine_," said the Duchess to the Duchess of Elboeuf, "_restez chez +nous, nous avons un bon gigot_." This simplicity and familiarity with +humble ways as a matter of course made the Duke and Duchess popular. But +what helped them more than anything to gain their people's hearts was +their remarkable readiness to enter into all those local _fêtes_ which +long custom had sanctioned as common to both high and low. The French +occupation had made a long break in the observance of those _fêtes_. How +should the Lorrains "sing songs" in what had become to them practically "a +strange land?" For something like thirty years their harps remained hung +up upon the willow-trees. Great, however, was the joy when at the first +_Fête de la Veille des Rois_--kept in commemoration of the brilliant +victory achieved over Charles the Bold in 1476--and at the _Brandons_ or +_Faschinottes_,[3] following that _fête_, the Duke and Duchess appeared +in person among the merry-makers, entering most good-humouredly and, +indeed, jovially into all their doings. Of the many local customs which +Lorraine boasts, the _Brandons_ was at that time still the particular +favourite. It had been handed down from hoary antiquity. Every couple +married since the last _Brandons_ was expected to join. The husband had to +provide himself with a faggot or log of wood, and carry it in procession +through the town, accompanied by his wife, along a roundabout route +prescribed by custom, to the Duke's palace, march three times past the +Duke's window, and then deposit the piece of fuel on a huge pyramidal pyre +built up in the ducal courtyard. Some couples went on foot, others rode on +horseback. All were dressed in their best, and the procession must have +looked exceedingly picturesque. Every lady was expected to wear some +little ornament--generally made of silver--specially devised to indicate +either her calling or her station in life: a coronet, or a sickle, or +whatever it might be. The streets were lined with people, who freely +expended their wit--a pretty ready one--in chaff pointed at the new +victims to matrimony, who in their turn were expected to put on a most +dejected look, as if seriously repenting the allegiance rashly entered +into to Hymen. In the evening the pyre was lighted, and round this huge +bonfire people made mildly merry with gambols and dances. Tables were +spread, at the Duke's cost, richly laden with viands and native wine. In +1698, at the first revival of the _Brandons_ after a long pause, the file +of matrimonial victims was, of course, quite exceptionally long. It was a +delightful surprise to the crowd to see at its head the Duke and Duchess +themselves, newly married as they were--the Duchess, being slightly +_enceinte_ with her first-born, wearing at her girdle a little silver +cradle. That was not all. In the evening Leopold mixed freely with the +revellers, stopped at table after table, drank here and drank there, +proposing a toast or responding to one,--with the result that the people +went half-mad with enthusiasm. Not a tumbler had the Duke drunk out of, +which was not religiously treasured as a relic. And long after the French +had forced their yoke firmly home upon the shrinking neck of unwilling +Lorraine, those tumblers were still shown to growing children as memorials +of the "good old time." At the carnival, which followed the _Brandons_, +Leopold and Elizabeth Charlotte were again to the fore. They did not mind +figuring in public--even sometimes on an amateur stage. Leopold once +appeared masked as Sultan--his consort, not quite appropriately, as an +Odalisk; but the loyal Lorrains saw nothing incongruous in that dress. + +The striking difference very apparent in the characters severally of host +and guest in our little chapter of history, may have helped to draw them +together all the more closely. James was in his ordinary mood anything but +mirthful. References to him are frequent in the correspondence as being +"terribly sad," or else "very pensive, which is his ordinary humour," +"_très sérieux et reservé_," so much so that "_rien ne l'auoit pû tirer de +la profonde melancolie ou il étoit_," and so on. Yet he could be merry, +too, and more in particular he loved a dance. At one ball, given in the +Palace at Lunéville, we read that he managed particularly to ingratiate +himself with the ladies who were past their first bloom, by an act of +undoubted chivalry. They wanted badly to dance, but dared not, while the +Duchess was sitting. And the Duchess considered herself too much of a +matron to foot it with the young ones. James, however, made her. He would +take no refusal. The dead room became reanimated once more, and many an +aging heart in its night-thoughts blessed the gallant _prétendant_. James, +we are told, was a prominent figure in the Nancy _Brandons_ and Carnival, +kept with peculiar _éclat_ in 1715, after a fresh break of thirteen years, +due to French occupation. Court chroniclers seem to consider that the +presence of "_Le Roi d'Angleterre_" added peculiar lustre to that +performance. + +Reporting himself after his visit to Bar, as in duty bound, to King Louis, +Leopold declares himself "_charmé de l'esprit, de la sagesse, de la +douceur et des manières gracieuses de M. le Chevalier de Saint Georges_." +The 'Journal de Verdun,' drawing its information, of course, from official +sources, announces that after their first encounter the two princes "_se +separèrent extrêmement satisfaits l'un de l'autre_" in "_parfaite amitié +bien cimentée_." Of James it will have it that he is "_d'un caractère si +doux, si affable, et si populair, qu'il s'est bientôt acquis, de tous ceux +qui ont eu l'honneur de le voir, le respect et la vénération dûs à sa +vertu et à sa naissance_." + +Leopold gone, the time passed, on the whole, quietly at Bar. There were +occasional alarms, when some suspicious stranger had been seized. On one +occasion, again, there is some talk of a "poisoned letter," sent in an +ingenious fashion. To Louis, we find, the Duke appeared a little too +forward in warning James of these dangers, as if he wanted to frighten his +guest into quitting Lorraine. To vary the little episodes, there was the +famous _coëqure_, who so much amused Queen Mary Beatrice's companions with +his odd manners and his "thou"-ing. "The Spirit had moved him," as we +know, to inform James that he was to rule over England, in which country +there were plenty of well-wishers to support him. Were money wanted, he +said that his friends would readily combine to raise some millions. They +did not, welcome as the money would have been to James, whom we find +continually complaining of want of funds. In the cipher despatches the +common burden is, that "Mr. Parton" will not "deliver the goods." There is +another prophetic person to encourage the Pretender, a nun of the +"Monastère de Sainte Marie del Roma," near Montevallo--accredited by her +superior, who writes to the Marquis Spada that her prophecies have never +failed to come true. If he escapes the many traps set for him in 1715, so +the nun says, James will certainly become King of England. Occasionally +also there are little tiffs between English visitors and Barisien +residents. What English, Scotch, and Irish there were there, we do not +know for certain, but there were a goodly number, and not all of the best +manners. Noel, who is a good historian on Lorrain things, but a little at +fault on English, will have it that among these people was "_Lord Chatham, +qui devint plus tard si célèbre_." Occasionally there was a visitor coming +on the sly with news--such as the Duke of Berwick, whose visits were at +one time frequent--or, towards the end of the sojourn, the banished Lord +Bolingbroke, and "Le Comte de Peterborough" travelling under the pseudonym +of "Schmit." Marlborough did not come himself, but he sent an aide-de-camp +on a confidential mission to Lunéville, overflowing with pleasant words, +and through him be begged particularly to be well and promptly advised on +the Chevalier's movements, since "_Le salut d'Angleterre_" might depend +upon this. The Duke of Lorraine was not particularly impressed with +James's followers, especially after Lord Middleton was gone. "_Ce ne sont +que des gens d'un caractère fort médiocre_," he writes. They talk about +things which affect their chief with the utmost freedom. In Mr Higgons, +who had succeeded Lord Middleton, he could discern no merit whatever. As +for Lord Middleton, he found him "_fort reservé et voulant dominer seul_." +He gives him credit for capacity and zeal, but censures him as being +"_timide et irresolu_." All the rest, he says, are "_de jeunes gens qui ne +pouuoint souffrir ce Milord, et qui auoint eu l'imprudence de dire à +Lunéville qu'il etoit si fort hay en Angleterre que les plus zelez +partisans de leur Maitre auoint temoigné qu'ils ne feroint jamais rien +pour ces interests tant qu'il l'auroit au-prez de luy_." All these men +evidently have very little knowledge of what is going on at home, he says. +There is no one in whose judgment the Pretender might repose any faith +except it be the Earl of Oxford or Lord Bolingbroke. + +On the whole, the Pretender's life at Bar, though perhaps a little +monotonous, can scarcely have been unpleasant. He made friends with the +local _haute volée_, asking them to dinner, and being asked back--and +borrowed money from them whenever he could. His especial friends were the +Marquis de Bassompierre, from whom he borrowed 15,000 livres, which the +Duke repaid in 1719, and M. de Rousselle. A good deal of time the +Chevalier spent in his closet, with Nairne, or Higgons, or Middleton, +concocting plans and dictating long memorials to the Pope, or else to +Cardinal Gualterio, advocating the canonisation of Bellarmine, +recommending _protégés_ for places which they never got, and insisting on +his right to nominate bishops to Irish sees, the names of which he could +not spell. At off-times he played _reversi_, _boston_, and _ombre_, and +occasionally _petit palet_, which is an aristocratic form of +chuck-farthing. Then there was the pleasure of the chase, of which we know +from Father Leslie that James was a tolerably keen votary. In Lorraine the +diversion of _vénerie_ was held in high estimation, though reserved only +for very great magnates, and guarded by a ring-fence of the strictest +enactments against vulgar intrusion. Poaching accordingly came to be a +very common offence. "Ground game," indeed--at any rate rabbits--it was +open to all to shoot. "High game"--_i.e._, deer--on the other hand, was +reserved within certain limits exclusively for the Duke. Within about +eight miles of the Duke's palaces, in what were called the ducal +_plaisirs_, not even nobles of the highest rank were permitted to shoot or +hunt. No dogs belonging to private persons were allowed in the fields near +those _plaisirs_, on any pretence whatever, be the deer, and boars, and +wolves, ever so troublesome. Even shepherds' dogs and watch-dogs must have +their hamstrings cut, or else a log tied round their necks. And in some +districts every Parish was required by law to provide a _louvière_ or +wolf's pit, 20 feet deep, 18 feet wide at its bottom, and 12 at its +opening. From "_le haut puissant messire_" Jean de Ligniville's most +amusing disquisitions on "_La Meutte et Venerie_" we learn that the +district about Bar was "_très boisé_" and well stocked with game of every +description, which, local chroniclers tell us, James was frequently +occupied in hunting. Lorrain and English hunting were not then as far +apart in their general features as one might be tempted to assume. English +kings had more than once sent presents of English hounds to Lorrain +dukes--Charles III. received from James I. a present of eighty harriers at +a time. And more than one Lorrain grandee came over to hunt and shoot +here. Ligniville himself, the Duke's _Grand Veneur_ (under Charles IV.), +had frequently hunted in England, and expressed himself especially +delighted with the sport in which he had joined in Yorkshire. On the +whole, he appears to have considered English hounds superior to +French--less eager at first, but with more stay in them--and he was proud +of having received presents of some from the Prince of Wales of his time +(Charles I.), "Milord de Hée," and from "Milord Howard." But a cross +between English and French hounds he seems to have regarded as the _ne +plus ultra_ of excellence. "Puss" was very much persecuted in the valley +of the Meuse, furnishing by its exceptional swiftness and skill in +swimming almost too good sport, "_contre montant l'eaüe tellement viste +que les chiens ne les pouuoint pas aborder_." James's hunting sometimes +led him into adventures, and on one occasion nearly saddled his host with +a diplomatic difficulty. Riding hard, he once got to the little town of +Ligny at nightfall, some eight miles from Bar, in a vassal territory +belonging, under the Duke of Lorraine, to Montmorency, Duke of Luxemburg. +The Duke of Luxemburg, being rather a big vassal, was in consequence also +a very troublesome one, and the Lorrain Court and his officers frequently +found themselves at loggerheads. To James, coming from Bar, with fifty +Lorrain _gens d'armes_, besides his own suite, the _maire_ resolutely +refused to open the gates and furnish lodgings for the night, grounding +his refusal upon a decision of the Parliament of Paris passed in the year +1661. The Lorrains were quite prepared for a siege and an assault. +However, James deemed it wiser to leave things alone, and so the company +rode half a mile further, to a little village called Velaine, where they +spent a most uncomfortable night. Soon we have Montmorency complaining to +King Louis of the assumed "_nouuelles entreprises de M. le Duc de Lorrain +sur mon comté de Ligny_." Leopold revenged himself by imprisoning about a +dozen _maires_ of the Ligny county, on the plea of their having failed to +furnish the requisite waggons, and in the end bought Montmorency out with +the sum of 2,600,000 francs. + +All this, however, was not enough excitement for James. In one of his +letters he plaintively calls Bar his "Todis"--by which of course he means +"Tomis." "Tomis," by a natural train of thought suggested--besides the +_tristia_, of which we have plenty--the _ars amatoria_. And to it the +Chevalier devoted not a few of his unoccupied hours. If local tradition +speaks true, he differed very materially in his prosecution of this art +from his father, of whom Catherine Sedley said that on what principle he +selected the ladies of his heart she could never make out. None of them +were good-looking, and if any of them had wit, he had not the wit to find +it out. And Mary of Modena, his wife, added that, although he was willing +to give up his crown for his faith, he could never muster sufficient +resolution to discard a mistress. His son was in both respects far more of +a man of the world. + +It was in the green bosquets of those Pâquis, his favourite +lounging-place, that James first discovered his human jewel. To house her +suitably, he took--at somebody else's cost--a cottage on the brow of the +hill, where the view is delightful and the air magnificent. You can still +approximately trace the site, high up in the Rue de l'Horloge, above the +Rue St. Jean, a little below the neglected terrace in the Rue +Chavée--which is well worth visiting for its prospect. As the house stood +with its back to the hill and facing only the open space, there must have +been absolute privacy. But, after moving down to the Lower Town, James +found the ascent by those _Quatre-vingt Degrés_--which Oudinot rode up on +horseback--a trifle laborious. The steps lead almost straight up from his +house to the cottage, describing just enough of an angle to take in the +humble building, now marked by a tablet, in which Marshal Oudinot was +born. A more convenient arrangement could scarcely have been desired. But +the steps were sadly "_sales et délabrés_." Not to inconvenience James in +his amours, the town council readily voted the requisite sum for putting +them into proper repair. + +When September came on, James found the air on the castle-hill "_trop +vif_." Although his mother generally reports that "_il se porte bien_," it +is to be feared that his constitution was none of the strongest. We read +in one of D'Audriffet's despatches, "_que sa santé estoit toujours fort +delicate_." He has had a "_fluxion_" in the eye. He has "weak lungs." "He +is evidently very poorly," writes D'Audriffet to Louis. He finds himself +"_alteré par l'intemperie du tems_." He takes the waters of Plombières +four times "for his health," and wants to take those of Aix-la-Chapelle. +He talks of going to a warmer climate--Spain or Italy, or, more +specifically, Venice. But he can now obtain no fresh passport from the +Emperor. Then he goes to have a look at Saint Mihiel, likewise in the +Barrois, only a few miles from Koeurs, in which another Prince of Wales, +young Edward--the same whom Edward IV. meanly struck with his gauntlet, +and Richard of Gloucester despatched with a stab, to stop his +"sprawling"--spent his young years of exile in company with his mother, +Queen Margaret, from 1464 to 1471. But he does not like the idea of living +in the Benedictine Abbey. So the Duke orders the town council to get ready +once more M. Marchal's convenient house below, to which the Chevalier +insists that a second house adjoining shall be added, belonging to M. de +Romécourt, besides a portion of one belonging to M. Lepaige, with a +kitchen specially built, and a "gardemanger," a new door, and sundry other +conveniences, to say nothing of the hiring of further accommodation for +his horses, his kennel, his _gens de vénerie_, his guards, some of his +suite--all of whom and all of which he wants very near him, and all of +which consequently, costs the town a good deal of money. M. de +Romécourt's house is a complete match to M. Marchal's, but smaller, +bringing up the frontage to thirteen windows. + +However, James was not always at Bar, nor yet always, when away, at +Plombières. Duke Leopold was constantly inviting him to Lunéville, and +sometimes to Nancy, and arranging most magnificent _fêtes_ in his honour. +Leopold could do things handsomely when he chose. Even when James stayed +three whole weeks, there was something new provided every day to amuse +him--"_les plaisirs de la Cour étoint entremêlé de repas, de collations, +de bals, de concerts, de Comédie, de promenades, de chasse, de feux +d'artifice, etc., mais chaque jour tout étoit nouveau_." Leopold's palace +at Lunéville--the same in allusion to which Louis XV. said to King +Stanislas, "_Mon père, vous êtes mieux logé que moi_"--was specially laid +out for the gaiety and the varied succession of amusements for which the +Lorrain Court was famous. It was at the Lorrain Court that the _cotillon_, +that universal favourite on the Continent, was first invented. And in +Leopold's theatre it was that Adrienne Lecouvreur made her first +appearance. + +To give James a right royal reception, Leopold spared neither pains nor +money. He always made a point of going to meet his guest--to Batelemont, +to Houdemont, or to Gondrecourt. To enable the Court to enter with proper +spirit into all the magnificence prepared, we read in the official +despatches, that in April, 1713, on the occasion of James's first visit, +the Duke directed that two quarters' salaries, in arrear since 1711, +should be paid to the officers of his household. D'Audriffet makes merry +over this. But in France things were no better. The Court of Versailles, +we know, was always behindhand in its payments to Queen Mary. Mrs +Strickland makes this a matter of reproach to Desmarets, as if purely the +result of his negligence. But the Court had not got the money. In 1715 we +have D'Audriffet himself sending in his little account, which shows five +years' salary to be owing, in addition to 24,800 livres of disbursements, +the whole debt amounting to 84,800 livres. + +Even more brilliant than the _fêtes_ given at Lunéville, were those to +which James was invited at the Château of Commercy, the seat of the Prince +de Vaudémont. Vaudémont was rich and generous. He had occupied high +positions in the army and the administrative services both of Austria and +of Spain. He was a man pre-eminently prudent in council. Our William III. +had discovered that, and had frequently sought his opinion, more +particularly while the Treaty of Ryswick was under consideration. To James +the Prince became a most valuable friend and confidant--more especially at +that critical juncture when the Pretender's great aim was to get away +unobserved form Lorraine. In his splendid castle of Commercy, set off by +magnificent cent gardens and sheets of water throwing Versailles into the +shade, the "Damoiseau" of Commercy gave _fêtes_ the description of which +baffled Court chroniclers of the period, and after which, in the words of +the "Gazette de Hollande," James found himself constrained to go back to +Bar in self-defence, "_pour s'y delasser, pour ainsi dire, de la fatigue +des plaisirs continuels_." There was such a _fête_ in June, 1713, arranged +on a peculiarly lordly scale, in which a chorus of _Pèlerins de Saint +Jacques_ were brought in--appropriately hailing from "L'Isle de Cythère," +and provided with passports from the goddess Venus--whose special object +seems to be to say pretty things to James:-- + + "Vous gagnez tous les coeurs, tout le monde gémit + De voir un Roy d'une bonté si rare, + Et brillant de l'éclat de toutes les vertus + Loin des Etats qui lui sont dûs + Mais nous verrons un jour cette triple couronne + Qu'ont porté si longtems vos Illustres Ayeux, + Sur votre chef tomber des Cieux. + Le mérite, le sang, les Loix, tout vous la donne; + Laissez le soin de soûtenir ces droits + Au Dieu qui dans ses mains porte les coeurs des Rois." + +Then a curious supper was given. The twenty-four most illustrious guests +present sat down at two tables, the ladies at one, the gentlemen at the +other. Each person was served with an equal portion, "_tous en vaisselle +de fayance, jusqu'aux manches des couteaux_." + + "Et dans ce sobre repas + Chacun n'eut que vingt-sept plats." + +In all, to these twenty-four people 648 _plats_ were served. The great +joke of the meal was, that strict silence was enjoined. "_Mais on avoit +oublié d'en bannir les Ris._" So people soon began to laugh, and then the +men accused the ladies of breaking the rule, and the ladies retorted, and +that put an end to Trappism. On another occasion, in July, 1714, when +James spent a fortnight at Commercy--while his sister was slowly +dying--the Prince, in the course of an even more brilliant _fête_, +entertained his guests with sham-fights, the siege of a castle, and other +incidents of military operations, for which the services of a French +army-corps stationed in the neighbourhood, at Troussay, under the command +of M. de Ruffey, were impressed. + +Mary of Modena must have felt the removal of her only son--her only child, +since the Princess Louise, "_la Consolatrice_," was dead--very keenly. She +declared that she had no one left to open her heart to. This was not to be +understood quite literally, for we find the Queen-Dowager pouring out her +confidences very effusively to her _chère mère_ and the sisters at +Chaillot, whose journals, in fact, supply the main records of Mary's +doings. But, no doubt, she missed James much. Once after his banishment, +in July, 1714--when James rushed secretly to Paris, to consult with the +king about the steps to be taken in view of Queen Anne's impending death, +and was sent away "_fort peu satisfait_"--she had seen him for an hour or +two in the night. Very naturally, she wished to visit him at Bar, more +particularly as her doctors had advised her to try the waters of +Plombières. It is not altogether impossible, also, although the Queen was +kept in rather tight leading-strings by Dr. Beaulieu, that, plagued as she +was with cancer in the breast, she may have wished to take the advice of a +specialist at Bar with whose fame at the time the world was ringing. +Bar-le-Duc had become strangely identified with cures for cancer. In 1663 +Pierre Alliot first discovered the value of cauterising as a corrective +treatment. And early in 1714 M. le sieur Moat, another Bar doctor, +astonished the world with quite a novel method, which was probably humbug, +since it is said to have effected perfectly incredible recoveries. Some +months later we find Queen Mary preparing to set out for Bar and also for +Plombières. Her bad health and an abnormally wet summer put a stop to the +project. This was just about the time of the death of Queen Anne, when +Leopold felt as if he were politically walking on eggs. He had given so +much umbrage in England already, that every further offence was to be +carefully avoided. If the Queen, as was to be anticipated, in going to +Plombières, were also to visit Lunéville, that must of a certainty give +rise to misunderstandings. So he sends officers and messengers to inquire +and dissuade, as diplomatically as he can. The Queen had been so ill as to +be given up, and he did not wish to pain her. But above all things he had +to think of himself. + +On very different grounds the tidings of the Queen's impending visit also +fluttered the good people of Bar not a little. They had never entertained +a queen. So on the 13th of July we find the heads of the town council +carefully inquiring of the Marquis de Gerbévillers, the governor of the +district, what is the proper ceremonial to be observed. Thereupon a +deputation is named, and a present of 16 lb. of _dragées_ and forty-eight +_pots de confitures_ is voted, besides a _feuillade_ of wine for +distribution, and a special _vin d'honneur_, to be presented to the royal +visitor by the Marquis de Bassompierre, on behalf of the town. The +Barisiens are very proud both of their _confitures_ and of their wine. +Both may be had now, presumably, in the same quality in which they were +tendered to Queen Mary. The _confitures_ consist of currants, red and +white, preserved whole, in a syrup made sweet to excess. But the flavour +is good. The _vins de Bar_ have long been reckoned a delicacy, more +particularly the _clairet_--a variety having a colour half-way between red +and white. The wine is highly praised by patriotic writers as being +"_excellent, délicat, léger, et bien-faisant_," and more than any other +"_ami de l'homme_." And if you only stick to that wine alone, and take +care not to mix, you can drink, they protest, absolutely whatever quantity +you like, without feeling one whit the worse next day. To an English +palate, I am bound to say, the wine is apt to present itself as +intolerably sour. + +After all, the Queen's visit did not come off till spring, 1715. That was, +again, a most inconvenient time for the Duke of Lorraine, on much the same +grounds as before. He had just made up that nasty tiff with the English +Court, arising out of the publication of the Pretender's manifesto. King +George was at length going to receive his envoy, M. de Lambertye. At such +a juncture the classical "pig among roses" would have been ten times more +welcome to nervous Leopold than Mary of Modena and her son at his Court. +So he writes to Louis, begging him for heaven's sake to stop the Queen +from coming, and despatches Baron Förstner post-haste to Bar to +remonstrate with the Pretender. Neither attempt proved successful--but the +Queen's visit did not do much harm. Her ill-health again came in as a +special providence, detaining her till after Whitsuntide. She set out +incognita with what is represented as a very modest train--namely, four +coaches-and-six, one _littière_, and _quelques chaises_. The Duke had the +good grace to receive her with a most hearty welcome. He sent the Marquis +de Bassompierre, her son's great friend, to meet her at Châlons. Her son +met her at Moutiers, on the border of the Barrois. For safety the forests +were once more stocked with soldiers. On the 22d of June, Mary made her +entry into Bar, putting up in James's house in the Rue des Tanneurs. The +local grandees and the town council turned out in force to receive her, +the Marquis de Bassompierre presenting the _dragées_ and the _vin +d'honneur_, while the _bailli_, M. de Gerbévillers, did the honours on +behalf of the Duke, whose Great Chamberlain he was. On the 25th Mary and +James proceed to Commercy, where everybody expresses himself and herself +delighted with _cette sainte Reine_. On the 18th of July the Queen arrives +at Nancy, where the Duke and Duchess are staying. James was at that time +in the midst of plotting. "Milord Drummond" had come from England to +confer with him. Ferrari put in one of his suspicious appearances, to the +bewilderment and annoyance of the French envoy. An Irish priest who talked +indiscreetly about a _grand coup à faire_ was seized and kept under +arrest. Couriers were rushing frantically to and fro. Something was "up." +And Lord Stair, at Paris, we find, knew of it. But the Queen did not +seemingly take a very hopeful view of things. She thanked the Duke very +pathetically for his kindness to James. It needed generosity, she avowed, +to interest one's self on behalf of a Prince "forsaken by all the world." +Her gratitude would be "eternal." The Duchess was most attentive. Both +days that the Queen was at Nancy she forestalled her in calling, +surprising her at her toilet. At Lunéville, the Duchess had offered to +make the Chevalier's bed with her own hands. From Nancy Mary Beatrice +proceeded to Plombières _viâ_ Bar, returning to St Germains on the 22d of +August. The waters had not done her much good. + +A brief space is due to those rather curious negotiations which were +carried on while James was at Bar, to find the Pretender a suitable wife. +According to Mrs Strickland this was rather a romantic affair. James was +dying to marry his cousin, the Princess d'Este, while, on the other hand, +the Princess Sobieska and Mademoiselle de Valois were both dying to marry +him. In truth, there was no dying on either side, and the wooing +originated, not in James's feeble affections--which were probably occupied +to the full extent of their capacity with that young lady on the hill--but +in the fertile brain of his scheming and restless host. Mrs Strickland, I +ought to say, rather overrates the position of the Princess Sobieska, who +eventually _did_ marry the Chevalier; and if there was any romance in her +affection, she lived to be cured of it. Being the daughter only of an +elective king, a _parvenu_ among royal personages, she was looked upon as +a princess rather by courtesy than of right. Even to James, down in the +world as he was, Leopold--in a manner her kinsman--did not dare to propose +her except as a _pis aller_, when all hopes elsewhere were extinguished. +His first proposal was an Austrian archduchess. He evidently thought the +suggestion one which would do him credit. It would be a downright good +"Catholic" match. It was bound to help the Pretender, and it might be +agreeable to the Emperor, and so secure him, Leopold, very much on the +look-out for favours as he was, gratitude in two influential quarters. +The mere moral effect, he says, of an alliance entered into by the premier +dynasty of Europe with the outcast Stuart prince must prove immensely to +James's advantage. But there was money, too--which James particularly +wanted--much money, heaped up in the Hofburg. James assented--though with +nothing seemingly of eagerness; for it took him some months to grasp the +full meaning of the idea. The proposal was made in March, 1714--long +before the Princess Sobieska was thought of; and, as Leopold reports with +unmistakable satisfaction, it was _assez gouté_ at Vienna. Only, the +Princess asked for--the younger daughter of the late Emperor--was very +young, in fact, a child in the nursery, and the marriage could not +possibly take place for some considerable time. So, the Emperor thought, +the matter had best be kept quiet. Nothing daunted, rather encouraged, +Leopold, with James's approval, returned to the charge in June. If the +younger archduchess was too young--very well, let it be the elder, +Elizabeth, who was at that time heir-presumptive to the crown. (For Maria +Theresa, the reigning Emperor's daughter, was not yet born.) Vienna took +time to consider. James's appetite grew keen, and in July we find him +plying the Emperor with two memorials, drawn up with the help of Nairne. +So elated did he grow over his supposed brilliant prospects, that he +returned very cold answers indeed to Cardinal Gualterio's well-meant +representations in favour of a union with another lady--was it the +Princess d'Este, Gualterio's own countrywoman? There was no money in that +quarter. Accordingly James haughtily pronounces the marriage "_pas +faisable_." But he pushes his suit at Vienna. It must be, he urges in his +first memorial, altogether to the Emperor's interest that the Archduchess +Elizabeth should be married to "_une personne qui ait assés de naissance +et d'autres bonnes qualités personelles pour estre choisi après lui à +remplir sa place_." Such a person James considers himself to be. And he +puts his case in this way. Either the English crown will fall to him or it +will not. If it does, well, then, there he is, a most desirable, wealthy, +and influential nephew-in-law. If it does not, there he is, again, the +fittest person in the world to succeed to the Imperial crown. In the +second memorial, issued shortly after, he presses some further points. +Hanover must not be allowed to grow too powerful. Indeed, as a Protestant +Power, it is too "_formidable_" already, and the "_Duc d'Hannovre_" is +"_un redoutable Rival_." But, "_il est certain qu'il (l'empereur) a moins +à apprehender de l'Angleterre sans le Duc d'Hannovre que de le Duc +d'Hannovre sans l'Angleterre_." Therefore--the reasoning does not seem +quite clear--James ought to be supported; or else, certainly, the Duc +d'Hannovre should be made to forego one of the two crowns--either Hanover +or England, a proposal which James pronounces perfectly "_juste et +nullement impracticable_." The proposal does not, however, "fetch" the +Emperor, who goes on procrastinating. But, on the other hand, Louis XIV, +gets wind of it, though he was not meant to, through D'Audriffet, and +grows uneasy, throwing all the cold water that he can upon the scheme. +Meanwhile in England things go against the Pretender. Queen Anne dies, +King George succeeds, and, in spite of James's solemn protest, addressed +to the Powers in English, French, and Latin, England seems perfectly +content. After this it is not surprising to find Leopold, when James +returns to the subject of his marriage, shaking his head discouragingly, +and pointing out that the Pretender's matrimonial value has fallen +appreciably in the market. He must no longer look "so high." Besides, the +Emperor will not care to embroil himself by such a marriage with the +Government of King George, with which he has struck up a friendship which, +in Louis XIV.'s words, promises to prove alike "_solide et sincère_." Now, +there is the Princess Sobieska! Leopold thinks that he could manage that. +Through her mother she is a niece of the Empress Eleanor. Therefore, to a +certain extent, James will still secure the Hapsburg interest. As for +marrying the Archduchess, that is out of the question. James does not see +it. He goes on harping upon the Archduchess Elizabeth, and worrying poor +Leopold to resume negotiations. + +Leopold found worry of a more serious sort besetting him, on account of +James, in a different quarter. To satisfy France was all very well. But +what in this matter satisfied France offended England. Now, England itself +was very little to the Duke of Lorraine. Louis XIV. kept assuring him that +English complaints and remonstrances should have "_point de suite_," and +that he would see him through the business. He had "nothing to fear." +Accordingly, when the English Houses of Parliament began, very +unreasonably, to memorialise Queen Anne in favour of moving for James's +expulsion from "ungrateful" Lorraine, though the Court of St Germains +showed itself, as we are told, "_fort picquée de ses addresses_," Leopold +simply smiled, and assured James that he would see that those addresses +remained "_inutiles_." He did not quite like it when Baron Förstner, his +envoy in London, reported the two parties in England, both "Thoris" and +"Wighs," to be unanimous on the point. James himself, whom he consulted +without any result, confessed himself in an "_embarras de prendre le +meilleur party_." However, Bolingbroke had advised Förstner that no notice +should be taken; the English nation "_se portoit tantot a une chose et +tantot a une autre_;" Parliament was about to be dissolved, and in the new +House the whole thing might be forgotten. King Louis explained the +resolution as a Whig dodge, a shibboleth, designed to make it clear who +were the Pretender's supporters. However, the remonstrances went on. Two +bishops made themselves ridiculous by very indiscreet and officious +interference. The Duke judges that this "_n'estoit qu'une grimace de la +Cour d'Angleterre_." But after a time he grows irritable, and recalls his +envoy--quite as much in disgust as for economy. That does not mend +matters--no more does the Duke's letter, written at the French king's +suggestion for communication to Prior. D'Audriffet's despatch of 3d May, +1714, shows that Leopold at that time quite expected that he might be made +to give effect to the English demand. Meanwhile Queen Anne dies. James +issues his proclamation, at which George and our Parliament take +needlessly great offence, and an icy coldness springs up between the two +Courts--just under circumstances under which coldness is least acceptable +to Leopold. For, however little Queen Anne might have had it in her power +to cross him, her successor is Elector of Hanover as well as King of +England, fast friends with the Emperor, and has a great say in the +bestowal of ecclesiastical patronage in Germany, for which Leopold, on +behalf of his "near and dear relations" has an insatiable appetite. +Accordingly he grows uncomfortable. He notices with alarm, so the letters +show, that George takes an unusually long time advising him of the late +Queen's death, and when the advice comes, it says nothing about his own +accession. Anxious to make up the breach, Leopold at once despatches a +special envoy, Lambertye, to present his congratulations. To the Duke's +dismay George will not receive him. Leopold, however, bids him stay where +he is, and addresses to the king his well-known memorial, which must +certainly be pronounced dignified in tone and just in substance. James's +proclamation, Leopold shows, was issued without any knowledge or consent +on his part. Privately, he causes it to be explained that he is simply +obeying dictatorial orders from Versailles. But--"_on a beau leur dire_," +writes de Bosque, D'Audriffet's substitute, on the 31st of October, "_que +la France a vn pouuoir arbitraire sur le Duc de Lorrain et ses Etats, cela +no les contente plus_." The poor Duke grows most uncomfortable. However, +in January the matter is made up, and King George consents to receive +Lambertye at last--at the very time when Queen Mary Beatrice threatens +once more to trouble relations just settling down again, with her visit to +Lunéville. In any case Lambertye's mission did not bring Lorraine any +good--except, says Noel, it be the importation of a new variety of potato, +which he carried home from England, and which proved much superior to the +old Lorrain sort. + +If our statesmen had little right to call upon Leopold to expel James, +they had of course every reason to be vigilant. And they do not appear to +have failed often in that duty. To be quite fair, James's followers, on +the whole, made the task pretty easy for them. They were always plotting, +but at the same time also always letting out their secret--a tippler +talking in his cups; an officer confiding intelligence to his sweetheart; +a bungling conspirator boasting in very big words. Long before October, +1715, when the great "invasion" at length took place, we have references +to some intended move. All is promptly reported to England, and to Paris, +where, after his arrival at his post, Stair, when not engaged in smuggling +goods for his friends,--"_poil de chèvre_ stockings of different colours +of grey, and long enough of the feet and legs" for the Duke of Argyll, +besides knives, spoons, and forks of the St. Cloud pattern, all with +"chiney" handles to them; a "bodyes," a "monto," and a "peticoate" for +Lady Harriet Godolphin, to oblige the Duchess of Marlborough; moreover, +silk gowns for the Countess of Loudoun--spares neither pains nor money to +obtain the very best and most prompt intelligence. On the whole, he is +admirably served, though occasionally he finds himself on a wrong scent, +and even at the critical time, notwithstanding Mrs. Strickland's statement +as to Mademoiselle du Châtelet's jealous peaching, it seems as if +Bolingbroke were after all right, and our Ambassador had been put upon the +right tack too late. + +At length, after much posting backwards and forwards of trusted but +untrustworthy messengers and confidants, after more than one false alarm, +and one very provoking act of treachery (on the part of a bankrupt +banker), after much dissuasion from the Duke of Lorraine, who seems to +have exhausted all his powers of reasonable argument in vain, after +stealthy visits said to have been paid by Bolingbroke and Ormonde to Bar, +and by Mar to Commercy, the great move takes place. To the end Leopold +appears to have considered James's recall by the spontaneous act of the +English nation a probable contingency. Now he warns him that a Hanoverian +king on the English throne will play his game far more effectually than he +himself possibly can by taking up arms--that, in the face of the +unpopularity which the foreign ruler is sure to bring upon himself, if +left alone, James will, by raising the flag of rebellion, only be cutting +his own throat. However, James will pay no heed. Learning prudence, at any +rate, as the time for action draws nearer, both the Chevalier and his +friends grow close and uncommunicative, so as to extract complaints even +from D'Audriffet, who, having been previously let into all the harmless +little secrets of the plot at first hand, now finds himself reduced to +coaxing intelligence out of "_une personne attachée au Chevalier de St. +Georges, qui est de mes amies_." However, in October, just before the +departure actually takes place, Leopold confides to him that James has +expressed himself resolved to take his fortune into his own hand. He has +been advised from England and Scotland that circumstances will never be +more favourable. If he misses this chance, he will have no other. "_C'est +tout gagner ou tout perdre._" + +At this time it is that James addresses to his friend Cardinal Gualterio +at Rome a curious "_Mémoire sur un Lit_," which seems worth recording. He +begs Gualterio to purchase, at once, as if for himself, "_un grand bois de +lit à la francoise propre à coucher deux personnes, avec un dossier, mais +point des pilliers. Le fond du lit de bon coutil--renforcé avec sangles_." +Also, "_deux bons mattelas de bonne laine d'Ang{re.} proportionnés à la +grandeur du lit_." His Eminence, James adds, will easily guess the purpose +for which the bed is designed--a purpose depending upon "_un certain cas +qu'on espere pouuoir arriver bientôt, mais qui doit etre tres secret +jusqu'a ce qu'il soit asseuré_." He adds that he wants "_ni couuertures, +ni tour de lit, ni ciel de lit, parcequ'on a tout cela ici_." The whole +thing reminds one of that famous musical armchair which was ordered on +behalf of Napoleon III., to be delivered at Berlin in 1870. + +The final escape of James was, on the whole, managed with secresy and some +skill, though things went a little untowardly. Stair, who was sparing no +pains to keep the Pretender watched to his every step, was a little +deceived, partly by that false information which Bolingbroke says that he +purposely gave him, partly by the equivocal bearing of the Regent and +Torcy, who were both secretly befriending the Chevalier. Certainly Stair +got his correct intelligence too late to be of much use, and so sent to +Château Thierry to have James seized after the bird had flown. Cadogan in +Brussels was better informed. He had stationed a "gentleman from +Mecklenburgh," M. de Pless, at Nancy, ostensibly to attend the Academy, +really to play the spy upon the Pretender. A letter from the Regent to +D'Audriffet shows that the object of his mission was perfectly understood +in the French capital. The news of the Chevalier's departure comes out +through the indiscretion of some one in the secret arriving from +Commercy--and immediately Pless takes formal leave of the Duke, and +hurries without a moment's delay off to Brussels, where Cadogan has a +courier ready, who, but for provokingly prolonged contrary winds, would +have reached England in excellent time. + +Finding the Chevalier's mind made up, Leopold, wishing to be kind to the +last, sends his _protégé_ as a parting gift, along with an affectionate +valedictory letter, the acceptable present of 27,000 louis in gold, which +James at once stows away in his private strong-box. This, we read, he was +in the habit of always carrying about with him, placing it under his bed +at night, and allowing no one to come near it. How he managed to transport +it when riding on horseback from St Malo to Dunkirk, we are not told. + +It is well known that James started from Commercy on the 28th of October, +1715, in disguise. But the precise manner of his escape is not generally +quite correctly related. It explains why, for a full fortnight after +James's disappearance, newspapers still go on reporting his supposed +doings in Lorraine. The escape was of course abetted by the Prince de +Vaudémont, who, to make it possible, invited a large company to Commercy +for the day appointed, to hunt in his forests. James went out to hunt, and +James apparently came back in the evening. But the James who returned was +not the James who had gone out with the Pretender, but a follower of his, +who bore a striking resemblance to his master, and had more than once been +mistaken for him. Who this gentleman was I have not been able to trace. +With this man James had exchanged clothes, unseen by any one, out in the +forest. And so, as the Duc de Villeroy writes to Madame de Maintenon (the +letter is in the Paris MSS), "_Il partit misterieusement de Commerci en +chaise roulante, vestu du violet en Ecclesiastique, avec un petit colet, +malgré la vigilance des Espions, sans qu'ils ayent pû auoir ni vent ni +nouvelles de son depart, que deux ou trois jours après sa sortie_." The +Pretender pursued his journey, carefully avoiding highroads, reaching +Peterhead safely in the end, though only after much travelling backwards +and forwards, taking pains to elude Stair's spies, who were placed at all +important points. At Nonancourt he narrowly missed being caught, as we +know, by Captain Douglas and two other emissaries, evidently what Bunyan +calls "ill-favoured ones." For the impression became general in +France--over which the editor of 'The Annals of the Earls of Stair,' Mr +Murray Graham, grows exceedingly indignant--that these men were assassins +retained to destroy the Pretender by Lord Stair, whose passports they +carried, and who promptly came to their rescue when they were brought +before the Grand Prévôt de la Haute Normandie. Very probably they looked +cut-throats. One of them was armed. And as cut-throats, not spies, the +_maîtresse de la poste_ cautioned James against them, helping him off, to +save his life, in a disguise and with a guide provided by herself. As +supposed cut-throats they were seized by the police, and as cut-throats +they were brought before the judge. Stair's interference probably it was +that saved their lives. But all his explanations and all his protestations +could not for a long time remove from the mind of the French people the +impression that the men were assassins. The Regent, we hear, released them +without inquiry, simply to avoid scandal. + +How the Pretender's enterprise ended we all know. He does not appear to +have been particularly attentive to his late host, the Duke of Lorraine. +On the 24th of October he sent him a formal farewell; but on the 7th +November we have the Duke stating as a grievance that he is without news. +During November we find people in Paris growing remarkably confident. On +the 2d of December Lord Stair complains that "_les plus sages à la Cour_" +are just again beginning to treat the Chevalier as Pretender. Until two +days before he was "King of England" to every one in Paris, "_et tout le +monde avoit levé le masque_." There was not a single Frenchman, having any +connection with the Court, who so much as set foot in Stair's house. +Everybody thought that the Stuart cause was about to triumph. But the 11th +of January, 1716, saw James back at Gravelines, "_d'où il repassa en +Lorraine_," say the MSS. in the _Archives Nationales_. Mrs Strickland will +have it that he went to Paris, where Bollingbroke advised him to go +straight into Lorraine, without first asking leave of the Duke--which +advice he did not follow. Independent Lorrain sources state that he passed +through Lorraine, "_courant la poste a 9 chevaux_." As he had left all his +goods and chattels at Bar-le-Duc, that seems the more likely version. +Before his departure Duke Leopold had assured the Pretender that his +dominions would always be open to him, and that he "_pourroit compter sur +luy en tout ce qui en pourroit dependre_." In March, however, under +altered circumstances, we find him advising Queen Mary Beatrice "for the +second time," that he cannot again receive her son into his duchy. The +Pretender himself seems to have taken the first warning. For we read in +the 'Gazette de Hollande' that his _Domestiques et Equipages_ were removed +from Bar to Paris in February. According to M. Konarski (I have not +verified the entry in the archives, but it is doubtless correct) James +left Bar on the 9th of February, "_sans adresser ses remerciments et ses +adieux au duc Leopold_," says Noel; "_comme un escroc vulgaire_," says M. +Konarski. "_Ne se contentant pas de largent que Léopold lui donnait il +emprunta des sommes assez fortes aux seigneurs et partit sans les +rembourser._" The sum of 15,000 francs paid to his friend M. de +Bassompierre, which appears in the official accounts, is only one such +debt. "_Cette ingratitude de la part du Chevalier de Saint Georges_," adds +Noel, "_indignait toute la Cour_." People spoke to Leopold about it. +"Gentlemen," said the Duke, "you forget that this Prince is in misfortune, +and that he was a king." On another occasion he remarked to M. +Bardin:--"He has done me justice; he has thought that I have simply +performed my duty in assisting an unfortunate." + +If the direct benefits which the hospitality extended to James brought to +Lorraine were less than nil, the indirect were scarcely more valuable. No +doubt, the Pretender having set the example, not a few Roman Catholics +from the United Kingdom, so Noel relates, sought the same hospitable +refuge. Others came--among them both Noel and Marchal name the elder +Pitt--to take advantage of the new Academy opened by Leopold, and rapidly +blossoming into greatness under such distinguished masters as Duval and +Vayringe. Some of these men brought plenty of money with them, and their +liberal fees went to swell acceptably the new professors' receipts. But +the number of impecunious persons, more particularly Irish, who flowed to +the Lorrain Court to prey upon Leopold's generosity, seems to have been +even larger. "_Nous regorgeons d'Irlandais_," writes the Duke's friend +Bardin in 1719--_Irlandais_ who evidently boasted but little money and +less gratitude. Bardin complains of an exceptionally bad case of the +latter sort. Leopold mildly replies. "I helped him, not for his sake, but +for my own." + + * * * * * + +In 1749, when the Duc fainéant, Stanislas Leszinski, "_simple gentilhomme +lithuanien_," was holding his gay little Court at Lunéville, with Voltaire +and Madame du Châtelet to lend brilliancy to it, and Madame de Boufflers +to preside as elderly Venus, we read that the whole company were deeply +touched when the great French writer, as was his wont, read out aloud his +just completed chapter on the Stuarts, in the 'Siècle de Louis XV.' +Everybody had a regret for the hardly used dynasty. Scarcely had Voltaire +closed his book, when in rushed a messenger, bringing the tidings that +James's son, Charles Edward, doubly an exile after the failure of his +rebellion of 1745, had, on the demand of the English Government, been +seized at Paris on leaving the Opera. "Oh heaven!" exclaimed Voltaire, +"is it possible that the king can suffer such an indignity, and that his +glory can have been tarnished by a stain which all the water of the Seine +will not wash away!" The whole company was moved. Voltaire retired +gloomily into his own room, threw down his MS. into a corner, and did not +take the work up again till he found himself amid the more prosaic +surroundings of Berlin. Very shortly after Charles Edward himself knocked +at Stanislas' door. What he did during the nearly three years that he was +a refugee at Lunéville, it seems impossible to ascertain. The French State +Papers are silent--at Lunéville not a tradition has survived. His doings +evidently were not considered worth recording. The drama of Stuart +kingship was played out. The dream had come to an end. And so Courts grew +cold. + + * * * * * + +A fate not so very dissimilar--except for one brilliant saving +incident--awaited those very Dukes who had shown hospitality so freely to +the Stuarts. The Stuart Pretendership and the Lorrain Dukedom came to an +end at pretty nearly the same time. Hanover elbowed out the one, France +the other. The Stuarts went down for good. The Lorrains found themselves +transplanted to Vienna, and crowned with the Imperial diadem. They brought +their new country good qualities and manners insuring popularity. But they +brought it no luck. For once the old Austrian distich spoke wrong:-- + + "Bella gerunt alii, tu, felix Austria, nube! + Nam quae Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus." + +Under the Lorrain Emperors came the Seven Years' War, which lost Austria +Silesia; the Napoleonic wars, which lost much territory in the west; +1859, which lost part of her Italian possessions; 1866, which tore away +the rest, and, moreover, turned Austria out of Germany. But the Lorrain +Emperors have not forgotten their old virtue of hospitality. It may seem a +strange whim of fate that at the present time the principal among those +dispossessed sovereigns and unrecognised Pretenders who have flocked for +protection under the hospitable "Double Cross," now carried back almost to +its Eastern birthplace, should be the direct descendant and +representative, six generations down, of the relentless and troublesome +rival of that same Stuart James, whom, with not a little risk and cost to +himself, the last really Lorrain Duke generously sheltered in the years +from 1713 to 1716. + + + + +II.--RICHARD DE LA POLE, "WHITE ROSE."[4] + + +English visitors at Metz--there ought to be more, for there is not a +little that is interesting to be seen in and around the old imperial +city--are likely to have pointed out to them some venerable house or +other, which, their guides will tell them, was nearly four hundred years +ago the residence of a great English noble, a pretender to the crown, and +the terror of Henry VIII.--the "Duke of Suffolk." Some guides may even +style him "The King of England," since their distinguished townsman, +Philippe de Vigneulles, gives him that title. In all probability the house +shown will be the wrong one. For there is a great deal of loose and +inaccurate archæology prevalent in these parts, and one old house is very +apt to be confounded with another. I myself have had a leading French +archæologist in Metz indicating to me an old Merovingian palace--highly +interesting, to be sure--as the "Duc de Sciffort's" quarters. Once the +building was plainly ancient, the trifling difference of eight hundred or +a thousand years in the several dates made no odds to him. With the kind +assistance, however, of the present archivist, Dr. Wolfram, my friend M. +des Robert and the help of some old documents preserved in the local +library--which in spite of repeated pilferings for the enrichment of +Paris, still contains many valuable old manuscripts, I have been able +pretty clearly to trace the movements in Metz of our distinguished +countryman--who was indeed a claimant to the English crown, and over whose +death in the battle of Pavia, in 1525, Henry VIII. exulted with such +exuberance of gratitude to Providence, that he ordered a second public +thanksgiving to be held "with great joy" on the 16th of March, the triumph +proper for the victory of Pavia having--somewhat rashly, as it afterwards +turned out--been celebrated on the 9th day of that month. + +The story of this Englishman's exploits abroad affords some features of +interest. It is a rather curious tale of adventure, love and war, strange +escapades, intrigues, and ambition. And it may be worth telling, because I +find that in English historical writings there is a gaping hiatus on the +subject--which is not a little remarkable. For, considering what an +ever-present weight Richard evidently was on the minds of the two last +Henrys, to what all but incredible lengths those kings carried their +unscrupulous persecution of him--how they offered bribes to kings to +deliver him up, and to meaner men to assassinate him--how not a treaty was +proposed to foreign potentates but contained a special clause forbidding +the harbouring of this dangerous character--one might have supposed that +our chroniclers of the time would have deemed it expedient to tell +posterity something about him. Their silence is explained by a strange +want of materials. So little turns out to have been known in this country +about the great marpeace, that Mr. Burton, in his 'History of Scotland,' +actually assigns to him the wrong christian name, calling him "Reginald." +Mr Gairdner in his interesting preface to one of the volumes of +'Chronicles and Memorials' goes at some length into the history of +Richard's brother Edmund. What became of Richard himself--except that he +fell at Pavia--he confesses that he "cannot trace at all accurately." +Napier in his 'Notices of Swyncombe and Ewelme' supplies fuller +information than any other English writer. But he, too, is evidently at +fault for materials. It is practically only foreign sources, very little +studied in this country, to which we have to look for information on the +subject of how "White Rose" employed the time of his exile, be it +self-imposed or involuntary, which made up the main portion of his life. + +The chief of such writers is Philippe de Vigneulles, a contemporary of +Richard's, and a citizen of Metz, who has left rather curious and pretty +full memoirs written in that strange-sounding, uncouth Lorrain French, +which was at his time spoken at Metz. The original manuscript, formerly in +the possession of Count Emmery, was some time ago purchased at a sale by +M. Prost, the well-known Lorrain archæologist. From it M. des Robert, +another well-known writer, specifically connected with the ancient city of +Metz--which only patriotic considerations have led him to desert--has +drawn the information which some years ago he incorporated in a little +monograph. Even this monograph leaves some gaps. And the author falls into +one or two odd mistakes--which are no doubt excusable in a foreigner. For +instance, he confounds the "rebel and traitor" Richard de la Pole with one +of the most faithful followers of the Tudor kings, Sir Richard Pole, of +Lordington, in ascribing to his hero, first, the office of Chamberlain to +Prince Arthur, and later on the fatherhood of Reginald Pole the cardinal. +But his pamphlet is decidedly useful, as supplying clues, which I have +been able to follow up successfully on the spot. + +Richard de la Pole was the last member of a family which, within the space +of about a century of strange vicissitudes, ran through all the stages of +rapid rise, almost to the height of the throne, and no less sudden, +humiliating descent, to attainder, execution, confiscation, and dishonour. +I cannot stop here to tell their history at length. Genealogists have been +careful to point out that the French prefix _de la_ proves no Norman +descent. There is no "de la Pole," nor any name resembling it, to be met +with in the Battle Roll. The De la Poles' origin was, in fact, so humble, +that their first distinguished member, Michael, the prosperous +merchant--to whom his native town, Hull, raised a monument in +1871--afterwards Lord Chancellor of England and Knight of the Garter, is +described in Camden as "basely born." His "base birth," it is true, has +been disproved. But that only makes a difference of two or three +generations. When Richard and his brothers came into the world, the family +had had five generations of titled distinction and notoriety--partly of +honour and partly of disgrace. Only one Suffolk of this +creation--Richard's father--seems to have died at home and in his bed. And +even his death was caused by "grief for the ruin of his family." The Lord +Chancellor expired almost exactly a century before of "a broken heart" in +exile. His son fell a victim to "dissentery" before Harfleur. The next +Earl was honourably killed at Agincourt. His son, again, the "Duke of +Suffolk" denounced in early ballads, lived to disgrace that dukedom which +he had first obtained, and to die by lynch law under the form of a trial, +for having had a hand in the murder of Humphrey, the "good" Duke of +Gloucester, and in the surrender of Normandy and Aquitaine to France. This +"bad" Duke's son rose once more to high distinction. King Edward IV. +actually conferred upon him the hand of his sister Elizabeth; and Richard +III., on the death of his own only son, appointed his eldest son +John--created Earl of Lincoln--next heir to the throne. That appointment +proved in after-time a rather questionable boon to the family. For it +involved both John and his brothers in perils, and intrigues, and +persecution. The Earl of Lincoln fell in the battle of Stoke, fighting for +Simnel, the pretending Earl of Warwick, and by his treason and disgrace +caused the death of his father. Of course his estates and titles were held +to be forfeited. That forfeiture notwithstanding, the Earl of Lincoln's +next brother was admitted to some part of the succession, both of estate +and of title, by amicable arrangement with King Henry VII. These peerage +cases were dealt with in those days in a very different manner from what +they are now, as appears from the fact, that only some eight years +previously, in Edward IV.'s reign, the De la Poles' rather distant cousin, +the then Duke of Bedford--a Neville, not a Russell--had been deprived of +his peerage by Act of Parliament on the score of poverty. + +Edmund de la Pole bargained with Henry VII., and recovered part of his +brother's possessions and also the humbler of his titles in the peerage, +by sacrificing the higher. He was admitted to the peerage as "Earl of +Suffolk." Notwithstanding his renunciation, he, later on, when in exile, +again claimed the dukedom. Edmund had in his youth been reported by the +University of Oxford in a letter addressed to his uncle, King Edward IV., +"a penetrating, eloquent, and brilliant genius"--anything but which he +proved himself to be. His letters read like the writing of a man of very +poor education, even judged by the standard of those unlettered days. And +at Court he played his cards so unskilfully, that he soon became, from a +rather petted hanger-on, a declared "rebel and traitor," persecuted with +all the unrelenting meanness and malice that the two first Tudor +kings--the first, at any rate, not feeling very secure on his throne--were +masters of. That almost necessarily involved his younger brother Richard +in a like fate--which Richard did nothing to evade. Edmund, we read, had +the misfortune to kill a "mean" person, whom he presumed to chastise for +insulting him. For this he was brought before the King's Bench and +adjudged guilty. The king readily granted a pardon. But the Earl took the +indignity of his mere trial so much to heart, that he very unwisely fled +die country. People said that he had taken refuge at the Court of his aunt +Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, which was then notoriously the +gathering-place of malcontent Yorkists. This turned out incorrect. But the +rumour may have helped to prejudice Henry against him. Edmund returned +home for Prince Arthur's wedding in 1501, and appears to have been at +pains to make his loyalty know, and to have been outwardly well received. +But almost immediately afterwards he ran away a second time. And as he +forthwith proclaimed himself a pretender to the throne, and obtained from +the Emperor Maximilian a promise of material help--the loan of 4000 of his +troops, wherewith to make good his pretention--it is not surprising that +Henry should have set all his ample apparatus of crafty persecution at +work against a man become so dangerous a foe. But it is surprising to find +him stooping so very low in his recourse to dirty expedients. The State +Papers show that bribes were offered all round--to the Emperor, to the +King of France, Louis XII., to Philip of Castile and Burgundy--as much as +twelve thousand crowns in gold--for Edmund's surrender or despatch. At +length, in 1506, Fortune put Philip into Henry's power--a storm driving +him on our coast. And Henry meanly took advantage of that opportunity to +extort from the Spaniard an undertaking to surrender Edmund--then detained +at Namur--agreeing, in return, to Philip's stipulation, that the +prisoner's life should be spared. That promise he kept to the letter. +Edmund was detained in the Tower until Henry's death--and then executed on +Tower Hill by Henry VIII., in obedience to a direction set down with +incredible rancour in his father's will. Dugdale suggests that, Edmund +being so popular as a pretender, Henry VIII. did not like to leave the +kingdom for a war projected in France, with his rival remaining in England +alive. Another report says, that he was beheaded on the ground of +correspondence proved to have taken place between himself and his brother, +then a general in the French army. + +Richard had taken service under the King of France as early as 1492. +Charles VIII. detecting in him even then that brilliant capacity which +made him in after-life one of the foremost generals of his day, intrusted +to him the command of 6000 _lansquenets_, at whose head he mastered the +difficult but valuable art of maintaining discipline among a most unruly, +but at the same time most serviceable host, and qualified himself for that +peculiar kind of warfare in which he subsequently gathered splendid +laurels. By this early favour Charles linked to his Court an officer who, +as Gaillard says, became one of "_cette pleiade de grands Capitaines qui +illustrèrent les règnes de Louis XII. et François I., et portèrent si haut +l'honneur de nos armes--Bayard, la Palisse, la Trémouille, duc de +Gueldres, Robert de la Marck_ [better known as Fleurange, "Le Jeune +Aventureux"], _et la famille de Rohan_." Of all these famous +captains--and, moreover, of Francis of Angoulême himself--Richard was a +comrade-in-arms and familiar friend. And nobody seemed to be able to +manage the wild and "_indociles_" mercenaries, who were ready to place +themselves at the service of any sovereign who would pay them, like +himself. Dreaded foes--and to the people scarcely less dreaded +allies--were those "bandes noires" of Northern Germany, who, like the +modern Prussians, bore on their banner the colours of black and white. +Before Pampeluna--of gloomy memory--they mutinied even against Bayard, +"striking"--according to the most approved notions of nineteenth-century +trades-unionism--at the most critical juncture for the concession of +double pay. Bayard and Suffolk between them, however, soon reduced them to +obedience. Brantôme relates that it was said of the _lansquenets_ that +after St. Peter had refused them entrance into heaven, their troubled +souls could not even obtain admission into hell. The very devils were +afraid of this wild company. With these rough warriors did Richard fight +his battles, and fought them so well, that there was not one of the three +French kings whom he served, who did not feel moved to reward his services +with a substantial pension, in addition to his open thanks. Ever foremost +in battle, Richard's company "receveyd," as John Stile reports to Henry +VIII., "most hurte and los of men then any other of that party." And on +that fateful day which cost Richard his life, and Francis I. "_tout fors +l'honneur_," the king declared that, if all his troops had but done their +duty like Richard's _lansquenets_, the victory would have been his. +Francis was especially beholden to these rough soldiers, because, by +winning for him the battle of Marignano, when his crown was still young +and unsettled upon his head, they raised him to high prestige, and +completely altered his position in Europe. "_Ce gros garçon gâtera tout_," +Louis XII. had said--leaving 1800 livres of debts for the "_gros garçon_" +to pay. The prediction proved wrong. + +When Richard de la Pole took service under Charles VIII., his father was +recently dead "of grief," and his family were under a cloud, owing to +Lincoln's rising in 1487. The "affable" king was much pleased with his +captain, and after the siege of Boulogne assigned to him a pension of 7000 +_écus_. At the conclusion of the treaty of Etaples, Henry VII. began his +shabby course of persecution against Richard, from which he and his son +never desisted while Richard was alive, demanding from Charles the +surrender of his foe. Charles, however, flatly refused the demand. King +Charles's pension, it is sadly to be feared, lapsed with his life in 1498; +for in 1505, and thereabouts, we find Richard in absolute +destitution--left, indeed, in pawn by his brother Edmund for that +brother's debts with the citizens of Aix-la-Chapelle. (Sir Henry Ellis, +with a little too much knowledge of German geography, places Richard at +"Aken on the Elbe." It is, however, perfectly clear that the place of his +detention was Aachen--that is, what we generally call Aix-la-Chapelle, but +for which both Edmund and Richard adopted various fancy spellings, as, +indeed, they did for most of their words, from the simple article upward.) + +As Richard's fate is so closely bound up with Edmund's, it may be +convenient to review at one rapid glance the fortunes of that poor +nobleman after his flight in 1501. He first repaired to Imst, in the +Tyrol, to seek help from the Emperor Maximilian. The Emperor Maximilian +gave him ample encouragement, drew up an agreement, kept his confidential +agent as representative at his own Court, and sent him with letters of +recommendation to Aix-la-Chapelle, where, hoping to obtain further +succour, Edmund managed to outrun the constable, and was fain to leave his +brother as pledge. In spring 1502 it was proposed that Edmund, to make +good his claim, should land in England from Denmark. In that same year, +however, Henry talked over the Emperor, and concluded a treaty with him, +by which Maximilian bound himself not to allow any English rebels to +reside in his dominions, "even though they be of the rank of dukes." That +was, there can be no doubt, specially aimed at Edmund and Richard. Edmund +now despaired of help in the quarter appealed to, and transferred his +attentions to the Court of the Count Palatine. In 1504 he entered +Guelders, with a view to proceeding to Frisia and obtaining pecuniary +assistance--so he writes to his pawned brother at Aachen--from Duke George +of Saxony. The Duke of Guelders, greedy to secure--as Archduke Philip, his +cousin, writes to Henry--the reward which he is likely to receive from +Henry, plays the traitor and enters into an intrigue with Philip of +Burgundy--it is always the same Philip--who eventually "interns" Edmund at +Namur. + +Poor Richard was in sore straits all the time. "Here I ly," he writes to +his brother in very curious English, "in gret peyne and pouerte for your +Grace, and no manner of comffort I have of your Grace.... Sir, be my +trothe ye dele ffery hardly with me." "Sir," he writes again another time, +"I beseche your Grace, send me some what to help me with all." He reports +that--while Edmund was at Namur--the indignant "bourgoys of Aix" have sent +a deputation to Philip to see what redress they could obtain. And coming +back empty-handed they had denounced Edmund to Richard as "_le pluis false +homme que oncques fuyt de sa parole_," and threatened to expose him at all +the courts of Europe. At the same time Richard is made uncomfortable by +the fact that he knows that Henry has offered the burgesses of Aix +bribes--as much as 5000 crowns in gold--if they will deliver him "three +lieuwes out of the town of Aix"--"and he will pay them," he significantly +adds. + +From Namur, Edmund, with a mixture of rather too ingenuous prudence and +folly, as a last shift, offers a reconciliation to Henry, but fixes his +own terms exorbitantly high. This offer, as has been already related, +sealed his doom. He died by the executioner in 1513. + +His death left Richard the more or less recognised "White Rose" claimant +to the throne of England. (What became of his two elder brothers, Humphrey +and Edward--both of whom took orders, and one of whom was Archdeacon of +Richmond--we are not told.) Somehow or other he had managed to get away +from Aix in 1506. For in that year we find the Emperor reporting to Henry +that he had seized the French "orators," who had proceeded to Hungary by +way of Venice. He had looked out, as desired, for Richard, but had not +been able to find him among the company. In April, 1507, however, Richard +writes, dating his letter "Budae," to the Bishop of Liége--one of the De +la Marcks with whom at Metz he was to become intimate--in Latin, which is +very much better than his English, though that is not saying much. + +King Henry having, in 1509, given proofs of his peculiar goodwill towards +the De la Poles, by excepting them in distinct terms from a general +pardon, we cannot be surprised to learn that Richard--"Blanche Rose" they +called him in France--had grown busy scheming against his sovereign. Louis +XII. was then at war with Henry, and it served Louis's purpose to turn to +account the "_instrument de trouble que le roi dans l'occassion pouvait +faire agir en Angleterre--une étincelle qui pouvait y rallumer les +anciennes incendies_." In 1512 we have John Stile reporting to Henry, that +"your sayd rebel was mayde a Capytan of the Almaynys that went you to +Navar, where many of the Almaynys now of late be slayne." "The Almaynys" +were Richard's _lansquenets_, who indeed suffered great "hurte and los" in +that ill-starred campaign. Richard fought there side by side with Bayard, +and half starved with him on bread made of millet; and though their defeat +meant disaster to the King of Navarre, the army were not altogether sorry +to be called back to Artois, invaded by the English. Richard's command of +the "French fleet for a rising in England," recorded by Peter Martyr, was +probably only of brief duration. For we find him again at the head of his +6000 _lansquenets_ at Therouenne, besieged by the English, and taking part +in the inglorious "battle of the Spurs"--so named because the French, +taken by surprise while riding, not their war-horses, but their +"hackneys," trusted more to their spurs than to their swords. That day of +Guinegate helped to bring peace to England and France--and to send Richard +to Metz. The Duc de Longueville, taken prisoner on that day, turned his +captivity to account for negotiating a treaty of peace--one condition of +which was that the Princess Mary, Henry VIII.'s sister, should be married +to the all but dying Louis XII.--as the clerics of the Basoche said, "_Une +hacquenée pour le porter bientost et plus doucement en enfer ou en +paradis_." Another condition was, that Richard should be given up. To this +Louis would not agree, but answered in almost the same terms which his +cousin had used, "_Qu'il aimait mieux perdre tout ce qu'il possédait que +de le conserver en violant l'hospitalité_." Some people say that this was +mere bounce. But it had its effect. + +A compromise was arranged, in pursuance of which Richard was banished to +Metz. That was rather a cool proceeding on the part of the two monarchs, +considering that Metz was then a city of the Empire, in no sort of +dependence upon either Henry or Louis. The thirteen Jurats of Metz were +accordingly a little taken aback when they received Louis's letter to +"_mes bons amis_," begging that his _protégé_ might be "_bien reçu et bien +advenu_"--as well they might, in view of the treaty concluded between +England and their master, the Emperor, in 1502, with special reference to +this self-styled "duke." However, they got over the difficulty by granting +Richard a _laissezpasser_ for eight days, to be indefinitely renewed, +while that should prove practicable. So De la Pole went to Metz, England +and France got their peace for a time, and Mary--"_bien polie, mignoinne, +gente et belle_" as she was--married Louis, "_fort gouteux vies et +caducque_," as a brief prelude to her clandestine marriage with the new +Duke of Suffolk, Brandon. + +On the 2d of September, 1514, one Saturday, we read in Vigneulles, +"Blanche Rose" entered Metz, escorted by sixty "_chevaliers_," several +French "_gentilhommes_," and a guard of honour furnished by the Duke of +Lorraine, René II. That was making his entry in good style; and such +style, on the whole, he managed to maintain whilst in Metz. It is true +that at times he was very short of money, and paid his servants, dressed +"in grey and blue," their wages most irregularly; and that even his +chaplain could wring his "wages" from him only "a crown at a time." But +that was because, what with keeping open house, and entertaining the +_honoratiores_ of Metz, betting, gambling, and making love to other men's +wives, "the Duke" spent his money faster than he got it. King Louis had +allowed him a pension of 6000 _écus_ per annum. King Francis made very +much of him, and from time to time "augmented his stipend." The Messins, +always inclined to hospitality, took delight in honouring their guest, +whose chivalrous manners and easy amiability made him popular. And they +never ceased to look upon him as "_le vray héritier d'Angleterre qui +devoit mieulx estre roy que celui qui l'estoit_." + +Metz was then in a semi-independent state, which, in the present day, it +is interesting to study. Its nationality was German, its language was a +curious sort of early French. Its sympathies were French, too. Its +seigneurs served in the French army; and at the famous "sacres" of French +kings, representatives of the leading families of Metz--the Serrières, the +Gournays, the De Heus, the Baudoches, &c.--attended, and considered it an +honour to be dubbed knights. To complete the mixture of nationalities, the +city was surrounded by Lorraine, then an independent dukedom. The +government of the city was in principle the same as that of other great +German free towns--Strassburg, Bâle, Cologne, Mayence, &c. There was +nothing at all similar in France. It was divided into six (originally only +five) "paraiges." Its head was a _maître échevin_, at that time appointed +afresh every year. It was administered by a council of thirteen Jurats, +representing, for the most part, the patrician families. From the judgment +of the Thirteen there was no appeal. The larger Council consisted of the +Thirteen, with the addition of an indefinite number of "prudhommes" or +"wardours"; and for purposes of taxation and similar business, the whole +mass of citizens were called together. There were, moreover, standing +committees of seven each, appointed to deal severally with matters of war, +gates and walls, the collection of taxes, the treasury, and paving. There +were also three mayors under the _maître échevin_ and a number of "amans" +or amanuenses, answering to modern notaries. The whole city was a +thoroughly self-contained little republic. + +Among these people Richard de la Pole had come to take up his abode. As a +welcome, the Thirteen presented him with two demi-cuves of wine, one red +the other "clairet," and, moreover, with twenty-five quarters of oats for +his horses. The question of housing so distinguished a guest presented +some difficulties. On the advice of Michel Chaverson, the _maître échevin_ +for the year, the Thirteen committed Richard to the care of Vigneulles, +the writer of the Memoirs, then already a citizen of note and substance. +For the first three nights he put Richard up at "la Court St Mairtin," +which was presumably near the Church of St Martin still existing. The +Duke of Lorraine's Guard were quartered in what was then the leading +hotel, "à l'Ange," which has now disappeared. Nothing suitable offering +for a longer residence, Vigneulles prevailed upon his fellow-citizen, +Chevalier Claude Baudoche, one of the foremost men in the place, and +"Seigneur of Moulins"--the prettily situated village or almost suburb +which you pass on your way to the battle-fields of 1870--to lend him for +an indefinite period his magnificent mansion called "Paisse Temps," +situated on the bank of one arm of the Moselle. The site may still easily +be traced. It adjoined the Abbey of St Vincent, of which the church still +stands--a beautiful church inside, though insignificant without. Its +architectural lines are perfect, and there is some fine stained glass from +the famous works of Champigneulles, of Metz, which were in 1875 removed to +Bar-le-Duc. The Baudoches were at that time a wealthy and highly +influential family in Metz. To-day, such is the instability of things +terrestrial, the city knows them no more. About fifty years ago, their +last remaining representative was a small watchmaker plying his trade in +an insignificant shop in the Rue Fournirue. Of the suitableness of the +house secured there could be no question; for in it Pierre Baudoche, +Claude's father, had entertained several crowned heads, including the +Emperor Maximilian. Here Richard found a lordly home, which he maintained +in a lordly style, receiving in turn all the leading personages of Metz +and dispensing a princely hospitality. + +On New Year's Day, 1515, precisely at midnight, Louis XII. died, not +twelve weeks after his marriage with Mary, who--rather uncomfortable under +the attentions paid her by Francis, French historians say--very soon left +the Court, to marry the new Duke of Suffolk. The "gros garçon" could not +keep quiet long. With an army including no less than 26,000 _lansquenets_ +he marched into Italy, to claim his succession to the Milanais, and won +the battle of Marignano. In this campaign Richard appears to have found no +employment, though his old corps, the _lansquenets_, covered themselves +with glory. The treaty with England, forbidding his employment in France, +was still too recent for him to be allowed to lend the aid of his sword. +Truth to tell, Henry gained mighty little by Richard's ostensible +inaction. Being at Metz, plotting and scheming, he made the king far more +uncomfortable than he could possibly have done had he been fighting at +Marignano. He was reported to be planning all sorts of enterprises. +Evidently he was much feared at home. Wolsey complains that malcontents +and men out of work threaten that they will join De la Pole and take part +in the impending invasion. On Henry's side it is all treachery and +scheming. Richard is to be waylaid, to be murdered, and so on. Lord +Worcester writes that he "knows of a gentleman who will take that matter +in hand." He is to be seized "when he goes into the field either to course +the hares or to see his horses" (_i.e._, to take exercise). The Emperor, +on the other hand, had grown so careless in the observance of his treaty +with England, that the Messins had plucked up courage formally to present +Richard with the freedom of their city. And a "paper of intelligence" to +the English Court describes him as "in his glory." + +In 1516 "Blanche Rose" could remain quiet no longer. He must see Francis, +and ask for military employment. So on the 22d February, without telling +any one a word, we find him mounting horse, taking with him only his cook +and a page, and trotting off to Paris, covering a hundred miles in +twenty-four hours. But there was no employment for him yet. He returned on +the 3rd of April. On Christmas Eve he repeats his ride, again secretly, +accompanied by the Duke of Guelders, who had come to Metz in disguise. He +returned, as he had come, in strict privacy, on the 17th February. After +his return Claude Baudoche found that he could no longer spare "Paisse +Temps," and politely turned out his guest. But he placed another house at +his disposal, which may still be seen, at the crossing of the Rue de +l'Esplanade and the Rue des Prisons Militaires (I give the French names, +having forgotten the German). In the old chronicles the house, previously +occupied by Jean or Jehan de Vy, is described as "_après le grant maison +de coste de St Esprit_." Just opposite it is the Church of St Martin, a +rather interesting building, exhibiting a curious medley of architectural +styles. A rather remarkable feature in the church is a row of curious +sculptures. "Blanche Rose's" house, dwindled terribly in size, and shorn +of its ancient splendour, though still exhibiting some small remnants of +former grandeur, such as zigzag mouldings and Gothic labels, directly +faces this church on one side, and on the other side a public building, +which is, if I recollect right, the military prison, and in front of which +a Prussian sentry paces solemnly up and down. + +At this house it was that Richard conceived the curious idea of treating +his fellow-burgesses to what must have infallibly endeared him to English +neighbours--namely, the spectacle of a horse-race. Such a thing as that +was, it appears, previously quite unknown in Metz. And accordingly it +occasioned not a little stir. Richard and "_aultres seigneurs_," we read, +were much given to exciting pastimes, including gambling and betting. And +Richard, being the owner of a horse of which--like other owners of +horses--he had an exceedingly high opinion, was rash enough one day to +offer a bet against any one who might maintain that within ten "_lues_" +round there was another horse running equally well. Nicolle Dex (whose +name was pronounced Desh) readily took the bet, offering, to run his own +horse against Richard's. All the particulars of the arrangements for the +race are minutely recorded by Vigneulles. The two men were to ride their +own horses. The course was to be from the Orme at Aubigny (a village five +miles from Metz) to the gate of the Abbey of St. Clement (which abbey was +destroyed in 1552, when the Duc de Guise held Metz against Charles V.). +The bet was for eighty "_escus d'or au solleil_," which was to be paid +beforehand to a stakeholder. The race came off on the appointed day, +Saturday the 2nd of May--the day on which "_l'awaine et le bacon_" were, +by regulation of the authorities, first sold. That would enable the +competitors to get easily out of the gate of St. Thibault--which was +conveniently near Richard's house, but which had to be opened on purpose. +The Chevalier Dex, with an amount of cunning of which Vigneulles does not +altogether approve, had for some days before subjected both himself and +his horse to preparatory treatment--"_dieu scet comment_." "_Comme il me +fut dit et certifié_," that treatment consisted in his drinking nothing +but white wine--which is the more sour of the two, and therefore is +supposed rather strongly to contract the human frame--and giving his horse +no hay whatever. Moreover, he had his horse shod with very light steel +shoes. And himself he made as light as possible, riding "_tout en +pourpoint, avec un petit bonnet en sa teste_," without shoes and without a +saddle, having merely a light saddle-cloth laid over the horse's back. +"Blanche Rose," however, rode in a saddle, and booted and spurred as for +ordinary exercise. When the signal was given, Vigneulles says, the +horsemen started with such terrible impetuosity that the bystanders +thought the earth was going to open under them. "Blanche Rose" kept the +lead most part of the way. But when the two reached St. Laidre--a +_léproserie_ near Montigny (the name of which still survives in a hamlet +situated between Montigny and Aubigny) famed for its asparagus and +fruit--Dex's artifices began to tell. Richard's horse was found to puff +and to pant, and could not keep pace with its rival. Nicolle outstripped +him. And though Richard spurred his horse till "_le cler sanc en sailloit +de tout cousté_," it availed him nothing. Nicolle, having husbanded his +horse's powers, came in first at the post. Richard was terribly annoyed, +but he "_ne dédaignait de risquer un peu de honte contre beaucoup de +plaisir_," like a good many other people. Very naturally, however, he +would have his revenge. So the next St. Clement's Day saw the two horses +running against one another once more; but it seems that their masters did +not this time act as their own jockeys. Ill luck would have it that +"Blanche Rose's" jockey, one of his pages, was thrown whilst riding, by +which mishap his master lost his bet a second time. After that he did not +tempt fortune again on the turf. + +A month after the first race, Richard made a second attempt to obtain a +command under Francis. Accompanied by several "_de nos jonnes seigneurs_," +he proceeded to Milan and other places in Italy. "_Dieu les conduie_," +piously ejaculates Vigneulles. They arrived, as it turned out, a day after +the fair. Peace had been concluded, and the _seigneurs_ returned to Metz +without having had occasion to draw their swords. + +In this year, Henry, through one of his emissaries, tempted Richard with a +proposal that he should endeavour to make his peace with the king, and +write him a letter in that sense. The king, explained Alamire, the +emissary in question, "had the character of being most clement." "So I +have heard," replied Richard, scenting the mischief; "and how well I +should stand with my present protector, the King of France, if King Henry +were to show him my letter!" + +In the following year Richard once more rode to Paris, seeking employment. +This time he was rewarded with a secret mission, on which he was sent into +Normandy. It was about this time that Giustiniani learnt from the legate, +Campeggio, that Francis favoured "Blanche Rose" more than ever, and Henry +and his ministers again began to feel acutely uncomfortable. They had +heard, so the State Papers show, that Francis and Richard were plotting +mischief: Francis was favouring the Duke of Albany and trying to stir up +disturbances in Scotland. There was a scheme on foot, Sir Richard +Jernegan reports, according to which the Duke of Albany was to sail from +Brittany to Scotland, "there to make business against the king," while +"Blanche Rose" was to invade England from Denmark, abetted by the king of +that country, and accompanied by that king's uncle, the Duke of Ulske; and +Monsieur de Bourbon and the Duke of Vendôme were at the same time to +besiege Tournay, which, in the peace of 1514, England had managed to +retain. We cannot be altogether surprised, knowing in what systematic +manner the Henrys persecuted the De la Poles, to learn that a man was said +to have been taken in Champagne, paid by Henry to kill Richard. Indeed the +thought of getting rid of Richard by assassination appears to have been +habitually uppermost in Henry's mind. + +However, the threatened invasion did not take place yet. Francis had other +work to turn his thoughts to. On the 12th of January, 1519, Emperor +Maximilian of Germany died, and the question arose, who was to be the next +Emperor. Charles, the youthful King of Spain, was a candidate, and Francis +of France resolved to enter the lists against him. He considered himself +to have a fair chance. He seems to have counted even on Henry's support; +but Henry, it turned out, cherished ill-founded hopes of being himself +elected, and fought in a half-hearted way for his own hand. Francis, +however, spared no pains in his canvass. He bribed and coaxed and promised +all round, and indeed only very narrowly missed the election. At the last +moment the Elector of Saxony left him in the lurch, just as, nearly three +centuries after, that Elector's successor failed Napoleon at Leipzig, +going over to the other side. But for that defection Francis would of a +surety have been elected Emperor. One of the promises which Francis had +rashly made, was this: "_Si je suis élu, trois ans après l'élection, je +jure que je serai à Constantinople ou je serai mort_." At the very last +stage of the proceedings he despatched Richard de la Pole as a +confidential envoy to Prague, where the Electoral College was sitting, to +further his candidature. In the National Library at Paris a manuscript +letter is still preserved containing the king's instructions. However, +Richard arrived too late. + +In the same year--1519--"Blanche Rose" found himself compelled to change +his quarters a second time. Claude Baudoche "_vouloit r'avoir ses +maisons_." The dean and chapter of Metz signalised their goodwill towards +the guest of their city by making over to him for life, at a nominal rent +of 10 _sols messins_ per annum, their old mansion, called "la Haulte +Pierre," occupying the commanding site on which now stands the Palais de +Justice. In all probability, the handsome esplanade now leading up to that +building did not at that time exist, nor yet perhaps the splendid terrace +facing the Moselle and St. Quentin. But at all times the situation must +have been unique. The reason why the house was let so cheap was, that it +was then in an utterly dilapidated condition, and the tenant undertook +thoroughly to repair it. He did better, as the chapter remembered to his +credit after his death. At a heavy cost--he spent 2000 gold florins upon +it in one year--he rebuilt it from top to bottom in magnificent style. +That mansion does not now survive. It was pulled down in 1776 to make +room for the present structure, more useful though less showy, in which +are housed the provincial law-courts. + +While still in "la Rue de la Grande Maison"--the Rue de +l'Esplanade--Richard de la Pole got entangled in a little love intrigue, +which caused a tremendous commotion in the town, and led him into serious +trouble. Metz was rather famed in those days for its goldsmiths. The Rue +Fournirue--still interesting--was full of them. One of these artisans, +named Nicolas Sébille, had a young wife, whom Vigneulles describes as +"_une des belles jonnes femmes, qui fut point en la cité de Metz, haulte, +droite et élancée et blanche comme la neige_." To this beautiful young +woman's heart Richard successfully laid siege. She came to see him at his +house, which was conveniently near. The conquest does not appear to have +cost him much persuasion. Evidently Madame Sébille was as hotly smitten +with him as he was with her. To be able to carry on his little amour with +the greater freedom, he gave the unsuspecting husband an order for some +very costly and elaborate goldsmith's work, necessitating one or two +journeys to Paris, the expense of which Richard was quite content to pay. +While the husband was away "_celle belle Sébille_" went "_aulcunes fois +bancqueter et faire la bonne chière en l'ostel du dit duc_," so much so +that the city began to talk. The duke, for the safety of his lady-love, +employed a certain hosier named Mangenat to escort her and watch the +streets. Mangenat was in one sense admirably fitted for this office--for +he was a stalwart bully, who soon became the terror of all the +neighbourhood. Like the German and French police in these days, he +suspected a spy or an enemy in every person he met, and struck and mauled +a good many harmless creatures. That caused additional scandal; and as +there was no police to maintain peace and order, the neighbours, after +complaining a good deal, took the law into their own hand, and one fine +night, early in September, turned out in force to lynch Mangenat. Richard +had by that time removed to "Haulte Pierre," and there was therefore a +considerable distance to cover between his house and the Rue Fournirue. +The neighbours were firmly resolved to turn Mangenat into a "_corps sans +âme_." Mangenat, however, managed to elude them. The neighbours then laid +their plaint before the Thirteen. Madame Sébille, fearing her husband's +wrath, resolutely packed up her clothes and jewels and other belongings, +and with them also her husband's money, and transferred herself with these +possessions to the "Haulte Pierre." This made matters still worse, +especially when Nicolas returned home and set a-clamouring for his money +and his wife. Watching for "Blanche Rose," he caught him one day in the +Rue Fournirue, and very nearly did for him. On Sunday, the 16th of +September, he demonstratively took up his position, fully armed with sword +and hallebarde, at the cathedral door, intending to knock Richard's life +out of him in the sacred place. Richard was warned, and wisely kept out of +the way. However, as Nicolas tried to raise a popular tumult, on the +ground that an outraged plebeian could obtain no legal redress from the +patrician court--"_l'aristocratie_," says M. des Robert, "_fut tout +puissante_"--the Thirteen could ignore the case no longer. With some +difficulty they persuaded "the duke" to let Madame Sébille go. He agreed +to this only on the distinct understanding that Nicolas "_ne lui_ [that +is, his wife] _ne reprochait en rien sa conduite, ni ne la baittroit, ni +ne lui diroit parole qui l'en puist desplaire, si non que leur débast ou +huttin vint pour aultre chose_." This undertaking having been given--by +the Thirteen--Madame Sébille was brought before the court under protection +of a strong armed escort, consisting of notable chevaliers. Of course +Nicolas would in no wise agree to the terms proposed. And so the +Thirteen--it is interesting to learn how these cases were dealt with in +those early days--kept his wife in their own charge, lodging her very +fitly in the council-room of the "Seven of War," and supplying her with +good food and drink at the expense of the town. Thereupon Nicolas, as he +could not obtain redress as a citizen of Metz, migrated to Thionville, +became a burgess of that town and then--as he was entitled to do in those +days--levied war in person on the man who had wronged him. He bribed "_Des +Allemans_" to waylay and kidnap or kill Richard, just as the two English +Henrys had done. Richard, being a little bit frightened, sought refuge in +the chateau of Ennery, belonging to Signor Nicolle de Heu. (This fact was +promptly reported to Henry.) Here, Vigneulles says, Richard meant to +"_passer mélancolie et passer son dueil_." However, Sébille's "_Allemans_" +found him out, and one day very nearly captured him. So "Blanche Rose" +thought it prudent to seek safer quarters. He found them at Toul. Nicolas +does not appear to have followed him so far, nor to have troubled himself +much further about his faithless wife. This put the Thirteen in a fix. +They had the lady on their hands, and were sorely puzzled what to do with +her. Nicolas would not have her on any account, and could not at +Thionville be made to take her; and restore her to Richard they in +propriety could not. After much deliberation, having detained her a full +fortnight at public expense, they cut the knot to their own satisfaction +by handing Madame Sébille over to her brother, one Gaudin, a butcher, who +was to take care of her. Gaudin gave her in charge to an old woman selling +wax candles. Madame Sébille was under strict injunction not to leave the +city. But who could expect her to observe that command? Anyhow, one fire +morning, pretending that she had a pilgrimage to perform to "St. Trottin," +she made her way outside the city gates disguised as a _vendangeresse_, +with a basket by her side and a sickle in her hand. Outside the walls she +was met by friends who at once put her into a page's clothes, in which, of +course, she marched as straight as she could to Toul, and joined "Blanche +Rose," to her swain's delight as well as her own. Richard had once more +"_ne dédaigné de risquer un peu de honte contre beaucoup de plaisir_." He +and his lady-love were now outside the jurisdiction of the Thirteen, and +might therefore consider themselves safe. But upon the abettors of the +lady's flight the magistrates visited their share in the offence with all +the greater rigour. Notwithstanding Richard's earnest interposition, they +heavily fined and banished them. Thus ends the story of Richard's amour; +for what became of Madame Sébille afterwards, neither history nor +tradition records. She was not allowed to enjoy the company of her knight +long; for stirring events were in train, which required his presence +elsewhere. + +In 1521 a powerful alliance of European States was formed against Francis +I., designed to humble the victor of Marignano. It comprised the Emperor, +the Pope, the King of England, Florence, Venice, and Genoa. In 1522 +England invaded Picardy and Flanders. That put an end to the treaty +engagements of 1514, and made Richard's services allowable as well as +needful to the French king. Indeed "Blanche Rose" did not wait to be +summoned. The State papers and other official publications of that period +relate how busy he was plotting against England and Scotland. King Francis +took a delight in parading his partiality for the Duke of Albany and the +"Duke of Suffolk." He rode in public with one of them on one side and one +on the other. He slapped Richard on the back and said in the hearing of +the Court: "My Lord of Suffolk, I will set you in England with 40,000 men +within few days." He proposed a marriage for Richard with the daughter of +the Duke of Holstein, and planned sundry invasions of England which, +happily, did not come off. But Richard joined the French army under Guise +and Vendôme, and fought against his countrymen in Picardy. There he raised +a corps of 2,000 men on his own authority, and led this welcome +reinforcement to Francis at St. Jean de Moustiers. In 1524 he accompanied +Albany into Scotland, without, however, doing much hurt. But he greatly +frightened Henry's officers. We find Fitzwilliam writing to Wolsey, urging +him, in face of "his wretched traitor" being in the field, to "hasten over +some men to give courage to the Flemings." + +Then came the campaign which led to the catastrophe of Pavia. Richard +joined the French army at Marseilles, and was, in company with Francis of +Lorraine, placed at the head of his old corps the German _lansquenets_, +who were delighted to fight under so practised and trusted a leader. They +were 6,000 at the beginning of the campaign, pitted against a larger +number of their own brethren under Frundsberg, in the Emperor's service. +On St. Matthias Day, in 1525, the battle of Pavia was fought, which lost +Francis his liberty. Francis, as usual, showed no want of dash, but a +lamentable lack of prudence. Mistaking the enemy's retreat, under the fire +of his guns, for a settled defeat, he sent his infantry after them, +placing the bulk of his army between the foe and his own artillery. The +allies were not slow to turn this false move to account. Charging back +upon their foes, they overwhelmed them with superior numbers. That lost +the French the day. Richard's _lansquenets_ did their best to retrieve the +error. Having knelt down, as their manner was, and thrown dust behind +them, they rushed, singing their familiar war-songs, into the fray with an +impetus which promised to break the hostile ranks. "Had but the Switzers +fought like the _lansquenets_," Francis said after the battle, "the day +would have been ours." But the odds were too many against them. They were +met by their own fellow-_lansquenets_--each side being furious with the +other. The German men were wroth at seeing their comrades on the other +side, fighting against their own country--the French at seeing their +brother-soldiers desert so faithful an employer as Francis. So no quarter +was given on either side. And the French _lansquenets_--they had lost +one-fourth of their number before the charge began--being wedged in +between a superior force of Germans closing in on either side, were simply +crushed as between two millstones. The list of killed was long--and +brilliant. Among the slain were the two captains of the _lansquenets_, +Francis of Lorraine and Richard de la Pole. The latter had--as a painting +preserved in the Ashmolean Museum indicates--died protecting Francis with +his sword. He was found buried under "_un monceau_" of dead enemies +against whom he had fought. There was loud rejoicing in the camp of the +allies. It was given out that "three kings" had been taken or +killed--Francis, the unfortunate King of Navarre, and, "to make up the +trinity of kings," says a despatch addressed to Wolsey, "La Rose Blanche, +whom they call the King of Scots." Appended to the curious despatch which +Frundsberg forwarded to the Emperor, giving a report of the battle--the +oldest record extant--is a drawing, showing three crowned knights, fancy +portraits of the "kings." + +One is prepared to find Henry VIII. ordering a triumph, and congratulating +himself upon his happy riddance from a rival who had been more of a thorn +in his side than the present generation is probably aware. But it does +seem small to read, in the State Papers, of one of Henry's tools begging +from Wolsey the king's authority for seizing "some goods of no great +amount" that Richard had left at Metz. + +The French were far more chivalrous in their treatment of the dead +warrior. We read in Camden that "for his singular valour" his very enemy, +the Duke of Bourbon, "honoured his remains with splendid obsequies, and +attended in person as one of the chief mourners." Francis expressed his +attachment to the fallen, and his indebtedness to him for brilliant +services. "_La France_," says Gaillard, "_perdit en lui un allié utile, +qui la servit efficacement et sans rien exiger d'elle_." Considering that +he was an English subject, that may sound questionable praise. But though +he may have shown too great willingness to avail himself of the excuse, it +should be borne in mind that it was England's kings who first drove him +into treason. + +The chapter of Metz, grateful for Richard's liberality, passed the +following "resolution"--as we should say--founding a mass for the repose +of their benefactor's soul: "Aprilis anno Domini 1525 in conflictu apud +Paviensem civitatem quo tunc Franciscus Gallorum rex per exercitum +Romanorum imperatoris captus et Hispaniam captivus ductus extituit, +habito, obiit quondam illuster Richardus dux de Suffolk qui domum nostram +dictam à la Haute Pierre sibi ante per nos ad vitam locatam obtinens valde +somptuose restauravit, unde statuimus nunc anniversarium quotannum +Ecclesiâ nostrâ pro salute animæ suæ perpetuo celebrari." + +That mass ought, of course, to be read still. However, deans and chapters +have as little respect for "pious founders"--though these be their own +predecessors--as British Parliaments in democratic days. Consequently, the +ecclesiastical function has long since been discontinued. + +Apart from Richard's death, Henry did not find himself much of a gainer by +the victory of Pavia. He had contributed nothing directly to the battle, +and Charles V. accordingly would concede him none of the spoils. On the +contrary, grasping monarch that he was, under cover of a marriage-portion +to be given to Henry's daughter, he asked for a subsidy of 600,000 ducats. +We need not be surprised to find Henry shortly after concluding a treaty +with France, which secured him two millions of crowns. + +One more notice we have of Richard de la Pole, the last of his race. +Describing Pavia, as he found it in 1594, Fynes Moryson says: "Neere that +(the castle) is the Church of St. Austine; there I did reade this +inscription, written in Latin upon another sepulchre:--The French King +Francis I. being taken by Cæsar's army neere Pavia, the 24th of February, +in the yeere 1525, among other lords, these were slaine: Francis Duke of +Lorayne, Richard de la Pole, Englishman and Duke of Suffolk, banished by +his tyrant King Henry VIII. At last Charles Parker of Morley, kinseman of +the said Richard, banished out of England for the Catholike faith by +Queene Elizabeth, and made Bishop here by the bounty of Philip, King of +Spain, did out of his small means erect this monument to him." + +This is the last memorial of a life which created not a little stir in its +day, and might under more favourable circumstances have been made signally +serviceable to Richard's own country. Even that last memorial has probably +now disappeared. But still "White Rose" may fairly claim a place at any +rate in the lighter records of English history. + + + + +III.--THE EARLY ANCESTORS OF OUR QUEEN.[5] + + +Thanks to Cook, thanks to our all-reporting newspaper-press, and thanks, +not least, to our truly Athenian craving continually for "some new thing," +Ammergau has become almost a household word among us. Everybody has heard +of its "Passion Play." Every tenth year sees Britons rushing in shoals to +the picturesque banks of the Ammer, to witness there, while it may be +witnessed, the last surviving specimen of that popular religious drama +which in bygone times helped the Church so materially, and over so wide an +area, to impress her truths upon men's minds. But I question, if among all +those thousands of sight-seeing Britons, who gather as interested +spectators, there are many who realize in what very close relation that +same little valley stands to the early fortunes of the ancient House whose +Head now occupies our Throne. How many, indeed, among us can be said to +know very much at all about that family? And yet the history of that race +ought to be of some interest to us. In these latter days it has become +intertwined with the history of our own nation. It is marked by striking +contrasts of ups and downs, at one time leading the Guelphs on a rapid +triumphal progress up to the very steps of the Imperial Throne, then again +dropping them down to the obscure level of paltry insignificance. It tells +of a race endowed with a strong individuality--manly, chivalrous, +generous; but generally also headstrong and reckless. It is interwoven +with pathetic legend. Its early beginnings are lost in the dim haze of a +prehistoric age. Its latter end has not yet come. There is no dynasty now +surviving equally ancient--there is but one which can join in the boast +which up to a few decades ago the Guelphs could make:--that on the throne +on which it was planted centuries ago it has retained its hold to the +present generation. That other dynasty is the family, Slav by descent, of +the Obotrite Grand Dukes of Mecklenburg--the same race whom our Alfred the +Great speaks of as "Apdrede." The present grand dukes are the direct +descendants of that terrible Prince Niklot, of the twelfth century, whom +among German princes only the Guelph, Henry the Lion, was found strong +enough to subdue. But before Bodrician Niklot had mounted his barbarian +throne, Henry the Generous had already been installed as chief over +Lüneburg--the principality over which his family continued to rule down to +1866, when the cruel Fortune of War decided against its last Guelph chief. +In the adjoining Duchy of Brunswick, over which, as forming part of +ancient Saxony, the Guelphs were set as heads in 1127, the family +continued to hold sway till 1884, when Death removed the last scion of +their older line, in the person of the late Duke of Brunswick. The Guelph +pedigree, however, goes very much farther back than the time of Henry. +Long even before Guelph Odoacer, at the head of his Teuton hordes, +dethroned that caricature of an Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, there were +Guelph "Agilolfings" leading to battle, as trusted chiefs, their own +Scyrian tribes. What the later history of the family might have been, if +to its constitutional valour and generosity had been joined the less +showy, but far more useful, qualities of prudence and judgment, we may +now, by the light of past events, readily conjecture. The Guelphs were in +Henry's day by far the strongest dynasty in Germany--at a period when for +the Imperial throne above all things a strong dynasty was needed. Had +Germany elected Henry the Generous as Emperor, as everybody expected that +she would, the Guelphs might still be wearing the crown of Charlemagne, +and Germany might have a different tale to tell, both of her past +experiences and of her present position. For it deserves to be noticed +that all the troubles which came upon the Empire, by minute subdivision of +its territory, and by the setting up of "opposition emperors," sprang +directly and demonstrably from contests provoked with the Guelphs. It was +Henry IV.'s resistance to Welf IV. that led to the multiplication of +vassal crowns, which subsequently became a curse to Germany. It was the +Powers pledged to the support of the Guelphs--most notably the Popes and +our Coeur-de-Lion--who put forward those troublesome "opposition +emperors," the forerunners and direct cause of the ruinous +Interregnum--"die kaiserlose, die schreckliche Zeit"--and by such means of +the political prostration of the country enduring through centuries. + +But our interest, in England, lies more with the Guelphs than with +Germany. One cannot help sympathizing with a race which, being evidently +designed for greatness, advanced towards it with giant strides, only to +find the prize at which it ambitiously grasped snatched from its hand in +the very moment of seeming attainment. + +Of the very early history of the Guelphs we have fairly definite, but only +very fragmentary, information. They were leaders of the Scyri, we learn--a +Teuton race of the Semnone family, mentioned by Pliny, by Zosimus, and by +Jornandes--who poured over Germany, in the days of Valentinian, along with +hosts of other German tribes, and who, having been all but exterminated by +the Goths, united with some other septs of the same family, the Rugii, the +Heruli, the Turcilingi, to form a composite nation which, for convenience, +adopted the common name of Bajuvarii. Bavarians accordingly the Guelphs +originally were, as the historian Theganus is careful to point out--not +Swabians, as German historians have often named them; Bavarians, as seems +to be evidenced, among other things, by the dark features and black hair +which for a long time distinguished them--more especially from their +opponents of a full century, the fair-haired and light-complexioned +Hohenstaufens. Of the confederate Bajuvarii, the Agilolfings or Guelphs +still continued chiefs. Under a Guelph, Eticho--whom Priscus Rhetor +praises as a man of exceptional capacity and high character--we find the +nation attaching themselves as auxiliaries to the host of Attila, and +rendering the Hunnish king signal service. Eticho was by no means a mere +rough warrior. He fully appreciated Roman culture and civilization--which +led the eunuch, Chrysaphas, to propose to him the murder of his chief. The +honest Guelph rejected such suggestion with scorn. From the midst of the +Bajuvarii went forth the Guelph Odoacer on his march to Rome. The +Bajuvarii were then settled on the banks of the Danube--roughly speaking +in what is now Austria, _plus_ Bavaria and the Tyrol. Hence we find the +earliest known seats of the Guelphs in the Bavarian Highlands. Ammergau +was theirs, and Hohenschwangau was one of their earliest castles, founded, +indeed, by a Guelph. When, after a revolt of the Rugii--which was +successfully suppressed by Odoacer--some of the allied tribes dispersed, +to seek new homes in the tempting districts on the banks of the Ens and +around the lake of Constance--both at the time sorely devastated and +depopulated by the Goths--the Guelphs, without giving up their old seats, +accompanied their men. And thus it came about that the earliest castle +which we hear of as having been built by the Guelphs is supposed to have +stood in Thurgau, of which country the Guelphs subsequently became Counts. +This is all mere inference; but as such it seems legitimate. For the +monastery of Rheinau is known to have been founded by a Guelph. And such +monasteries were never built far away from the founder's stronghold. Hence +the Guelphs' connection with the Black Forest, of which the Guelph St. +Conrad is the venerated patron saint; and hence their connection with +Alsace, of which they were long Counts--such powerful Counts that Pepin +the Short judged it advisable to reduce them to the position of removable +governors--_missi cameræ_. [S. Odilia, the patron saint of Alsace, whose +name is a household word among her own countrymen, and about whom Goethe +grew enthusiastic, was an undoubted Guelph.] Hence, also, their connection +with the whilom country of the Burgundians, among the nobles of which land +we find a Guelph chief, in 605, standing up manfully against the +aggressive usurpations of Protadius, a Frankish major-domo, and acting as +spokesman. + +As _missi cameræ_ the Guelphs had a serious brush with the Church--the +only tiff, practically speaking, which ever occurred between them and +Rome. Of this quarrel, in which the Guelphs were probably in the right, we +find a tradition kept up for some centuries. The Abbot of St. Gall figured +in those days in Germany as the exact counterpart to the rich and grasping +"Abbot of Canterbury" of our ballad. For some pilfering of crown lands the +Guelph Warin, as a conscientious _missus cameræ_, had Abbot Othmar +imprisoned, which brought about the Abbot's death. Rome at once canonized +her "martyr," and exacted heavy retribution from his "persecutors," not +merely in the shape of severe penances and the foundation of masses, but +by the more substantial satisfaction of large transfers of landed estates +to the injured abbey--Affeltangen and Wiesendangen, and I know not how +many properties more, till even to the pious Guelphs the demands appeared +to grow beyond all measure of reason. It is true, they recouped themselves +elsewhere--_quod si cui minus credibile videatur_, say the monkish +chroniclers--"which, if to any it appear a little incredible, let him read +the ancient histories, and he will find nearly all their territories to +have been violently taken and held by them of others." + +It is with Warin's son Isembart, living in the time of Charlemagne, that +the better known history of the Guelphs begins. He was the hero of that +ridiculous fable about the "pups," which has been invented to explain +their adoption of their peculiar name. Isembart's wife Irmentrude, it is +said, having uncharitably reproached a poor beggarwoman for having borne +triplets--which she held to be a proof of unfaithful conduct towards her +husband--was punished for her gratuitous accusation by being herself made +to bear at one birth, not three sons, but twelve. To screen herself from +the same reproach which she had unkindly fastened upon the beggar, she hit +upon the rather inept device of having eleven of those newly-born sons +drowned as supposed "whelps." The twelfth she kept--and he is said to have +become "Welf," the founder of the race. The other eleven were happily +rescued by their father, who came up just in time to save them. Ten of +them lived to become founders of princely houses. The eleventh became a +bishop. One of them is said to have been Thassilo, the reputed ancestor of +the Hohenzollerns. The real meaning of all this legend obviously is that, +by survival and intermarriage with other illustrious families of Europe, +the Guelphs have in course of time become, in a sense, the parent of most +reigning lines--Zähringens, Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns, Capets, Bourbons, +and the rest of them. + +The fable of children being sent to be drowned as "whelps"--and in every +instance happily rescued--is, as it happens, by no means peculiar to the +Guelphs. It occurs in the Black Forest, in connection with a family +bearing the name of "Hund." It occurs in Lower Lorraine in that pretty +_trouvère_ legend recording the doings of "Helias," the "Chevalier au +Cygne," whom we moderns know as "Lohengrin." It is interesting to note +that, along with that fable, Guelph tradition in Bavaria shares with the +tradition of Lorraine the far more attractive and poetical myth of an +enchanted swan--the swan, in fact, of "Lohengrin"--a bird specifically +emblematizing purity--whence the extinct "Order of the Swan" of the +Margraves of Brandenburg. That order was an aristocratic "Social Purity +League," which Frederick William IV. would gladly have revived, could he +but have found sufficient candidates for it among his nobility. But his +proposal met with very scanty support. Hence, also, the equally ancient +"Order of the Swan" of Cleves, having a like object. + +As regards the "whelps" of the Guelphs, the existence of very different +and contradictory versions helps to show what a made-up story the whole +legend is. The only authority for it is the monk Bucelinus, who himself +quotes no more ancient source. And he is said to have invented it for the +mere purpose of showing off his monkish Latin, in order to deduce from the +Latin word for "whelp"--_catulus_--an imaginary descent, supposed to be +complimentary, from a fabulous Roman senator "Catilina," and through him +from the ancient Trojan kings. In opposition to this, it is a fact that +there were "Welfs" long before Isembart. The name Guelph, therefore, could +not have been first suggested by Irmentrude's unsuccessful stratagem. +Isembart lived in the ninth century. But, as early as the fifth, Odoacer +had a brother named "Welf." "Welf" and "Eticho" were, in fact, the two +traditional names of the family, from prehistoric days downward. Sir +Andrew Halliday's suggestion, that the name may have been first taken from +an ensign which the Guelphs are supposed to have borne in battle, is +equally wide of the mark. For that ensign, we know, from the Agilolfings +down to the Hanovers, never was a "whelp" at all, but a "lion." In truth +the name "Welf" has nothing whatever to do with "whelp," but is derived +from "hwelpe," "huelfe"--help. As Eticho means "hero," so Welf means +"helper"--_auxiliator_. The popular Latin rendering for it in olden days +was "Bonifacius." "Salvator" would be a more exact rendering, but would +obviously be liable to misinterpretation. In confirmation of this theory, +we find that, migrating into Italy about Charlemagne's time, a Guelph, on +becoming Count of Lucca, as a matter of course assumes the name of +"Bonifacius." And in his line, for further confirmation, we observe the +same peculiarity which marks the Guelphs, that is, the naming of all sons +of the family, without distinction, by the style of "Count"--a practice +altogether unknown in those days among other families. + +So much for the name and origin of the Guelphs. Now I must ask the reader +to return with me to Ammergau, which is peculiarly sacred to the memory of +Eticho, styled the Second, who was probably the son of Isembart. Eticho +lived in the days of Emperor Lewis the Pious, who in second nuptials +married the Guelph's sister Judith. The birth, by Judith, of little +Charles--who became "Charles the Bald"--gave rise to that unnatural war +between Lewis and his three elder sons, in the course of which alike +Judith and two of her brothers were imprisoned in Tortona, from which +place of confinement Bonifacius II. of Lucca, marching to their relief, +avowedly as a kinsman, loyally rescued them. Eticho's daughter, Lucardis, +again married an emperor, Arnulf of Carinthia--of whom Carlyle need not +have spoken quite so unkindly, as of a "Carolingian Bastard," seeing that +he made a far better ruler than any of his legitimate kinsmen of his own +time. Thanks to Lucardis it was that Eticho was driven to seek a refuge, +as a hermit, in the wild seclusion of Ammergau. He went there to mourn, +with twelve chosen companions, the loss of Guelph independence, which his +son Henry, so he thought, had at the instigation of his sister +ingloriously bartered away for a "mess of pottage"--a pretty substantial +one, it must be owned. In truth, Henry did exceedingly well for his house. +This is how the Saxon Annalist relates the story:--Henry, ambitious for +wealth and power, agreed to swear fealty to the Emperor, if in return, in +addition to his own lands, he were given in fee as much territory as he +could drive around with a car, or else with a plough--on that point the +versions differ--in the time between sunrise and the conclusion of the +Emperor's afternoon nap. Arnulf thought the bargain a cheap one for +himself. However, Henry had stationed relays of the swiftest horses that +he could procure at various points, and with their help he raced round the +coveted territory with such marvellous speed that--having started from the +Lech--by the time when the Emperor awoke he had actually reached the Isar. +The Emperor was just beginning to move restlessly in his chair and to show +signs of returning consciousness, when Henry arrived at the foot of a +mountain which he had designed as the extreme limit of his new +possessions. If his mare would but last out the journey, one brisk gallop +would carry him to the appointed goal. Unfortunately, the mare refused--in +consequence of which, for many centuries the Guelphs would not mount a +mare. The hill which Henry thus narrowly failed to obtain still goes by +the name of Mährenberg, the "Mare's mountain." Arnulf considered that he +had been "done." But, having pledged his word, he held himself bound. +Eticho, grieved, mourned out his life in his hermit's cell in Ammergau. +Henry--who was after his adventure named _Heinricus cum aureo curru_--does +not appear to have made any particular effort to propitiate his father. +But when the old man was dead, he carried his remains with great pomp and +show to the monastery of Altomünster, very near his own new seat of +Altorf, where he raised a gorgeous tomb to Eticho's memory, at which +Guelph chiefs made it a practice to kneel for generations after, thus +evidencing their respect for an ancestor who came to be looked upon as +specifically the champion of independence. The homage paid became a cult; +and in Ammergau shortly after rose up, where Eticho's cell had stood, a +wooden memorial church, to be replaced, in 1350, by a much larger +monastery, built at the expense of Emperor Lewis the Bavarian, a +descendant of Eticho. The monastery is still known as "Ettal"--that is, +"Eticho's Thal," "Etichonis vallis." + +Altomünster, I may mention in passing, was the "Minster" supposed to have +been founded by S. Alto, a Scottish saint, the companion and disciple of +S. Boniface, who managed, like Moses, to make a hard rock give forth a +spring of rushing water by striking it with his staff. The spring still +flows; and, as it was specially blessed by S. Boniface, its water is no +doubt entitled to the peculiar veneration in which it is held to the +present day. + +From their new seat at Altorf, up to the death of Welf III., the Guelphs +continued to take their name. They were specifically "the Guelphs of +Altorf." While there, they managed to better their fortune not a little. +It was a rough neighbourhood then, with nothing but forest all round, +forest spreading out for miles, stocked with wolves, and bears, and all +manner of game. To the present day some thirteen thousand acres remain +under timber. There are plenty of dales, and caves, and peaks, and the +like, in the district, which have given rise to an innumerable host of +legends. One of Henry's sons was that excellent Bishop Conrad, who became +the family saint _par excellence_, and who first inaugurated the +traditional friendship with Rome. Welf II., feeling his power growing, +ventured to break a lance with the Emperor, in support of his friend +Ernest of Swabia, whose Burgundian possessions--very large ones--the +Emperor had wrongfully seized. It did no good to Ernest. But it taught the +Emperor that the Guelphs had become a power to be reckoned with--a power +with whom it was advisable to stand well. And accordingly we find the next +Emperor, Henry III., with a view to propitiating the succeeding Guelph, +Welf III., preferring him to the dukedom of Carinthia, which was a very +important office in those days--Carinthia being a frontier march, and +embracing Verona and part of Venetia. So great was the importance attached +to this position that for seven years Henry had, for want of a +sufficiently strong candidate, advisedly kept it open. Welf took the +Duchy--and then pursued his own course, defying the Emperor at Roncaglia, +and refusing to render him service--which was politic and, according to +the notions of his day, not dishonest. + +Welf III. was the last Guelph of the male line. After him we find the +Guelphs of the female branch succeeding to the family honours--the +"Guelphs of Ravensburg," as they were fond of styling themselves. These +are the Guelphs from whom our Queen is descended. To what extent the +family had added to their estate while settled at Altorf came to be seen +when, in 1055, Welf III. died. The possessions which he left embraced a +good bit of Alemannia, the greater half of Bavaria (which then included +the present Austria), the larger part of the Tyrol, and a tidy slice of +Northern Italy. It is no wonder that "Mother Church," always alive to +temporal opportunities, cast her eyes a little longingly on so fair an +estate, and, in default of a male heir, demanded it for herself. But there +was a Guelph beforehand with her--Welf IV., the son of Chuniza, the sister +of Welf III., by her marriage with Azzo (a direct descendant of the Guelph +Bonifacius). Welf IV. proved himself a particularly strong and able +ruler--_vir armis strenuus, concilio providus, sapientia tam forensi quam +civili præditus_, the monkish chroniclers style him. Hence his surname, +which he well deserved--"the Strong." By his accession he added to the +family territories those valuable estates in Italy which for a long period +made his family one of the most wealthy in Europe. For Azzo was reputed +the richest and one of the most powerful _marchiones_ of Italy. Welf's +younger brother was Hugo, the first of the family to take the name of +Este, who became the founder of a race which has been held particularly +noble. Welf IV. secured his family other gains. Man of war that he was, +the Emperor Henry IV. was thankful to have him for a supporter in his +struggles with the rebellious Saxons, before whom the Swabian companies +had recoiled. At the battle of the Unstrut Welf completely shattered their +power, and thereby secured to Henry for a time the peaceful possession of +his purple--and for himself, as a reward, the Dukedom of Bavaria. That +office was worth even more than the Dukedom of Carinthia. For at that time +Germany owned but four regular dukes, representing severally the four +principal tribes which made up the nation. And with those four dukes, +under the Emperor, rested, in the main, the power in the Empire. + +Following in the footsteps of his uncle, we find Welf IV. drawing closer +the links which connected him with Swabia, while correspondingly loosening +his proprietary relations with Bavaria, and in token of such policy fixing +his residence in pretty Ravensburg. The reason evidently was, that the +laws of Swabia conceded to vassal lords more extensive rights than did the +laws of Bavaria. Accordingly, we find Henry the Generous, when +dispossessed of his duchy by Conrad III., appealing specifically to the +laws of Swabia against the Emperor's monstrously unfair judgment. But, +apart from that political reason, Ravensburg was also no doubt more +attractive on the score of its pleasant situation and its delightful +surroundings. You may identify both sites, when sailing down the lake of +Constance, among that picturesquely outlined cluster of hills, on which +your eye is sure to rest instinctively--the hills rising on the northern +bank, in the very face of the tall Alps of Appenzell, among which the +lopsided Säntis is particularly conspicuous. From Ravensburg both the lake +and the Alps are clearly visible, and, moreover, a charming landscape +nearer than either, with that pretty Schussenthal right in front, and a +multitude of rocky peaks dotted about the forest, alternating with shady +dales, smiling fields, and lush meadows. Of the castle there is now but a +crumbling weather-worn old gateway left. The town still exists, and +flourishes after a fashion--consisting of a group of quaint, picturesque, +out-of-date houses, looking for all the world like a piece of grey +antiquity recalled to life. At Ravensburg used to be stored the Archives +of the Guelph family. A valuable and interesting collection they must have +been. What has become of them nobody knows. They may have been destroyed +by fire. They may, with heaps of other precious material for history, have +been carried to greedy Vienna, to be there preserved as so much lumber. + +During Welf IV.'s reign happened that historic conflict between Church and +State, Pope Hildebrand and Henry IV. of Germany, for his share in which +Henry has been censured a good deal more than in justice he deserves. +Really, in going to Canossa, the Emperor did--so far as his intention was +concerned--a very prudent thing. The German princes had bluntly informed +him that while he remained at feud with the Pope, he would look for their +obedience in vain. With the Pope, accordingly, Henry strove to set himself +right. Could he certainly foresee that, urged on by the malignant Countess +Matilda, Gregory would take advantage of his duress, while he was +literally hemmed in between two outer walls of the castle, to force upon +him so bitter a cup of humiliation? Matilda was a Guelph--destined to play +a very important part in Guelph history. Welf IV. was her near kinsman, +and had, moreover, become a zealous supporter of the Pope. Therefore we +can scarcely wonder at finding him with Hildebrand and Matilda at Canossa, +witnessing his chief's degradation. We can not wonder, either, at finding +Welf, when Henry had once more fallen out with the Pope, commanding the +rebel forces raised to support the "opposition Emperor," Rudolph of +Swabia. And, being a Guelph, it is no wonder that he should have taken +advantage of the opportunity of his victory, to extort from the Emperor +terms materially benefiting his own house--namely, the recognition of his +private property in Swabia as held directly from the Emperor, and--which +was more important--the recognition of his Bavarian dukedom as hereditary +in his family. How great was the power wielded at that period in Germany +by this early Guelph prince, is evident from the fact that after his +conclusion of a separate peace with the Emperor the opposition practically +collapsed, and Hermann, the new "opposition emperor," found himself almost +without support. Welf IV., I ought to mention, was the first Guelph to +connect his family in a manner with our island. He married Judith, the +daughter of Count Baldwin of Flanders, and the widow of Tostig, King of +Northumberland, the son of Earl Godwine, of Kent, and brother of the +unfortunate King Harold. Leaving Judith at home with the two sons whom she +had borne him, Welf and Henry, Welf IV. started in 1098, at an advanced +age, on a crusade to the Holy Land, which he successfully accomplished. +But on his return home he was struck down by a fatal illness, which +overtook him in the island of Cyprus. + +This brings us down to the time of a tragic little incident which has +furnished the subject for the favourite family legend of the Guelphs. At +the time of their father's death both Welf and Henry were mere boys, left +in charge of a good monk, Kuno, a Benedictine of Weingarten. Considering +how important a part Weingarten has played in Guelph history--that its +monks have become the carefully minute but provokingly inaccurate +chroniclers of the Guelph family--and that, thanks to the pious liberality +of the late King of Hanover, in the Abbey church of Weingarten the +gathered bones of most of the early Guelph lords have found an honoured +resting-place, perhaps I ought to say just a word about that monastery. It +was Welf the Third's foundation, set up at a short distance only from +Ravensburg, on a site commanding a magnificent view of the country all +around, and was intended to provide accommodation for those pious monks, +originally of Altomünster, who had been twice, at very short intervals, +burnt out of Altorf. It still stands; its three towers form a conspicuous +landmark in the Schussengau; and to its shrine still are undertaken +pilgrimages from a wide circuit--a survival that from a worship of olden +days which was one of the great spectacles of the mediæval Church. Before +setting out for the Holy Land, Welf IV. entrusted to the monks of +Weingarten for safe keeping, a relic which was at the time held in far +more than ordinary esteem. It consisted of some drops of the Saviour's +blood, believed to be thoroughly genuine, and preserved, enclosed in a +costly vessel made of pure gold of Arabia and valued at three thousand +florins. There was a history to those drops. Pious inquirers have +ascertained that the name of the centurion who was present at the +Saviour's crucifixion, as the Gospel relates, was Longinus, and that he +was a native of Mantua. Seeing the precious drops trickling down, it is +said, he caught them up in a vessel, and, becoming converted by what he +witnessed, returned home to Mantua, still reverently carrying them with +him. He was in due time baptized, and became a missionary and a martyr. +For something like eight hundred years the Holy Blood remained buried in +his garden at Mantua. Then it was discovered by accident, only to be once +more concealed somewhere or other. But in 1049, when Pope Leo IX. happened +to be at Mantua, once more it came to light, to be instantly claimed by +the Pope on behalf of the Supreme See. The Mantuans objected; but in the +end Leo obtained, at any rate, part of the precious treasure. Of his share +he kept half. The other half he gave away to his friend the Emperor Henry +III., who, on his death, bequeathed it to Baldwin of Flanders, from whom, +in her turn, Judith got it--carrying it with her to Northumberland, and +then on to Ravensburg, where she dutifully made it over to her husband. +And when Welf started on his crusade, he, as observed, entrusted the relic +to the monastery of Weingarten. The monks knew well how to turn so +valuable a possession to account. The Good Friday ceremony of "Worshipping +the Sacred Blood" became one of the most frequented, most impressive, and +most honoured ceremonies of the Church. As many as thirty thousand people +have been known to flock to the place from all quarters, turning the +hillside into a huge pilgrim's camp, and contributing not a little to the +prosperity of the religious house. Under the circumstances, the monks +decided to restrict the attendance at the procession--which was the main +part of the ceremony--to horsemen only, whence the whole function came to +be popularly named "Der Blutritt." As many as fifteen thousand horsemen +are known to have joined in the monster cavalcade. At the head rode the +_Custos_ of the relic, a monk, holding up the Blood for adoration. He was +followed by a horseman doing duty for Longinus, clad as a Roman warrior, +bearing in his hand the supposed "sacred spear." After him marched a small +squad of other horsemen, representing Roman legionaries. Next followed a +goodly muster of Princes and Counts and Lords. And the rear was brought up +by a long file of mounted soldiers, contributed by the surrounding dozen +or so of petty principalities, all gay in their best uniforms, reflecting +in the variety of their dress the unhappy division of the Empire, and +joining lustily in the sacred song _Salvator Mundi_. + +But we must now return to Ravensburg and young Welf. Not far off from +Ravensburg still stands, conspicuous upon its lofty hill, the old castle +of Waldburg, the cradle of the noble race of the Truchsesses of Waldburg, +who were at times rather a rough set. There is a story of one particularly +brusque Count who, having rallied the Abbot of Weingarten upon his +sumptuous living and soft raiment, and having been told in reply that such +things were far more creditable than riding about the country robbing and +stealing, promptly retorted with a vigorous box on the Abbot's ear--at the +Abbot's own table. The Count thereupon withdrew, but shortly after paid +the monastery an even more hostile visit, setting fire to the village and +burning it down to the ground. In punishment he was sentenced by the +Emperor to abstain for life from wearing a helmet. Hence the bare head and +flowing locks of the Knight of Waldburg, always to be seen in the thick of +the fray, which became a valued feature in the family escutcheon. But at +the time of which I am speaking the Waldburgs were thoroughly peaceable +folk. The particular knight of Welf's day had, as it happened, a lovely +daughter, just about two years younger than young Welf, who, of course, +fell desperately in love with Bertha, as in return Bertha did with him. +Hundreds of innocent little amatory interviews took place between the two, +either at Waldburg or else in the forest, with the full acquiescence of +Kuno, who saw nothing to object to in the proposed match. However, Kuno +died, and was in his guardianship replaced by a monk of a very different +character--Anthony, a schemer and intriguer--who would without doubt have +been a Jesuit, if the Order had been then established. To Welf's utter +dismay, this Anthony, one fine morning, informed his young charge that in +the interest alike of the Guelph family and of the Church he, a youth of +eighteen, must forthwith marry Gregory VIIth's friend, Matilda of Canossa, +Spoleto, &c., the persecutress of Henry IV., a Guelph herself, the widow +of Godfrey the Hunchback of Lorraine, very rich and very +powerful--_nobilissimi ac ditissimi marchionis Bonifacii filia_--but +mannish--_femina virilis animi_--accustomed to leading her own men in +battle, scheming, ugly, ill-tempered, and forty-three to boot. Hers were +splendid possessions--Parma, and Mantua, and Ferrara, and Spoleto, and +Reggio, and Lucca, and Tuscany. But all these riches were as nothing in +the eyes of Welf, who had made up his mind that he must marry Bertha, aged +sixteen, or no one. A little plot was quickly concocted, and one fine +night Welf, in disguise, might be seen slyly escorting Bertha, likewise in +disguise, and accompanied only by her private maid, Francisca, through the +forest down to Lindau, on the border of the lake, where a boat was in +readiness to bear the fugitives across to Constance. From that place, Welf +said--probably thinking of his mother's connections with our country--"we +will make our way straight to England, where a Guelph's arm and sword are +sure to be welcome and to find employment." The lake was reached, and the +oars splashed briskly over the smooth surface--when all of a sudden, at +half-way, over goes the boat, capsizing, and Bertha sinks down to the +bottom, to be seen no more. Diving, and swimming, and calling proved all +in vain. Thoroughly unhappy, indifferent to anything that might happen, +Welf consents to wed the elderly Matilda, with whom he settles down to +live at Spoleto, sullenly resigning himself to his fate. One day a nun +begs to be allowed to see him. She turns out to be Francisca, the maid, +driven by qualms of conscience to make a frank confession of a horrid +crime committed. Bribed by Monk Anthony, she said, she had on that +disastrous night drugged poor Bertha with a handkerchief--then, when she +was thoroughly drowsy, on the sly tied a stone to her feet--whereupon +Anthony, disguised as a boatman, had overturned the boat. Anthony had +told her that there was no sin in all this, it was an act _ad majorem Dei +gloriam_; but her conscience would leave her no peace. Next day, at her +own wish, Francisca was executed as a murderess, and Welf left his +wife--who turned out to have been a party to the conspiracy--in anger and +disgust, vowing to see her no more, and formally repudiating her before +long--_nescio quo interveniente divorcio_, says the monkish chronicler. + +We have now reached the very eve of that brilliant period when the Guelphs +appeared to have risen, rapidly, high above other dynasties--only to sink +even more suddenly to a humble level of prosaic obscurity, on which they +were destined to continue for centuries. The records of that brief spell +of meteoric greatness read like a romance. The Guelphs were giants, +visibly overtopping all their contemporaries. Henry "the Great," Henry +"the Generous," Henry "the Lion"--their very names tell of vigour and +influence, of strength of character and striking individuality. Their +domains came to stretch from sea to sea, from the Northern Ocean, which we +call the German, to the Mediterranean--and breadthways across the whole +Continent of Germany, eastward into those still only half-explored Slav +regions in which dwelt the uncultured Bodricians and Luticzians, backed by +the Russians and the Poles. Even Denmark was in a state of dependence upon +them. And the Guelph Duchies represented a power almost superior to that +of the Empire. Had not Frederick Barbarossa been so very great a ruler, it +is said, Henry the Lion's realm would infallibly have either swallowed up +the rest of Germany or else have constituted itself a separate Empire. +Under Henry the Generous the Imperial Crown seemed to lie actually at the +feet of the Guelph dynasty. They need but have stooped a little to pick it +up. But stooping was the one thing which they could not bring themselves +to do. As a result they were jockeyed out of this prize just as their late +successor was the other day jockeyed out of his kingdom of Hanover. +Germany, it is to be feared, lost more by that shabby trick than did the +Guelphs. Under a race of heroes like those Henrys, with plenty of power of +their own at their back to support them against rivals and malcontents, it +did not seem too much to expect that something like the halcyon days of +the Saxon emperors might have been brought back. All ended in smoke. There +was that family quarrel between Guelphs and Ghibellines, which ruined both +houses--unfortunately, the Guelphs first. It seems a strange coincidence +that the two rival cousins, Frederick Barbarossa and Henry the Lion, +should both have been born at Ravensburg. It seems odd, also, that after +being long the warmest of friends, the two houses should have become such +implacable foes. The Hohenstaufens had no one but Welf IV. to thank for +the Swabian crown. It was he who had extorted it from Henry IV. And it +seems more than strange, it seems hard, cruel, and unjust, that not only +should the Guelphs a second time have been punished in their private +capacity for what they had done in the service of the Empire, but that, +moreover, the Emperor's persecution, which led to their fall, should have +been, as I shall show, the direct consequence of loyal service rendered to +the Imperial Crown. + +Welf the Fifth's was a brief reign--and about the only pacific one in that +early period. A staunch friend to the Pope, but at the same time strictly +loyal to the Emperor, he managed to overcome resistance, say the monks of +Weingarten, "by liberality and graciousness rather than by cruelty and +force." His brother, Henry, surnamed variously "the Black," and "the +Great," was a man of entirely different mould. He it was who about 1100 +first acquired by marriage with Wulfhilde, the daughter of Magnus, Duke of +Saxony, the valuable "allodium" of Lüneburg, which up to 1866 formed the +nucleus of Guelph possessions in Northern Germany. Henry's son, Henry the +Generous, bettered that example by obtaining the Saxon Dukedom. He was a +staunch friend to Lothair of Saxony, the Emperor of his time--married his +daughter Gertrude--and in his support made war upon the Hohenstaufens, who +had seized, without claim or title, Imperial territory, more especially +the city of Nuremberg. In 1126 his troops carried Nuremberg by storm, and +as a reward Lothair conferred the Dukedom of Saxony upon his son-in-law, +who thereby came to hold two dukedoms at the same time. The victory over +the Hohenstaufens was completed a few years later by Henry's capture (on +behalf of the Empire) of Ulm. Clearly Henry was altogether in the right. +But the Hohenstaufens, smarting under deserved defeat, seized the +opportunity of his absence--in Italy, where he was, to attend the +Emperor's coronation--to ravage his lands in revenge. Of course, he +retaliated. And thus was begun that memorable great feud which rent +Germany in two and brought it down to the very brink of ruin and +disintegration. The sad result might still have been averted if the +general expectation had been fulfilled, and Henry the Generous had been +elected to the Imperial throne. So confident was Lothair of his succession +that at his death he entrusted the Imperial insignia--those precious +_clenodia_ of Trifels--to him for keeping. But the Hohenstaufens baulked +him by a clever election trick. Summoning the Electing Princes--a very +indeterminate body at that time--with the exception only of the Bavarians +and the Saxons, privately to Coblenz--not by any means a proper place for +the purpose--they easily secured the choice of Conrad, in which the Saxons +weakly acquiesced--being then still new to the rule of their Duke--and +which the Pope, just as weakly, confirmed. Little he knew what a scourge +he was binding for the punishment of his successors. Those two +confirmations practically decided the issue. Nevertheless, so little +assured did Conrad feel of his position that he fled from Augsburg by +night, fearing an attack from the Guelphists. Arrived at Würzburg, +contrary to all law and justice, he condemned Henry unheard, proclaimed +against him the sentence of proscription (_reichsacht_), and declared him +to have forfeited both his Duchies. A furious contest ensued, Welf VI. +fighting in Bavaria, Henry in Saxony. In Germany the two factions are +commonly spoken of as "Welf" and "Waiblingen." But it is by no means +certain that the latter name is correct. It is quite as possible that +"Ghibelline" may be intended to stand for "Giebelingen," the name of the +castle in which Frederick Barbarossa was brought up, and near which the +Hohenstaufens gained one of their first decisive victories over the +Guelphs. In the south things went for the most part against the latter. +Welf VI. had been christened "the German Achilles." He tried to justify +that name--being seconded, rather feebly, by the Kings of Hungary and of +Sicily. But in spite of all his fighting, as the Bavarians showed +themselves lukewarm, his efforts fell short of adequate success. In the +north things went better. The Saxons, holding strong views in favour of +what we should term State rights, manfully stood by their Duke, who +pressed the Hohenstaufen Emperor so hard, that before long Conrad was +almost compelled to ask for an armistice. The armistice was granted; and +before it came to an end Henry died at Quedlinburg--it is said by poison. +That left the Guelphs at a serious disadvantage. For Welf VI. had quite as +much to do as he could manage, to maintain himself as a belligerent in the +south. And in the north, besides the Duchess Gertrude and her mother, the +Empress Richenza, there was only Henry the Lion, a boy of ten, to head the +rebel tribe. Conrad skilfully disarmed Gertrude by persuading her, still +quite a young woman, to marry Leopold of Austria, the new Duke of Bavaria, +and to assent, as a condition of that marriage, to her son's waiver of his +rights in the south. In the north we find Berlin stretching out its hands +eagerly for the Guelph Duchy--just as in 1866--but without success. The +covetous Margrave of Brandenburg, I ought to explain, was not a +Hohenzollern, but Albert the Bear. The Hohenzollerns were at that time +still very small folk--so small that some years later, when Welf VI., +disgusted with affairs of state, and grieving over the loss of his son, +gave himself up to a life of reckless pleasure, and held a private court +at Zurich, in ostentatious magnificence, we find the Count of Zollern of +those days in attendance upon him, as a sort of noble retainer. Once Henry +attained his majority, he quickly made his power felt. He must have been a +character whom one could not help admiring. Brave, chivalrous, frank, +generous to a fault, and zealously solicitous for the welfare of his +subjects, for the extension of commerce, the improvement of agriculture, +the development of self-government, a friend and supporter to every kind +of progress--but, at the same time, headstrong, rash, impetuous--he seemed +the very beau-ideal of knighthood, a man morally as well as physically of +the colossal stature that the sculptor has attributed to him at +Brunswick--a fit companion for his brother-in-law and staunch ally, +Richard Coeur-de-Lion. For a time fortune favoured Henry. The Wends were +constantly making incursions into German territory, keeping the border +provinces in a state of perpetual disturbance. The Emperor alone was no +match for them. Henry was sent for; and, like a German Charles Martel, he +struck down Prince Niklot and his host with crushing blows. The result was +a short-lived reconciliation with the Emperor, and Henry's reinstatement, +for a brief period, in both his Duchies--Bavaria having, however, +previously been reduced in size by the cutting off of what is now Austria. +Had Henry but had the prudence to use his opportunities, all might still +have been well. For Welf VI. made him an offer of his Italian +possessions--Spoleto, Tuscany and Sardinia--a valuable _point d'appui_, +which must have helped Henry to maintain his balance in Germany, or at the +very least to save more than he did out of the subsequent wreck. In the +course of a life of lavish prodigality, Welf had come to an end of his +available resources. He wanted money. Now, would Henry buy those Italian +possessions of him? Henry declined, calculating a little too securely upon +an unbought inheritance at Welf's death. In that calculation he made a +great mistake. Welf, angry at his refusal, repeated the offer to his other +nephew, Frederick Barbarossa, who as a matter of course jumped at it. And +so the opportunity was lost. Fresh contests ensued, fresh proscriptions, +banishments, outlawry. As an exile Henry was driven to seek the protection +of his ally Richard, taking refuge repeatedly in Normandy and in England. +Then he managed to renew the fight--and at last, by the Emperor's grace, +he received back, of all his vast dominions, those little principalities +of Brunswick and Lüneburg, which to almost the present day have remained +specifically identified with Guelph rule, and in which the Guelph Counts +and Dukes--subsequently Electors and Kings--managed to live on in their +prosaic, humdrum, humble way, powerless and uninteresting princelets of +the great German family of little sovereigns--till an accident, lucky for +them, called them across to England. + +One brief flickering-up there was, before their candle finally went out on +the larger scene of continental politics. But it was a very poor +flickering indeed, and no credit to any one concerned. A Guelph became +Emperor at last. But no thanks to his own prowess or his own merit, or to +a _bonâ-fide_ popular choice. It was our Coeur-de-Lion who, at the Pope's +partisan instigation, to avenge his own humiliation at Hagenau--with the +help of his "_multa pecunia_," as chroniclers relate--forced his nephew, +Otto IV., on the throne which, according to strict law, had already young +Frederick II. for an occupant. It was a poor, weak travesty of a reign. +Had not Philip of Swabia opportunely died, it would have been no reign at +all. + +For many a century the star of the Guelphs seemed set. The "viri nobiles, +egregiæ libertatis" of ancient times counted for little in the game of +European politics. Early in the present century the elder line, that of +Wolfenbüttel, brought forth one more hero of the old Guelph type--that +brave Brunswicker who, in the great war of German liberation, by his +brilliant gallantry quickened all Young Germany to a more fiery +patriotism. The younger line, that of Lüneburg, found a new sphere of +action opened to it in this country, and now lives to perpetuate, on a +Throne even greater than that which "the Generous" and "the Lion" had +filled, that + + "Dynastia Guelphicorum + Inter Flores lilium, + Inter Illustres Illustrissimus + Eorum memoria in Benedictione." + +Under the new aspect of things, if, fortunately, Henry the Lion's bold +bent for war be wanting, his characteristic care for the welfare of his +subjects has been retained; and it is a satisfaction to know, in a reign +that has happily outlived its Jubilee, that there is no longer occasion +for that sorrowful plaint to which, in the warlike days of the race, +Countess Itha gave expression--the wife of the great-grandson of Eticho +II., of Ammergau--that "No Guelph was ever known to live to a great age." + + + + +IV.--ABOUT A PORTRAIT AT WINDSOR.[6] + + +In Windsor Castle, in the Vandyke Room, there is a portrait which has +puzzled a good many visitors. It is an undoubted Vandyke; it shows a +pretty face--a trifle sensual, perhaps--but who the lady may have been +whose features it immortalises, nobody seems to be able to tell. +"Somebody"--"Somebody connected with Charles II."--"Some French lady"--are +guesses rather than information offered. "Murray" used to call the lady by +her right name. But lately, for some reason or other, she has in his +description become transformed into "Madame de St. Croix," which probably +sounds "safer." Formerly she figured as "Beatrix de Cusance, Princesse de +Cantecroix," which was correct--unless the more illustrious title be given +her which for a few brief hours she legitimately bore, though never +actually crowned, that of "Duchess of Lorraine." + +There is a good deal of history graven in those smiling features--curious, +changeful history of their bearer's own life--and history, more important, +of nations, on which she exercised a decisive influence. It was thinking +of her, not least, that Richelieu penned those truthfully reproachful +words:--"Les plus grandes et les plus importantes menées qui se fassent en +ce royaume sont ordinairement commencées et conduites par des femmes." +Without her and Madame de Chevreuse--perhaps, it would be too much to say +that France might still be without that Lorraine of which she felt it so +great a hardship to lose a portion in 1871; but certainly the tide of +events during the past three centuries would have taken a very different +course from that which it actually did--different, probably, for the +better. + +Beatrix was "somebody connected with our Charles II."--it is quite true. +Without that link with our own Court her portrait would scarcely have +found a place in Windsor Castle, and the sorry poet Flecknoe--Dryden's +"MacFlecknoe"--would certainly not have rhymed upon her beauty and +"vertue" in most halting and unmelodious lines, now long forgotten even by +students of literature. But her connection with our "gay monarch" was of +the briefest, a mere sly nibbling at forbidden fruit while the real +good-man was away, closely watched by Spanish guards in the dark tower of +Toledo--that same martial and romantic duke, to whom our Charles I. +addressed urgent prayers to become his saviour, and on whom he conferred +the proud title of "Protector of Ireland." It seems odd now--to us, with +our modern notions of Lorraine, as a small and very helpless province of +France--to think, that on the wayward ruler of that petty duchy, himself +at the time an exile, should our Charles have built up hopes of his own +preservation in the storms of the Great Rebellion. There can, however, be +no doubt about the fact. In June, 1651,[7] Viscount Taaffe, Sir Nicholas +Plunket, and Geffrey Browne, by order of the Marquis of Clanricarde, King +Charles's deputy, formally waited upon Duke Charles IV. of Lorraine at +Brussels, "to solicit his aid in favour of the unhappy kingdom of +Ireland." The mission was considered of such pressing importance that Lord +Taaffe, in order not to delay it, put off the call which in duty he owed +to the Duke of York, then residing at Antwerp. Charles IV. rather rashly +undertook the office pressed upon him, formally accepted the style and +title of "Protector of Ireland," fitted out--though not owning an inch of +seaboard--a man-of-war, which he christened "Espérance de Lorraine"--and +there the matter ended. + +With this adventurous Charles IV. was the life of the beautiful Beatrix +bound up from girlhood to death. It was a romantic affair--in some of its +episodes a little sadly comical--and, since we have constituted ourselves +guardians of her effigy, her story may be worth telling. + +The Cusances were an old, distinguished, and very wealthy family in the +Franche Comté, when the Comté was still a province, not of France, but of +the Empire. At the present time the "Almanach de Gotha" knows them no +more, nor any French or German "Peerage." But in their own day they ranked +among the best of bloods; the strains of the Hapsburghs and the +Granvelles mingled in their veins. "Gentillesse de Cusance" had in whilom +Burgundy become a proverbial saying. The family owned a wide tract of +territory in the mountainous country through which flows the Doubs, and +among those hills, forming part of the Jura, stood, twenty miles from +Besançon, their Castle Belvoir. Of this proud family Beatrix was, with two +sisters--one of whom became a nun, while the other married a cousin on the +mother's side, a Count de Berghes, of the Low Countries--left the last +offspring. There was no male to perpetuate the name. At twenty she was +known as "la personne la plus belle et la plus accomplie de la province." +People raved about her. Abbé Hugo, the Lorrain Duke's father-confessor, in +his MS. History (which has never been published, for fear of giving +offence to the French), describes her as "of a little more than middle +height, and exquisitely proportioned." "She possessed," he said, "just +sufficient _embonpoint_ to impart to her _une mine haute et un port +majestueux_." Her face, something between oval and round, was marked by a +particularly clear complexion and an animated expression. Her eyes were +blue and well-placed; her hair was of a light ash colour; her mouth was +small, and of a brilliant red; her teeth were of pearly whiteness, and +well-ranged; neck, arms, hands were all "beautifully delicate, white, and +admirably shaped"; in fact, you could not desire a more perfect specimen +of feminine humanity. + +With this beauty it was the happy, or unhappy, lot of the no less engaging +Charles IV. to become acquainted at the impressionable age of thirty, when +to the eye, at any rate, he represented all that was manly and +chivalrous. He was then the beau-ideal of the sex, unequalled in all +accomplishments peculiar to the privileged Man of the tip-top strata, a +brilliant horseman, fencer, tilter, and love-maker in the bargain--a +veritable "Don Juan, alike in love and in politics," as his own historian, +M. des Robert, has aptly styled him. + +The two were for the first time brought into contact in 1634. Charles was +then for the moment--a pretty protracted moment--a lackland prince. +Counting a little too confidingly upon the help of that "Empire" which was +always ready to claim and never ready to protect, and moreover upon +equally treacherous Spain, he had defied France--with the result of being +turned out of his dominions by her. But if Charles was driven from his +duchy, he had carried his brilliant little army with him--there was no +better in Europe. He had gained a high reputation already as a dashing +general and a tactician of ready resource. The French feared him, in spite +of their superior numbers. The Austrians and Spaniards were eager for his +alliance, and willing to pay him his own price. He was stationed, in +command of his own troops and some Spaniards, at Besançon, where life was +then made gay indeed to the military visitors. Very butterfly that he +was--forgetting altogether his homely Duchess Nicole, who was far +away--Charles fluttered about merrily from flower to flower, almost +thankful to Providence for having by her otherwise harsh judgment driven +him to such captivating pastures new for the cult of Cupid. He was told, +of course, of the bewitching beauty sojourning in the same city. Sated +already with objects of admiration, he, however, at first scarcely paid +heed to the praises of her charms. But once he met her, the hearts of both +were in a twinkling set aflame. + +Charles did not at the time enjoy the best of reputations among +respectable folk. He had dabbled a little too freely in illicit loves. +Accordingly, old Madame de Cusance observed the young people's mutual +passion with very reasonable alarm--and, to prevent its being carried to +dangerous lengths, she packed Beatrix off in hot haste to lonely Belvoir. +To a lover of Charles's mettle, however, twenty miles was a stimulus +rather than an obstacle to love-making. Every day saw him galloping out to +pursue his courting. There were French spies and scouts stationed all +round, watching for the cavalier, eager to carry him off, as their +comrades had not long before carried off our ambassador, Montagu, to +Coiffy. By narrow breakneck paths, which are shown to the present day, +Charles threaded his way adventurously through the forest, where it seems +a marvel that he did not again and again come to grief. No feat, however, +was too hazardous, no risk too great for him to encounter in the pursuit +of his romantic passion. Accordingly, the old lady, like a prudent, +motherly Dutch matron that she was, saw nothing for it but to carry her +daughter very much further away still, to Brussels, where she had her +family mansion, the Hotel Berghes. There Charles could not at once follow +her, for he had his army to look after; and, moreover, the French stood in +the way like a massive wall. No sooner, however, had he gathered his fresh +bays on the field of Nördlingen, and brought the campaign of 1635 to a +more or less satisfactory close, than, still homeless and landless, he +hurried likewise to Brussels, which was then the recognised +gathering-place of all the poor victims of Richelieu's grasping policy. +However, in one way he had been forestalled. In the interval the old +countess, thinking in her innocence that nothing could so effectually put +a stop to undesirable love-making as an actual marriage, had compelled her +beautiful daughter to marry Leopold D'Oiselet, Prince de Cantecroix, a +great personage both in the Franche Comté and in Germany. That ought to +have made all things sure. In truth, it did nothing of the kind. Beatrix +and Charles remained as infatuatedly in love as before, and pursued their +amour seemingly with all the greater zest and determination, because there +was now a legal hindrance. The husband, as it happened, was not the only +difficulty in the way. All the Lorrain princes and princesses--expelled, +like Charles, from their own country, and assembled in the capital of the +Austrian Netherlands--set their faces dead against the lady, and +positively refused to have anything to do with her. Beatrix did not care. +She could afford to snap her fingers at Nicole, Nicolas-Francois, Claude, +Henriette, and the rest of them, so long as Charles remained true to her; +and soon we find her, the lawful wife of Prince Cantecroix, openly avowing +herself "the fiancée" of the Lorrain Duke, who was himself lawfully +married. + +The old lady, foiled once more in her precautions, once more packed her +daughter off out of harm's way--this time back to Besançon. As a matter +quite of course Charles hereupon proposed to the crowned heads with whom +he was in league, that the next campaign must necessarily be carried on +in the Franche Comté, where, indeed, the French had somewhat alarmingly +gained the upper hand, and were at that time rather embarrassingly (for +the Spaniards) investing Dôle. As if to support him in his pleading, a +deputation of Comtois magnates arrived at Brussels, headed, for irony, by +the Prince de Cantecroix himself, petitioning the victor of Nördlingen, +with all the urgency of which they were masters, to come to their rescue. +Charles did not keep them waiting long. He promptly led his army back to +their old quarters at Besançon, where he scarcely repaid Cantecroix in a +Christian spirit. For his father-confessor informs us that, being a devout +"Catholic," and believing implicity in the efficacy of masses, he caused +no less than three thousand such to be said, to obtain from Heaven his +rival's death. He drove the French away from Dôle, but after that he would +not stir another finger. Fighting was all very well, but there was metal +more attractive at Besançon. The old countess, had submitted at last to +the inexorable ruling of fate. It was of no use transporting Beatrix +backwards and forwards, while Charles followed so persistently after, and +her own husband was so blind, or else so helpless. Things must be allowed +to take their course. + +Charles's masses had the desired effect. In February, 1637 the Prince de +Cantecroix died. In his testament he provided liberally for "ma bien aimée +femme"--which _femme_ loyally lost no time in transferring herself from +his house to one belonging to the duke. + +M. de Cantecroix being out of the way, the next thing to be done was to +remove the no less inconvenient Duchess Nicole. From her right to the +throne Charles had already ousted her by a really grotesque farce enacted +in concert with his father. Charles does not appear to have had masses +said for Nicole's death, but he very assiduously consulted the learned of +Church and State concerning the possibility of obtaining a legal +declaration of nullity of marriage. This was an easier matter in those +days than it is now; because, for want of any other plea, there was always +the charge of witchcraft to fall back upon--a charge much in favour with +"the Church." Charles decided to play this trump card. There was a priest, +Melchior de la Vallée, a chosen protégé of the late duke, who had baptized +Nicole. He was now alleged to have been a sorcerer before he performed the +rite of baptism. _Ergo_, he was incompetent lawfully to baptize; _ergo_, +Nicole was not properly baptized; _ergo_, she was not a Christian; _ergo_: +the whole marriage must be void. Witnesses were, of course, produced to +prove the case, and poor Melchior, having been duly condemned, was +orthodoxly burnt at Custines--the place in which Mary Queen of Scots had +spent her youth. His property was declared forfeited to the Crown--to be +eventually employed by Charles, in a fit of remorse, to endow, by way of +pious compensation, the great Chartreuse of Bosserville near Nancy. + +That part of the business had been easily accomplished. It remained, on +the ground of this condemnation, to upset the obnoxious marriage. The +Duke's Chancellor, Le Moleur, was easily persuaded to pronounce an +"opinion" to the effect desired, and, armed with this, he was promptly +sent to Rome, accompanied by the Duke's father-confessor, Cheminot, to +obtain a Papal judgment in accordance with it. The whole thing looked so +plausible as readily to silence the last remaining doubts of Beatrix; and +just nine days after Cantecroix's death the two lovers put their +signatures to the marriage contract which was to make them man and wife. +Less than five weeks later the marriage was formally celebrated in a +characteristic hole-and-corner fashion. On the evening of April 2, 1637, +the duke's physician, Forget, brought the _vicaire_ (curate) of the parish +of S. Pierre in Besançon a written authority from his _curé_ (rector) to +celebrate Sacraments wherever he might be called upon to do so. That done, +the _vicaire_ is led by Forget on a roundabout way into Charles's house, +where he finds a sumptuous supper awaiting him. The food and liquor +despatched, the unsuspecting curate is, in a temper which disposes him to +comply with almost any demand, taken into Charles's own chamber, where the +duke bluntly informs him: "Tu es ici pour bénir notre mariage." Even in +spite of the supper, the curate hesitates. But the duke will stand no +parleying. The ceremony is gone through. The young couple, to place +themselves entirely in order, comply with the custom of the diocese to the +very tittle: embrace, break a loaf of bread between them, drink out of the +same glass, and the thing is done. The curate receives twenty doubloons +for his pains, and is, like everybody else present, pledged to silence. + +Secrecy was, however, under the circumstances, absolutely out of the +question, probably not even seriously desired. Soon after we find the duke +publicly owning Beatrix as his wife, and giving orders that she shall be +treated as duchess and styled "Altesse." She lives with Charles, rides +with him, shows herself by his side to his soldiers, who conceive a +violent fancy for her. Nicole and the Lorrain princes and princesses +protest. But they are far away, and can do no hurt. The old countess is +brought to acquiesce in the marriage, and all seems to go as merrily as +could be wished. Beatrix's sister, the nun of Gray, confesses to pious +scruples, and implores her sister not to do what is wicked, but is +silenced with a simple "Vous n'êtes qu'une enfant." To make all things +sure, Mazarin, anxious to obtain from Charles an advantageous peace, +promises his all-powerful interest with the Curia. The peace duly signed, +Beatrix and her husband religiously undertake, side by side, a pilgrimage +to Bonsecours, where they pray for Heaven's blessing upon their union, and +afterwards hold their formal entry into Nancy, to the bewilderment of her +husband's loyal subjects, who, not knowing what to make of the double +wedlock, cry out lustily: "Que Dieu protège et bénisse le bon Duc Charles +et ses deux femmes!" + +But there was mischief brewing. Nicole and her belongings would have been +less than human if they had not set heaven and earth in motion to upset +the new irregular union. When Cheminot and Le Moleur arrived at Rome to +bespeak the Pope's approval, they found the Prince Nicolas-François +already there, actively counterworking their game, on which even without +such opposing influence the Vatican could scarcely have been expected to +smile. In the place of approval, they received nothing but black looks, +coupled with a strict injunction to the Lady Beatrix not on any account to +pretend to the title of "Duchess." + +Of course Charles's "Petite Paix" lasted only a few weeks. Instead of +leading his troops into the French camp as supports, as he had agreed, he +took them straight to the Spanish headquarters, with the inevitable result +of being once more turned out of his country, and finding himself an exile +at large. These misfortunes, however, sat lightly upon the gay-hearted +monarch, while he had the lovely Beatrix by his side, starring it with her +at the Courts of Worms, Luxemburg, and Brussels, and insisting everywhere +upon Beatrix being treated as duchess. He had given her her own +body-guard, her own establishment of maids of honour, allowed her to hold +her courts and drawing-rooms, just like a reigning princess. + +Meanwhile, concurrently with the Pope's judgment, another matter was +slowly ripening. All this marrying and re-marrying had, as a matter of +course, led to litigation. Prince Cantecroix had left a goodly fortune, +for the possession of which his mother, the Marquise d'Autriche, and his +cousin, M. de Saint Amour, were then fighting fiercely. + +While Charles and Beatrix were attending at Malines, as important +witnesses in this case, what should unexpectedly arrive but a brief from +the Pope, directing the archbishop to proclaim the judgment pronounced on +that half-forgotten application of Le Moleur's and Cheminot's! It had +taken His Holiness some years to come to a decision even on the +preliminary point, that of the marriage with Beatrix; on the main +question, the validity of Charles's marriage with Nicole, the judgment was +still silent. But Charles's marriage with Beatrix the document declared +entirely illegal and invalid, formally threatening both parties concerned +with major excommunication if they did not at once separate and +thereafter continue apart, and, moreover, within a given time, purge +themselves by a public and humiliating penance. To Beatrix this judgment +came as a crushing blow. However, she yielded prompt obedience, removing +at once to the distant Hombourg Haut, near Saint-Avold. + +Charles evidently cared very much less about the separation, however +little he might relish the idea of a penance. It looks very much as if he +had already grown a little tired of the lovely Beatrix. She was still very +beautiful, and had any amount of love-making left in her. Her little amour +with Charles II. was still to come; and that portrait to be seen at +Windsor, which so much enamoured Flecknoe, actually shows her as she was a +little later. However, the _toujours perdrix_ of one particular beauty had +evidently begun to pall upon Charles's exacting taste. He managed very +soon to find some cheering consolation for his loss, to the infinite +entertainment of the gay Court of Brussels--which delighted in scandal, +and was constantly on the look out for some fresh amusement. Charles +provided such, very opportunely, by a quite unexpected new amour, which +was certainly not wanting in originality. Charles suddenly fell over head +and ears in love with the very _bourgeoise_ daughter of the Burgomaster of +Brussels. He pressed his heart and hand upon her again and again. No +effort was too great for him to make in prosecution of his suit, no +expense too lavish. The girl found herself serenaded, _fêted_, asked to +all sorts of festivities--tournaments, concerts, balls--all arranged +specifically in her honour. She found jewellery showered upon her. And, to +secure her good will, the proud Carlovingian Duke even condescended to +compete with the humble burghers at the popular _kermesse_, in the +cross-bow shooting at the "papegay," which, crack marksman that he was, he +brought down in brilliant style, thereby constituting himself +"papegay-king" for the year. That dignity imposed upon him the obligation +of treating all the burghers and their young women to a flow of +liquor--which liquor he did not stint--and, moreover, of holding a +triumphal progress through the town--which he magnified into a sort of +Lord Mayor's procession, himself appearing in the character of his own +ancestor, Godfrey de Bouillon, encased in costly armour, with all his rich +jewellery hung upon his person, and seated, high and lofty, upon a +magnificent car. The buxom Flamande found all this mightily pretty, but +scarcely knew what to make of it so long as her mother strictly forbade +her to give the devoted Charles any encouragement, nor dare so much as to +meet him in private. Once only was the mother prevailed upon to permit a +_tête-à-tête_ for just as long as Charles could manage to hold a live coal +in his palm. To extend the time, Charles extinguished the fire by +heroically crushing the coal with his fingers. All this tomfoolery amused +the Court intensely. But people were just a little astounded when Charles +carried his devotion so far as to refuse to treat with the Spanish +plenipotentiaries for a renewal of his treaty, unless their Excellencies +would first secure the approval and advocacy of his Flemish Dulcinea. The +Spaniards needed the Lorrain troops badly, and so submitted for the +time--but they had their revenge. + +Of course the news of all this love-making brought Beatrix back pretty +promptly to the Low Countries. As an excuse she alleged a burning desire +to be reconciled to the Church, whose censure her sensitive conscience +could no longer endure. Charles was by no means equally impatient. +However, late in 1645, he too at length consented, and, accordingly, the +two attended together to hear the Church's commination, prostrate +themselves at full length before the altar, play the abject penitents +throughout, confess their guilt, and receive episcopal absolution--all in +the presence of a very large assemblage, which made the proceeding none +the more pleasant for the principal actors. + +That done, Beatrix settled down again, perhaps all the better pleased at +finding that by his new treaty obligations Charles had bound himself to +proceed immediately to the battle-fields in France. Whether she had a +right to be severe upon Charles's little amatory escapades may appear a +trifle doubtful by the light of her own conduct now that he was away. At +Ghent she took a leaf out of his own book. The duke soon heard of her +being in a close _liaison_ with a Polish magnate, Prince Radzivill, _jeune +et bien fait, poli et galant_. And not long after arrived the further +intelligence that one of her most conspicuous and most successful admirers +was our own "gay monarch," Charles Stuart, subsequently Charles II., who +was then a refugee in the Netherlands. There is no reason to believe that +these misfeasances were in any way belittled to Charles's ear, seeing that +it was Princess Marguerite, the Duchess of Orleans, his sister, who played +the principal tale-bearer, a lady who, like all the Lorrain princesses, +had a direct interest in bringing Charles's connection with Beatrix to a +close. Charles took the bait. He was furious with the Princess de +Cantecroix. He would repudiate her for good. He would be reconciled on +the spot with Nicole. All seemed to herald a happy and creditable ending +to the misunderstanding of years, when, all of a sudden, Beatrix announced +herself _enceinte_, and by that announcement upset the whole carefully +reared-up house of cards. Nicole had borne the duke no son. Here was the +prospect of one. Throwing the Pope's warning to the winds, forgetting and +forgiving all about Beatrix's wrong-doings, Charles rushed to join her, +and was overjoyed to be able to be present at the birth of what was +destined to be his only son, Charles, subsequently the gifted and +distinguished Prince de Vaudémont, our William III.'s confidant and +adviser, and the elder Pretender's potent patron and ally. The Papal +Nuncio and the Archbishop of Malines were horrorstruck at this barefaced +breaking of a solemn oath. But no serious harm came of it after all. Only, +it was a little provoking to find that when the confinement was over, and +Charles's back was once more turned, Beatrix calmly resumed her illicit +flirtations, of which the Lorrain princesses, more particularly the +Princess Marguerite, were not slow to advise the duke. + +Charles's patience was now completely worn out. As soon as he could manage +it, he posted back to the Low Countries, resolved, as he declared, to +"mettre deux folles à la raison." One _folle_, of course, was +Beatrix--whom Charles protested that nothing would induce him ever to take +into favour again; and the other was his sister Henriette, who had +distinguished herself by a very unconventional match indeed, her third, +between herself, aged fifty, and the youthful Italian banker, Grimaldi, +aged twenty-seven. There were some utilitarian arguments to plead in +excuse of the marriage. Henriette had spent her last _écu_, had sold every +bit of property of hers that was at all saleable, and was deep in debt to +boot; and Grimaldi had money. But nothing would justify the extraordinary +proceeding which these two lovers, driven into a corner, resorted to, of, +so to speak, "springing themselves" upon the unsuspecting Archbishop of +Malines, and simultaneously declaring their intention to be man and wife, +before he could so much as utter a word of protest. That constituted, the +archbishop had himself previously explained, a legal marriage according to +canon law. + +Charles found Beatrix at Antwerp. He at once seized her house in all legal +form, fretting and fuming with rage, and refusing to listen to a word +which she might say in explanation. He had everything put under lock and +key, sentries placed before the door, and, overhauling all the furniture +with his own hands, he claimed back all the property which the lady held +from him; above all, that very valuable collection of jewellery for which +the Lorrain Court was noted. To his dismay he found that a portion of it +was gone. That made matters ten times worse. The missing pieces must +necessarily have been given to Beatrix's _galants_. + +The Lorrain princes and princesses were delighted to observe a fresh +rupture, and spared no pains to fan the flame. As it happened, at this +very time, in 1654, the Papal Tribunal of the "Rota" had at last made up +its mind how to adjudicate upon that old plea first raised in 1637, and +formally laid before the Pope in 1642--the question of the validity of +Charles's marriage with Nicole. The "Rota" ruled the whole suit to be +frivolous. The marriage had been "freely contracted," was therefore +binding, and, not to be troubled again with anything of the sort, the +Court imposed upon Beatrix "perpetual silence." Charles accepted the +judgment readily; indeed, he was so earnestly bent upon reconciliation +with Nicole, that he seriously talked of having her excommunicated, should +she withhold her consent. All seemed once more coming right, in spite of +itself, when Europe was surprised by a gross outrage against law and good +faith, namely, the high-handed seizure by the Spanish governor, +Fuensaldana, of the Duke of Lorraine, and his removal, as a prisoner, to +the distant Castle of Toledo. Six long years was the duke destined to pine +in that unwholesome, dark, barred tower, a prey to vermin and to all +discomforts, and a victim to ever freshly-raised, ever sorely-disappointed +hopes. The very Spaniards around him pitied him. The ladies of Toledo +conspired to liberate the interesting captive, who, in spite of his fifty +years, was still handsome, nimble, full of courtesy and full of life. His +own subjects braved tortures, galleys, death--everything, to effect his +rescue. Never was ruler more beloved; rarely did he less deserve it. +Nicole loyally forgot all past grievances, appealed to Mazarin, appealed +to King Louis, appealed to the Pope. Beatrix likewise did her best--more +especially after Nicole's death, in 1657--though roughly rated all the +time by her wrathful and impatient late lover, who never for a day +together knew his own mind. At one time he asked indignantly: Why did she +not come to share his prison? At another he bade her stay where she was, +since there she could be of greater use. A third time he would have +nothing whatever to say to her. When she sent her _intendant_, +Pelletier, to Spain, to exert himself in the cause of the duke's +liberation, Charles brought up the old charges of infidelity and +misappropriation of his jewellery. But he was delighted to receive at +Pelletier's hands the newly-painted portraits of his two children, Anne +and Charles, to whom, as a partially redeeming feature in his character, +he continued devoted to his dying day. + +In 1660 Spain found that she could carry on war no longer. The result was +the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which was rather dictated by Mazarin than +negotiated between France and Spain, and which, among other things, +provided that Charles should be set free. Purchasing the glory of a +princely escort from the needy noblemen of Spain by a distribution of the +full sum of compensation just received at Madrid, the duke hurried to +Saint Jean de Luz in state, and there, with his habitual impetuosity, +nearly got himself back into prison. The Spanish Ambassador, Don Louis de +Haro, badgered beyond endurance by Charles, full of his complaints, +seriously threatened to have the duke carried back to Toledo. This brought +our rather romantic Stuart exile to the front, whom nobody then supposed +to be so near becoming Charles II. of England. Indeed, Mazarin held him in +such small estimation, that he would not even admit him to his presence. +But on Don Louis, if he ever seriously intended fresh violence, this bold +manoeuvre had the desired effect. He promptly desisted from further +threats. The Lorrain Charles, touched by the chivalrous conduct of his +namesake, in a burst of gratitude generously offered the latter the free +use of his purse--an offer which must have been peculiarly welcome to the +ever-impecunious Stuart--and frankly forgave him his rivalry in the matter +of Beatrix, which looks, indeed, as if between him and her he now intended +all to be over. + +In truth, he did not leave the lady very long in doubt upon that point; +for, finding her at Bar-le-Duc, when, on his way home from Paris, he +passed through that town, he flatly declined to see her. She was staying +with her daughter, whom in Paris Charles had got married to the Prince de +Lillebonne, the governor of the Barrois. He was quite willing that Beatrix +should be treated _en duchesse_, but at this time of day it surely was not +to be expected that he would once more embroil himself with the Pope by +breaking his oath! Just only for a few minutes did he at length consent to +meet her, at the urgent supplication of both his children--outside Bar, in +a little village; and then he was chillingly cold. + +Otherwise, he had still fire enough left in him, when occasion +required--as he showed not long after, when at Paris, while engaged on +that hare-brained errand of concluding the "Treaty of Montmartre," he +became madly enamoured of Marianne Pajot, the daughter of his +brother-in-law's (the Duke of Orleans') apothecary. The marriage very +nearly became a fact. Everything was ready, in spite of protests from all +sides. The priest was waiting, the wedding-guests were in attendance, +actually eating the wedding supper, and drinking the young couple's +health--for precisely at midnight the ceremony was to be performed--when +Du Tellier marched into the room with a guard, and at Louis XIV.'s order +carried off Marianne to the convent of Ville l'Evêque. "You would have +had to take a syringe for your armorial device if you had married her," +said Louis XIV. mockingly. "Yes," replied Charles, alluding to the treaty +just concluded, "with the royal _fleur-de-lys_ at the nozzle." + +This was by no means Charles's last amour. Indeed, after various wildish +escapades nearly leading to matrimony he, four years later, when arrived +at the ripe age of sixty, actually took to wife a girl of thirteen, and +settled down a tolerably staid and respectable husband at last. But this +adventure with Marianne Pajot warned Beatrix, whose health was beginning +seriously to fail, that if she wanted to become Charles's wife at all, she +must be quick about it. Accordingly, when the two once more found +themselves in close proximity, unwilling neighbours at Bar-le-Duc--she up +in the castle, he in the lower town, to be out of her way--she took the +liberty of reminding him of his repeated promises to obtain a dispensation +from the Pope and get the marriage renewed. Charles was not at all +prepared for such an appeal, which accordingly made him not a little +cross. "Not yet," he pleaded, "il n'est pas encore temps de songer à notre +mariage"--not when he was fifty-six and she nearly forty-six! Would he not +consent at any rate to see her? God forbid; how could he, a devout +"Catholic," presume to infringe the Pope's explicit command? Indeed, these +repeated appearances of Beatrix, when she was not wanted, were becoming +wearisome to him. She must keep out of the way. Let her go back to +Besançon! He was duke and could command. But Beatrix, loth to fly from +that which alone could cure her heartache, pleaded, like Lot, for a +shorter journey. Might she not stay at Remiremont? Charles acquiesced. In +small Lorrain towns she spent the next year or so. Life was getting hard +for her, in view of progressively failing health--harder under the painful +sense of injustice and unfaithfulness. She gave herself up to religious +devotions. At Mattaincourt it was, while she was burning candles and +offering prayers to the Lorrain saint, P. Fourier, that the startling news +reached her of a fresh amour into which Charles had thrown himself with +all the ardour of a young man of twenty, an amour with the beautiful +Isabelle de Ludres ("Matame te Lutre," as Madame de Sévigné called her, +ridiculing the rough Lorrain accent), a most delicately-formed, +symmetrically-shaped _brunette_, a very tit-bit of womanhood, destined to +shine in after-time for a brief period in the changing firmament of _Le +Roi Soleil_ at Versailles, as an ephemeral favourite star. She was a +canoness of Poussay--_Lavandières_ they were called in the popular +slang--looking probably all the prettier in her semi-religious garb, +because its wear involved no religious obligations of any kind. The abbess +had obligingly allowed Charles free access to the "nun," and there they +were, acknowledged _fiancé_ and _fiancée_, talking of the time when the +marriage was to take place. To be near Isabella, Charles had moved his +court to Mirecourt, which is just about halfway between Poussay and +Mattaincourt, utterly unconscious probably of the proximity of Beatrix. +There were daily _fêtes_, dances, tourneys, the whole bit of country +seemed transformed into a "Garden of Love." It was like a ghost rising +from the earth when Beatrix--pale, worn, haggard, but still erect and +dignified in bearing--appeared on the scene, her marriage contract in her +hand, to bid the young canoness beware, and remind her lover of his +promises and broken vows. What right had she to be there? asked Charles in +a pet. Had he not bidden her go back to Besançon? Let her be off at once +and not trouble him any more! Alas! in her state of health, travelling to +Besançon was out of the question. She got as far as Mattaincourt, sending +fresh precatory letters to faithless Charles. He would give them no heed. +But she left him no peace. By a severe effort she got to Besançon at last. +"She may disinherit your children," urged Charles's lawyers. "She may stop +your marriage," chimed in the Churchmen. "Remember, she has but at longest +a few weeks to live," added the doctors. "Really?" asked Charles with +visible relief. "She cannot possibly live longer." Not a moment did he +cease from his amatory merry-making preparatory to a contemplated new +marriage. But, as there was time for celebrating a preliminary one in the +interval, for his children's sake he consented to despatch a messenger to +the Pope to demand a dispensation, which arrived just in time for the +marriage with Beatrix to be solemnised while there was still breath in +her. "Me voilà, bien honoré," whispered the dying woman, "à la fin de mes +jours!" Scarcely had the priest left her bedside, when he was called in +once more to celebrate another sacrament. "Ah! quelle union," gasped +Beatrix, "du sacrement de mariage et de l'extrême onction!" + +Thus ended, on June 5, 1663, the changeful life of that "excellents peace +as Nature ever made," as wrote Richard Flecknoe in contemplation of her +portrait at Windsor, full of "colour" and "freshness," and with eyes whose +very lids were "than other eyes more admirably fair," the lady who on the +canvas in our royal castle looks so happy and serene, but who in real life +tasted far more of the bitterness than of the sweet of man's fleeting +love--not, certainly, without much fault on her own part, yet, in respect +of her relations with Charles, surely more sinned against than sinning. + +The news of her death found the feasting at Mirecourt at its merriest. +Trumpets were sounding, flags were flying, drums were beating, all the +jingle of the masquerade of court life was at its noisiest. The widower +scarcely stopped in his amusements to order a brief formal mourning, which +altered but the hue, not the spirit of the feast. For all that his labour +was thrown away. Beatrix had, in self-defence, despatched a protest +against the marriage to the Vicar-general of Toul, who, as a French +bishop, stood in no sort of dependence upon the Duke of Lorraine--rather +delighted in crossing him. Besides, Isabelle's mother, shocked at what she +saw and heard, peremptorily forbade the marriage, and packed her daughter +off in haste to the solitude of Richardménil. + +When Beatrix's will was opened, it was found that she had not forgotten +"her very dear husband." "As a token of respect and submission," she had +"taken the liberty" of bequeathing to him--that very diamond ring with +which he had wedded her, then the worship of all, twenty-six years before, +when his own affection was still fresh and young, and his whole being +seemed bound up in the life and possession of the fervently-loved young +widow. At her death, certainly, she had this to boast of, that of all the +beauties who had riveted Charles's affection, none had for so long a time +and with equal power held sway over his fickle heart. If she was +neglected, it is some satisfaction to think that her children were +honoured and cherished. On the Prince de Vaudémont Charles heaped what +benefits he had to bestow. But the stain of his birth clung to him to his +death. At one time Charles had hoped to seat him on the proud throne of +the Carlovingians. When in 1723 he died, the Lorrain Courts found that no +princely honours could be paid to his body. Quietly, without pomp and +show, were his bones laid beside the bones of his father, in the +Chartreuse of Bosserville, sad memorial that it remains of the duke's +faithlessness to his first wife. Neither of Charles nor of Beatrix has any +offspring survived. Of Charles even later Dukes of Lorraine have scarcely +ever spoken without a protest. Beatrix lies buried at Besançon, and, after +all, considering what evil she unwittingly brought upon her adopted +country, the portrait which alone remains to recall what she was finds, +perhaps, a more fitting place on the walls of Royal Windsor than could +have been given to it in the historic hall of the more than half-destroyed +palace of Nancy, or among the Lorrain portraits preserved, as a memorial +of Lorrain-Hapsburg rule, in the museum of Florence. + + + + +V.--THE REMNANT OF A GREAT RACE.[8] + + +Modern History is, in its rapid march onward, making sad havoc of old +races. New nations are rising up; but only like new banks and headlands on +our coast, by the accumulation of drifted shingle, which the very same +tide is washing away from wasting older rocks. A generation or two hence, +in the making of a new German people, the last remnant will have finally +disappeared of an interesting race, which historians and archæologists +alike, to whom it is known, will be loth to miss. + +There are probably few Englishmen who have any very clear idea as to what +and who the "Wends" or "Sorbs" are. Early in the last century, we read--I +think it was in the year 1702--our Ambassador at Vienna, one Hales, +travelling home by way of Bautzen, to his utter surprise found himself in +that city in the midst of a crowd of people, strange of form, strange of +speech, strange of garb--but unquestionably picturesque--such as he had +never before seen or heard of. They are there still, wearing the same +dress, using the same speech, looking as odd and outlandish as ever. We +need not go back to the records of Alfred the Great, of Wulfstan and +Other, to learn what a powerful nation the Wends, one of the principal +branches of the great Slav family, were in times gone by. In the days when +Wendish warriors, like King Niklot, were feared in battle, their ships +went forth across the sea, side by side with those of the Vikings, +planting colonies on the Danish Isles, in Holland, in Spain--aye, very +ambitious Slav historians will even have it that our own _Sorbiodunum_ +(Salisbury) is "the town of the Sorbs," founded by Sorb settlers in 449, +and that to the same settlers--also styled _Weleti_ (Alfred the Great +calls them _Vylte_)--do our "Wilton" and "Wiltshire" owe their names. On +the Continent they once overspread nearly all Germany. Hanover has its +"Wendland," Brunswick its "Wendish Gate." Franconia, when ruinously +devastated by intestinal wars of German races, was, at Boniface's +instance, recultivated by immigrant Wends, famous in his days, and after, +for their husbandry. The entire North German population, from the Elbe +eastward, and north of the Bavarian and Bohemian mountains, is in descent +far more Wendish than German. Wendish names, Wendish customs, Wendish +fragments of speech, bits of Wendish institutions, survive everywhere, to +tell of past Slav occupation. Altenburg is Wendish to a man, the +Mecklenburgs are to the present day ruled even by Wendish grand dukes. +Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden, Lübeck, Leipzig, Schwerin, and many more +German towns, still bear Wendish names. + +There are now but a poor 150,000 or 160,000 left of this once powerful +people. And that handful is dwindling fast. Every year sees the tide of +spreading Germanism making further inroad on the minute domain which the +Germanised Wends have left to their parent race in that much disputed +territory, the Lusatias. Prussian administration, Prussian education, +Prussian pedantic suppression of everything which is not neo-German, are +rapidly quenching the still smoking flax. It boots little that the Saxon +Government, kinder in its own smaller country, has, very late in the day, +changed its policy, and is now striving to preserve what is, at its lowest +valuation, a most interesting little piece of ethnographic archæology. It +is much too late now to stop the march of Germanisation, which has pushed +on so rapidly that even in the same family you may at the present day find +parents still thoroughly Wendish, and _priding_ themselves on their +Wendish patronymics, and children wholly German, styling themselves by +newly coined German names. Evidently the race is dying fast. + +Its death was in truth prepared a long time ago. Once the Saxons had +obtained the mastery, the poor Slavs were oppressed and persecuted in +every way. They were forbidden to wear their own peculiar dress. They were +forbidden to trade. The gates of their own towns were closed against them, +or else opened only to admit them into a despised "ghetto." No man of +culture dared to own himself a Wend. Accordingly, though they possess a +language unique for its plasticity and pliancy, up to the time of the +Reformation written literature they had none. For centuries their race +has been identified with the lowest walks in life. They must have their +own parsons, of course; but that was all. Otherwise, hewers of wood and +drawers of water, toiling cultivators of the soil, they were doomed to +remain--very "serfs," lending, as we know, in the north, a peculiar name +to that servile station ("serfs," from "serbs"), just as in the south +"Slav" became the distinctive term for "slave." + +To the eye of the archæologist, all this hardship has secured one +compensating advantage. It has left the Wends--in dress, in customs, in +habits of mind, in songs and traditions--most interestingly primitive. +Everything specifically Wendish bears the unmistakable stamp of national +childhood, early thought, old-world life. There has been no development +within the race, as among other Slavs. There have been modern overlayings, +no doubt; but they are all foreign additions. The Wendish kernel has +remained untouched, displaying with remarkable distinctness that +peculiarly characteristic feature which runs through all the Slav kindred, +at once uniting and separating various tribes, combining a curious unity +of substructure with a striking variety of surface. Among the "Serbs," +or--"Sorbs"--really "Srbs"--of Germany, occur names which reveal a close +kinship with Russians, Bohemians, and Croats. By the strange +survival--among two tribes alone in all the world--of a complete dual, and +the retention of a distinct preterite tense (without the use of an +auxiliary verb) their language links them plainly with the Old Bulgarians. +Their national melodies exhibit a marked resemblance to those melancholy +airs which charm English visitors in Russia. Yet a Pole, one of their +nearest neighbours, is totally at sea among the Wends. His language is to +them almost as unintelligible as that of their "dumb" neighbours on the +opposite side, the _Njemski_--that is, the Germans. Even among themselves +the Lusatians are divided in speech. In Lower Lusatia, for instance, where +the population are descended from the ancient Lusitschani, if you want to +ask a girl for a kiss, you must say: _gulitza, daj mi murki_. In Upper +Lusatia, where dwell the Miltschani, the same request takes the shape of: +_holitza, daj mi hupkuh_. My German friends would have it that to their +ears Wendish sounded very like English--which simply meant, that they +understood neither the one nor the other. In truth, there is no +resemblance whatever between the two tongues, except it be this, that like +some of our own people, the Wends are incorrigibly given to putting their +H's in the wrong place. The explanation, in respect of the Wends, is, that +in their language no word is known to begin with a vowel. Hence, to make +German at all pronounceable to their lips, they often have to add an H as +initial letter, the impropriety of which addition they happen generally to +remember at the wrong time. It will terrify linguists among ourselves to +be told that this Slav language--which the Germans despise as barbarous, +which has scarcely any literature, and which is spoken by very few men of +high education--possesses, in addition to our ordinary verbs, also verbs +"neutropassive," "inchoative," "durative," "momentaneous," and +"iterative"; an aorist, like Greek, and a preterite aorist of its own; a +subjunctive pluperfect, and in declension seven cases, including a +"sociative" case, and a "locative." The most remarkable characteristics +of the language, however, are the richness of its vocalisation, and its +peculiar flexibility and pliancy, which enable those who speak it to coin +new and very expressive words for distinct ideas almost at pleasure, yet +open to no misconstruction. + +In outward appearance the Wends are throughout a powerful, healthy, and +muscular race, whose men are coveted for the conscription. The first +Napoleon's famous "Bouchers Saxons"--the Saxon dragoons--were Wends almost +to a man. And in the present day, it is the Wends who contribute the +lion's share of recruits to the Saxon household regiments. Their women are +prized throughout Germany as nurses. They are all well-built, well-shaped, +strong of muscle, and nimble in motion, like the Lacedæmonian women of +old. All surrounding Germany recruits its nurses from Wendland. Next to +stature, the most distinctive external feature of the race is its national +dress, which, as in most similar cases, survives longest, and in its most +characteristic form, among women. As between different districts, such +dress varies very markedly, but throughout it has some common features. +Short bright-coloured skirts, with the hips preternaturally enlarged by +artificial padding, and an unconscionable amount of starch put into the +petticoats on Sundays; close-fitting bodices, under which, in some +districts, by an atrocious perversion of taste, are placed bits of stout +cardboard, designed to compress a strongly developed bust to hideous +flatness; small tight-fitting caps, into which is gathered all the hair, +and which are often concealed under some bright-coloured outer head-gear, +with an abundance of ribbons dependent; and a goodly allowance of +scrupulously clean collar, frill, and neckerchiefs, at any rate on +Sundays; and, on festive occasions, stockings of the same irreproachable +whiteness put upon massive calves which on other occasions are worn all +bare--these are, briefly put, the main characteristics of the women's +dress. Oddly, the Roman Catholics, who elsewhere--in the Black Forest, for +instance--affect the gayest colours, among the Wends show a partiality for +the soberest of hues, more specifically brown and black. The men delight +in big buttons, bright waistcoats, and high boots, long coats which pass +on from father to son through generations, and either preternaturally +stout hats of prehistoric mould, or else large blue caps with monster +shades. Their peculiar customs are simply legion, and so are their +traditions and superstitions. Their fairs are a thing to see. +Old-fashioned as the Wends are, ordinary shopping has no attraction for +them. But the merry fair, with its life and society, its exchange of +gossip, its display of finery, its haggling and bargaining, its music and +its dancing, is irresistibly alluring. At the great fair at Vetzschau in +olden days you might see as many as a thousand Wendish girls, all dressed +in their best, formally but merrily going through their Wendish dances in +the market-place. In matters of faith the Wends are all great believers in +little superstitious formulas and observances, such as not turning a knife +or a harrow edge or tine upward, lest the devil should sit down upon it. +Their favourite devices for attracting a man's or a maiden's love are a +little too artlessly natural to be fit for recital here. One great +prevailing superstition is the belief in lucky stones--_kamushkis_. +Stones, in truth, play a leading part in their traditions. They have a +belief that stones went on growing, like plants, till the time of our +Saviour's temptation, in the course of which, by an improvement upon the +authorised text, they assert that he hurt his foot against one by +accident. In punishment for having caused that pain, their growth is +understood to have been stopped. They have other stones as +well--"fright-stones" and "devil-stones" for instance. But the _kamushkis_ +are by far the most important and the most valuable. They are handed on as +precious heirlooms from parent to child, and often put down at a high +value in the inventory of an estate. The supernatural world of the Wends +is as densely peopled as any mythology ever yet heard of. There is the +_psches-poniza_--the noon woman, to avoid whom women in pregnancy and +after their confinement dare not go out of doors in the midday hours; +there is the _smerkava_, or "dusk-woman," who is fatal to children, the +_wichor_, or whirlwind; the _plon_, or dragon, who terrifies, but also +brings treasure; the _bud_, or Will-o'-the-Wisp; the _bubak_, or bogey; +the nocturnal huntsman, _nocny hanik_; and the nocturnal carman, _nocny +forman_; the _murava_, or nightmare; the _kobod_ or _koblik_; the +_chódota_ (witch); the _buzawosj_, who frightens children; the _djas_, the +_graby_, the _schyry zed_, the _kunkaz_, there are spirits "black" and +"white." Every mill has its peculiar _nykus_ or _nyx_, who must be fed and +propitiated. And then there are roguish sprites, such as _Pumpot_, who is +a sort of Wendish "barguest," doing kind turns as often as he plays +mischievous pranks. All this curious Slav mythology alone is worth +studying. If in a family children keep dying young, the remedy certain to +be applied is, to christen the next born "Adam" or "Eve," according to its +sex, which is thought absolutely to ensure its life. Like most +much-believing races, the Wends are remarkably simple-minded, trustful, +leadable, and docile, free from that peculiar cunning and malice which is +often charged, rightly or wrongly, to Slav races--not without fault, but +in the main a race of whom one grows fond. + +To see the Wends ethnographically at their best, you should seek them in +their forest homes, all through that vast stretch of more or less +pine-clad plain, mostly sand, extending northwards from the last distant +spurs of the "Riesengebirge" (which bounds at the same time Bohemia and +Silesia), to the utmost limits of their territory in the March of +Brandenburg, and much beyond that--or else in that uniquely beautiful +Spreewald, some hundred of miles or so south of Berlin, a land of giant +forest and water, an archipelago of turfy islets. That is the ancient +headquarters of the Wendish nation, still peopled by a peculiar tribe, +with peculiar, very quaint dress, with traditions and customs all their +own, settled round the venerated site of their old kings' castle. It is +all a land of mystic romance, sylvan silence, old-world usages, such as +well become the supposed "Sacred Forest" of the ancient "Suevi." Alders +and oaks--the former of a size met with nowhere else--cast a dense, black +shade over the whole scene, which is in reality but one vast lake, on +whose black and torpidly moving waters float wooded _kaupes_ or isles, +scattered over which dwell in solitude and practical isolation the +toilsome inhabitants, having no means of communication open to them +except the myriads of arms of the sluggishly flowing Spree. A parish +covers many square miles. Each little cottage, a picture by itself amid +its bold forest surroundings, stands long distances away from its +neighbours. The outskirts of the forest consist of wide tracts of wobbling +meadow, a floating web of roots and herbage, over which one can scarcely +move without sinking into water up to the hips. Were you to tread through, +down you would go helplessly into the fathomless black swamp. On those +vast meadows grow the heavy crops of sweet nutritious grass which make the +Spreewald hay valued at Berlin for its quality as is the hay of the Meuse +at Paris. On their little islands, as in the _Hortillonages_ of the Somme, +the _kaupers_ raise magnificent crops of vegetables (more particularly +cucumbers, without which Berlin would scarcely be itself), which, as on +the Somme, they are constrained to carry to market by boat. Boats and +skates, in fact, supply in that wooded Holland the only means of +locomotion. And thanks to its canals and its water, all in it is so fresh, +and so luxuriant, and so remarkably silent, that, while one is there, +there seems no place like the Spreewald in which to be thoroughly alone +with Nature. On a mound artificially raised upon one of these islands, at +Burg, once stood the castle of the great Wendish kings, whose sceptre is +supposed still to descend in secret from sire to son in a particular +family, known only to the best initiated of Wends. To this country more +specifically, together with some scores of distinctive water sprites (each +endowed with its own attribute), does Wendish mythology owe its numerous +legends about snakes wearing precious crowns, which on occasion they will +carelessly lay down on the grass, where, if luck should lead you that way, +you may seize them and so ensure to yourself untold riches--provided that +you can manage to get safely away. + +In the mountainous country about Bautzen and Loebau in Saxony, where the +scenery is fine, the air bracing, the soil mostly fat, nineteenth century +levelling has been far too long at work for race customs to have +maintained themselves altogether pure. There stand the ancient sacrificing +places of the Wends, the Czorneboh, sacred to the "black god," the +Bjeliboh, sacred to the "white" one--respectively, the Mounts Ebal and +Gerizim of Wendland--and many more. Wendish traditions and Wendish speech +are still very rife in those parts. And most of the brains of the race are +to be found in that well-cultivated district--the "Wendish Mozart," +Immisch, Hornigk, Pfuhl--all the literary coryphæi of the race. From +Bautzen, certainly, with its bipartite cathedral, in which Roman Catholics +and Protestants worship peaceably side by side, divided only by a grating, +it is quite impossible to dissociate Wendish traditions. That is to the +Upper Lusatians what Cottbus is to the lower--_mjesto_, "the town" _par +excellence_. There are very true Wends in those regions still. In a +village near Hochkirch the community managed for a long time successfully +to keep out Germans, refusing to sell any property otherwise than to a +Wend. But under the influence of advancing civilisation so many things +externally peculiar to the race have disappeared--their forests, and their +wooden buildings, much of their ancient dress; they live so much in the +great world, that they can scarcely be said to have kept up their +peculiar race-life in absolute purity. + +In the forest, on the other hand, where, in fact, dwell the bulk of the +not yet denationalised race, you still see Wends as they were many +centuries ago. It is a curious country, that easternmost stretch of what +once was the great forest of Miriquidi, almost touching Bautzen and +Görlitz with its southernmost fringe, and extending northward far into the +March of Brandenburg. At first glance you would take it to be intolerably +prosaic. It spreads out at a dead level, flat as a rink, for miles and +miles away, far as the eye can see, with nothing to break the straight +sky-line--except it be clouds of dust whirled up by the wind from the +powdery surface of this German Sahara. The villages lie far apart, divided +by huge stretches of dark pine forest, much of it well-grown, not a +little, however, crippled and stunted. The roads are, often, mere tracks +of bottomless sand, along which toils the heavy coach at a foot pace, +drawn by three horses at least, and shaking the passengers inside to bits +by its rough motion across gnarled pine-roots which in the dry sand will +never rot. But look at it a little more closely, and you will find a +peculiar kind of wild romance resting upon it. If you take the trouble to +inquire, you will find that all this forest is peopled with elves. There +are stories and legends and superstitions attaching to almost every point. +Hid away among it are the sites of ancient Wendish villages--you may see +where stood the houses, you may trace where were the ridged fields, you +may feel, Wends will have it, by a creeping sensation coming over you as +you pass, where were the ancient grave-yards. Here is an ancient haunted +Celtic barrow. There is a cave in which are supposed to meet, at certain +uncanny hours, the ghosts of cruel Swedish invaders, barbarously murdered +in self-defence, or else Wendish warriors of much older time. Yonder, +again, is a mound beneath which lies a treasure. Here "spooks" this +spirit, there his fellow. By the Wends the forest is regarded with +peculiar awe. It is to them a personality, almost a deity, exacting, as +they will have it, every year at least one victim as a tribute or +sacrifice. Every now and then you will come upon a heap of dry branches, +on which you may observe that every passer-by religiously lays an +additional stick. That is a "dead man," a Wendish "cairn," raised up in +memory of some person who on that spot lost his life. Between the forest +and dry fields picturesquely stretch out sheets of water, some of them of +large size. And where there is water, the scenery at once assumes a hue of +freshness and verdure which is most relieving. Dull and bare as this +country generally is, no Switzer loves his own beautiful mountain home +more fervently, or admires it with greater appreciation, than do the Wends +their native patch of sand and peat and forest; nor does he miss it, when +away, with more painful home-sickness. + +In this flat tract of land you may see the German Slavs still living in +their traditional timber or clay-and-wattle houses, built in the orthodox +Wendish style--with a little round-roofed oven in front, and a draw-well +surmounted by a tall slanting beam, with a little garden, the +_Ausgedinge-haus_ for the pensioned-off late proprietor, the curious +barge-board, ornamented at either end with some crudely fantastical +carving (which was borrowed more than a thousand years ago from the early +Saxons), and with that most characteristic mark of all, the heavy arched +beam overshadowing the low windows. The house would be thatched, but that +the Prussian government absolutely forbids thatch for new roofing. The +entire settlement is laid out on the old nomad plan, reminding one of +times when for security villagers had to dwell close together. In the +middle of the village is the broad street or green, planted with high +trees, which, by their contrast with the surrounding pine forest, indicate +the site to the traveller a long way off. The Wends are devoted lovers of +trees, and in every truly Wendish village you are sure to find a large +lime tree, tall or stunted, but in every case spreading out its branches a +long distance sideways, and overshadowing a goodly space. That tree has +for generations back formed the centre of local life, and is venerated as +becomes a "sacred tree" of ancient date. Here young and old are wont to +assemble. Here, on Saturday afternoons in spring-time, gather the young +girls to blend their tuneful voices in sacred song heralding the advent of +Easter. Here used to meet the village council--which has in recent times, +for reasons of practical convenience, removed to the public-house--the +_gromada_, or _hromada_, summoned by means of a _kokula_ or _hejka_, that +is, a "crooked stick" or a hammer, sent round from house to house. Every +householder, large or small, has a right to be present and to take his +full part in the proceedings; for the Wends are no respecters of persons. +In the centre sits the _solta_, as president, supported by his "sidesmen," +the _starski_. And there are discussed the affairs of the little +community, heavily and solemnly at first, but with increasing animation as +the _pálenza_, or _schnaps_, gets into people's heads. The most +interesting by far of these periodical meetings is the _gromada +hoklapnica_--the "gromada of brawls," that is--which is held in most +villages on St. Thomas' Day, in some on Epiphany Day, to transact, with +much pomp and circumstance, the business which has reference to the whole +year. The annual accounts are there settled. New members are received into +the commune, and if any have married, the Wendish marriage tax is levied +upon them. If there are any paupers in the parish, they are at that +meeting billeted in regular succession upon parishioners. Another +important matter to settle is the institution of paid parish officers, +none of whom are appointed for more than a year at a time. Watchman, +field-guard, blacksmith, road-mender, &c., all are expected to attend, cap +in hand, making their obeisance as before a Czar, thanking the _gromada_ +for past favours, which have secured them infinitesimal pay, and humbly +supplicating for new, which are, as a rule, granted with a rather pompous +and condescending grace. + +The village homesteads line the common or street on either side, standing +gable outwards, as every Wendish house ought to stand. From them radiate +in long narrow strips the fields, as originally divided, when the settlers +were still a semi-nomad race, when each member was scrupulously assigned +his own share of loam, clay, high land, low land, peat, sand, meadow--not +only in order that none might be better off than his neighbour, but also +that the workers in the fields might at all times make sure of +fellowship, to lighten their toil by chat and song, and by taking their +meals in company. During the whole of their history the Wends have shown +themselves devoted to agriculture. Their social system was based upon +agriculture; agriculture occupied their thoughts. Their legends represent +their ancient kings, and the saints of their hagiology, as engaged in +agriculture. And their girls, thinking of marriage, may be heard to sing: + + "No, such a suitor I will not have + Who writeth with a pen; + The husband for me is the man + Who plougheth with the plough." + +By intuitive instinct the Wends prefer cultivating light land, whereas the +Germans give the preference to strong. All their implements seem made for +light soil. Such are their wooden spades, tastefully edged with steel +which, though not perhaps as useful as our all-steel implements, look +incomparably more picturesque. And from light soil the Wends know better +than any race how to raise remunerative crops. They understand heavy land, +too--as witness their excellent tillage in Upper Lusatia, and above all in +that German "Land of Goshen," the Duchy of Altenburg. But on sand they are +most at home. And in the poorest districts you may make sure that wherever +you see a particularly fine patch of corn, or potatoes, or millet, or +buckwheat, that patch is peasant's land. + +The church, as a rule, is placed right in the middle of the village. The +Wends value their church. For all their stubborn paganism in early days, +against which St. Columban, and St. Emmeran, and St. Rupert and St. +Eckbert all contended in vain, the Wends have, since they were +christianized, always been a devoutly religious people, and at +present--barring a little drinking and a little stealing (which latter, +however, is strictly confined to fruit and timber, in respect of which two +commodities they hold communistic opinions)--they are exemplary +Christians. With their parsons they do not always stand on the best of +terms. But that is because some of the parsons, raised from peasant rank, +are, or were--for things have altered by the introduction of fixed +stipends--a little exacting in the matter of tithes and offerings, and the +demand that there should be many sponsors at a christening, for the sake +of the fees. There are some queer characters among that forest-clergy. One +that I knew was a good deal given to second-hand dealing. He attended +every sale within an accessible radius, to bring home a couch, or a whip, +or a pair of pole-chains, or a horse-cloth, for re-sale. His vicarage was +in truth a recognised second-hand goods store, in which every piece of +furniture kept continually changing. Another was greedy enough to claim a +seat at the Squire's table, at the great dinners given in connection with +the annual _battues_, as a matter of "prescription." A third drank so hard +that on one occasion he had to be propped up against the altar to enable +him to go on with the service. The most curious of all was the "chaplain" +of Muskau, who married his couples wholesale, on the Manchester "sort +yourselves" principle. Sometimes, when things went a little slowly, and he +grew impatient, it was _he_ who "sorted" the couples, and then +occasionally it would happen that, giving the word of command like a +Prussian corporal, he would "sort" them wrongly. They were far too well +drilled to discipline not to obey. But when the ceremony was over they +would lag sheepishly behind, scratching their heads and saying: "_Knès +duchowny_, _I_ should have married _that_ girl, and this girl should have +married _him_." However, the Church had spoken, and the cause was +finished. Married they were and married they must remain. Even to this the +patient Wends submitted; and, perhaps, they were all the happier for it. + +But all this has nothing to do with the Church proper, as distinct from +the parson. Their religious instinct appears born with the Wends. Religion +seems to be in all their thoughts and most of their acts. The invariable +greeting given is "God be with you." They talk habitually of "God's rain," +"God's sun," "God's crops," "God's bread"--to them "every good gift and +every perfect gift cometh from above." Worshippers returning from church +are hailed with a "Welcome from God's Word." When the sun goes down, it is +to "God" that it goes to rest. Whenever a bargain is struck, the appeal to +the other party is "God has seen it," or "God has heard it." And although +German jurisdiction, with its partiality for oaths slily extracted _after_ +a statement, has imported here and there a little false swearing, in the +main that ancient confirmation of the contract is still respected. In +Wendland the churches are filled as nowhere else in Germany, and however +prosily the parson may preach--as he generally does--nowhere is he more +attentively and devoutly listened to. In Wendland alone of all Germany +have I noticed that Protestants bow at the mention of the name of +"Jesus." Barring some ten thousand Roman Catholics in Saxony, the Wends +are all staunch Protestants of that nondescript Lutheran-Calvinist creed, +which the kings of Prussia have imposed upon their country. But not a few +of their beliefs and superstitions and legends hark back to older days. +They still keep _Corpus Christi_. In their religious legends, which are of +very ancient origin, the Virgin plays a prominent part--leading off, among +other things, a nocturnal dance, in which the angels all join, clad in +silken gowns with green wreaths on their heads, meeting for the purpose, +of all unsuitable places, in the church, and carefully locking the door +against human intruders. The Virgin's flight into Egypt is put into +strongly agricultural language, "Has a woman with a child passed this +way?" ask Herod's ruthless emissaries. "Aye," answers the truthful Wend, +"while I was sowing this barley." "You fool, that must have been three +months ago." In truth, by a miracle the barley has grown to maturity in +one brief hour. By this expedient the Virgin escapes. The Virgin spins; +the Virgin sews shirts; the Virgin does all that Wendish women are taught +to do. In Scripture-lore the Wends have their own localised versions of +the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; of the fight of St. George and the +Dragon; and an even more localised tale of the doings of King David. The +archangel Michael is made to fight for Budyssin against the Germans. Judas +Iscariot, according to their national tradition, comes to grief mainly +through gambling. The Saviour gave him thirty pieces of silver to buy +bread with. These he staked--tempted by Jews whom he saw gambling by the +wayside--on an unlucky card; and to recover them it was that he sold his +Master. To cap all this unorthodoxy, the Wends make the Creator call after +Judas that he is forgiven. But remorse drives him to hang himself, +notwithstanding. He tries a pine and a fir, but finds them too soft, so he +selects an aspen tree--hence the perpetual agitation of its leaves. One of +their peculiar legendary saints is Diter Thomas, who was so holy that he +could hang his clothes when going to bed--which he appears to have done in +the daytime--on a sunbeam. One day, however, at church this devout man +espied the Devil seated behind the altar, engaged in taking down on a +fresh cowhide the names of all whom he saw sleeping in church. There must +have been an unusually large number, for the cowhide proved too small, and +Satan was fain to stretch it by holding one end with his teeth and pulling +at the other with his hands. As it happened, his teeth let go, and back +went his head against the wall, with a bang which woke up all the +sleepers. This aroused in pious Thomas so much mirth that he forgot the +respect due to the holy place, and laughed aloud--in punishment for which +offence his grace departed from him, and he was thenceforth reduced to the +necessity of using pegs. For their regularity in attendance at church I +half suspect that the peculiar fondness of the Wends for singing is, in +not a small degree, accountable; and, it may be, also the attraction of a +little gossip after service, and the excitement of an occasional little +fair. + +The Wends would indeed not be Slavs if they were not engrossingly fond of +singing. Singing is, in fact, among young folk reckoned the principal +accomplishment. And they have a rich store of songs, set to exceedingly +melodious airs. They have them of all descriptions--legends and convivial +songs, martial songs, sacred hymns, short _róncka_ and _reje_ for the +dancing-room, and long elegies and ballads for the field, to shorten the +long summer's day out at work. They have their own curious instruments, +too, still in use--a three-stringed fiddle, a peculiar sort of hautboy, +and bagpipes of two different sizes, the larger one invariably ornamented +with a goat's head. To be a _kantorka_ (precentress) in church, or even in +a spinning-room, is a thing for a Wendish girl to be proud of, and to +remember to her old age. What a Wendish village would in winter time be +without those social spinning meetings it is difficult to imagine. To no +race do conviviality, mirth, harmless but boisterous amusement, seem so +much of a necessary of life. And none appears to be so thoroughly devoted +to the practice of homely household virtues. Spinning, poultry-breeding, +bee-keeping, gardening, coupled with singing, and nursing children, and +making model housewives--these are the things which occupy girls' +thoughts. At her very christening the baby-girl, borne back from church +"as a Christian," is made to find a spindle and a broom carefully laid in +the room, to act as charms in setting her infant thoughts in the right +direction. Her "sponsor's letter" is sure to contain some symbolic grains +of flax and millet. And a lover's principal gift to his sweetheart +invariably consists of a carefully turned and brightly-painted +"kriebatsche," an antiquated spindle and distaff that is, which is held +dear as a family Bible. Spinning, indeed, is among Wends a far more +important occupation than elsewhere. For men and women alike wear by +preference linen clothes, made of good, stout, substantial stuff, thick +enough to keep out the cold. In rural Germany a peasant girl is expected +as an indispensable preparative for marriage to knit her "tally" of +stockings. In Wendland the _trousseau_ consists all of spun linen. +Servants invariably receive part of their wages in flax. Spinning +accordingly is about the most important work to be accomplished in a +household. And as it lends itself capitally to sociability and mirth, the +Wendish maidens take to it with peculiar zest. The date for beginning +these gatherings throughout Lusatia is the 11th of October, St. Burkhard's +Day in the Wendish calendar. On that day the young unmarried women tell +themselves off into _psazas_, that is, spinning companies, consisting of +twelve at the outside, all of them girls of unblemished character. Among +no race on earth is purity more valued and insisted upon--in both +sexes--than among these poor forest Wends. Wherever corruption has crept +in, it is wholly due to the evil seductions of Germans, who have taken +advantage of the helplessness of Wendish girls when away on service. In a +Wendish village, to have made a _faux pas_ deprives a young fellow and +girl alike of their character for life. The girl must not sit with the +other girls in church when the young are catechised; she must not walk up +to the altar on high festivals; she must not join in the singing; and the +spinning companies will not have her. In olden time she was not even +allowed to dance. Young men going notoriously astray used to be punished +in their own way. + +Some time before the eventful eleventh, the _psazas_ assemble to decide +in whose house the spinning gatherings are to be held. In that house they +meet throughout the winter, spinning industriously with wheel or with +spindle from seven to ten, and requiting the housewife for her hospitality +with welcome assistance in various kinds of domestic work. On the first +evening the company quite expect to be treated to a good supper of roast +goose. How all the spinners, with the resident family, and those young +fellows who, of course, will from time to time pay the lasses a +visit--either in disguise or in their own proper garb--manage to meet, and +work, and lark, and dance, where they do, it is rather a problem to solve. +For many of the rooms are not large. They are plain, of course, in their +equipment, like all Wendish rooms (in which paint is allowed only on +chairs, all the other woodwork being subject to the scrubbing-brush), but +strikingly peculiar. Almost in one corner--but far enough away from the +wall to leave space for a little, cosy nook behind--stands the monster +tile stove, very adequately heated with peat or wood, and showing, +tolerably high up, a little open fireplace, in which burns a bright little +wood fire, rather to give light and look cheerful, than to diffuse warmth. +That is the vestal hearth of the Wendish house, without which there would +be no home. In another corner stands the solid, large deal table, with +painted chairs all round. The walls are all wainscoted with deal boards; +and round the whole room runs a narrow bench, similar to the _murka_, a +seat far more tempting, which encircles the stove. Nearly all the +household implements in use are neatly ranged about the walls, or else +placed on the floor--the _boberzge_, a peculiar plate rack; the _polca_, +to hold pots and spoons; and the _standa_, for water. There are baskets, +cans, tubs disposed about, and a towel hung up for show. This room grows +tolerably lively when the spinning company assemble, telling their tales, +playing their games, gossiping and chatting, but mostly singing. "Shall we +have any new songs?" is the first question invariably asked when the +_psaza_ constitutes itself. And if there is a new girl come into the +village, the inquiry at once passes round, "Does she know any new songs?" +Indeed, the _psazas_ serve as the principal singing classes for the young +women in the village. They are kept up throughout the year as special +choirs and sub-choirs, so to speak, singing together on all sacred and +mundane occasions where singing is required. Whenever "the boys" look in, +there is great fun. Sometimes one will dress up as a "bear," in a "skin" +made up of buckwheat straw; or else he will march in as a "stork," which +causes even greater amusement. Once at least in the season the funny man +of the set makes his appearance transformed into what, by a very wild +flight of imagination, may be taken for a pantomime horseman, with a horse +made up of four big sieves, hung over with a white sheet. Before calling +in a real, formal way, the boys are always careful to ask for leave, which +means that they will bring _piwo_ and _pálenza_ (beer and spirits), the +girls revenging themselves by providing cake and coffee; and then the +entertainment will wind up with a merry dance. One very amusing occasion +is the _dopalowak_, or _dolamowak_, that is, the last spinning evening +before Christmas, when the boys sit in judgment upon the girls, and, +should they find one or other to be guilty of idleness, condemn her to +have her flax burnt or else her spindle broken, which penalties are, of +course, in every case commuted into a fine. This sort of thing goes on +till Ash Wednesday, when the "Spinte" is formally executed by stabbing, an +office which gives fresh scope to the facetiousness and agility of the +funny man. The night before is the social evening _par excellence_. It is +called _corny wecor_, "the black evening," because girls and boys alike +amuse themselves with blackening their faces like chimney-sweeps, and with +the very same material. The boys are allowed to take off the girls' caps +and let down their hair--the one occasion on which it is permitted to hang +loose. And there is rare merrymaking throughout the night. Indeed, all +Shrovetide is kept with becoming spirit, perhaps more boisterously than +among any other folk, and in true excitable Slav style. The boys go about +a-"zampering," and collecting contributions; the girls bring out their +little savings; and then the young people dance their fill, keeping it up +throughout Lent. Indeed, they dance pretty well all the year round-- + + "Njemski rady rejwam, + Serski hisce radsjo;" + +which may be rendered thus: + + "The German way I love to dance, + But the Wendish dance I dote on." + +To witness the _serska reja_--the only truly national dance preserved +among the Wends--at its best, you should see it danced on some festive +occasion, when the blood is up, out in the open air, on the grass plot, +where stands the sacred lime tree. There is plenty of room there. The very +sight of the green--say of the young birches planted around for decoration +at Whitsuntide or Midsummer--seems to fire the susceptible spirits. The +dancers throw themselves into the performance with a degree of vigour and +energy of which we Teutons have no notion. The _serska reja_ is a +pantomimic dance. Each couple has its own turn of leading. The cavalier +places his partner in front of him, facing her, and while the band keeps +playing, and the company singing one of those peculiarly stirring Wendish +dance tunes, he sets about adjuring her to grant him his desire, and dance +with him. She stands stock still, her arms hanging down flop by her side. +The cavalier capers about, shouts, strikes his hands against his thighs, +kneels, touches his heart--with the more dramatic force the better. At +length the lady gives way, and in token of consent raises her hand. +Briskly do the two spin round now for the space of eight bars, after which +for eight more they perform something like a cross between a _chassez +croisez_ and a jig, and so on for a little while, after which the whole +company join in the same performance. As a finish the cavalier "stands" +the band and his partner some liquor, and a merry round dance concludes +his turn of leading, to the accompaniment of a tune and song, _róncka_, +selected by himself. + +Lent is a season more particularly consecrated to song. Every Saturday +afternoon, and on some other days, the girls of the various _psazas_ +assemble under the village lime tree, the seat around which is +scrupulously reserved for them, to sing, amid the rapt attention of the +whole village, some of their delightful sacred songs peculiar to the +season. This singing reaches its climax on Easter night, when young +fellows and girls march round the village in company, warbling in front of +every door, in return for which they receive some refreshment. For a brief +time only do they suspend their music to fetch "Easter water" from the +brook, which must be done in perfect silence, and accordingly sets every +mischief-maker at work, teasing and splashing, and playing all sorts of +practical jokes, in order to extract a word of protest from the +water-fetching maidens. As the clock strikes midnight the young women form +in procession and march out to the fields, and all round the cultivated +area, singing Easter hymns till sunrise. It produces a peculiarly striking +effect to hear all this solemn singing--maybe, the same tunes ringing +across from an adjoining parish, as if echoed back by the woods--and to +see those tall forms solemnly moving about in the early gloaming, like +ancient priestesses of the Goddess Ostara. While the girls are singing, +the bell-ringers repair to the belfry (which in many villages stands +beside the church) to greet the Easter sun with the traditional +"Dreischlag," the "three-stroke," intended to indicate the Trinity. + +Lent sees the Wends perform another curious rite, of peculiar antiquarian +interest. The fourth Sunday in Lent is by established custom set apart for +the ceremony of "driving out Death"--in the shape of a straw figure decked +out with the last bridal veil used, which the bride is expected to give up +for the purpose. This poor figure is stoned to destruction to the cry of +_Lec horè, lec horè_, which may be borrowed from the Lutheran name for +the Sunday in question, _Laetare_. In some places the puppet is seated in +a bower of pine boughs, and so carried about amid much infantine +merriment, to be ultimately burnt or drowned. The interesting feature of +this rite is, that it does not really represent the Teuton "expulsion of +winter" so much as the much older ceremony of piously visiting the site on +which in Pagan times bodies used to be burnt after death. It is a heathen +All Saints' Day. + +I have no space here to refer to anything like all the curious Wendish +observances which ought to be of interest to folk-lorists: the lively +_kokot_, or harvest home, so called because under the last sheaf it was +usual to conceal a cock, _kokota lapac_ with legs and wings bound, which +fell to the lot of the reaper who found it; the _lobetanz_; the _kermusa_, +or _kirmess_, great and small, the merry children's feast on May Day; the +joyful observance of Whit Sunday and Midsummer; the peculiar children's +games, and so on. It is all so racy and peculiar, all so merry and yet so +modest in the expenditure made upon it, it all shows the Wends so much to +advantage as a contented, happy, cheerful people--perhaps a little +thoughtless, but in any case making the best of things under all +circumstances, and glad to show off their Slav finery, and throw +themselves into whatever enjoyment Providence has vouchsafed, with a zest +and spirit which is not to be excelled, and which I for one should be +sorry to see replaced by the more decorous, perhaps, but far less +picturesque hilarity of the prosy Prussians. If only the Wends did not +consume such unconscionable quantities of bad liquor! And if in their cups +they did not fall a-quarrelling quite so fiercely! It is all very well to +say, as they do in one of their proverbs, with truthful pithiness, that +"there is not a drop of spirit on which do not hang nine devils." But +their practice accords ill with this proverbial wisdom. The public-house +is to them the centre of social life. Every new-comer is formally +introduced and made to shake hands with the landlord. They have a good +deal of tavern etiquette which is rigidly adhered to, and the object of +which in all cases is, like George the Fourth's "whitewash," to squeeze an +additional glass of liquor into the day's allowance. Thus every guest is +entitled to a help from the landlord's jug, but in return, from every +glass served is the landlord entitled to the first sip. Thus again, after +a night's carousal, the guests always expect to be treated by the host to +a free liquor round, which is styled the _Swaty Jan_--that is, the Saint +John--meaning "the Evangelist," whose name is taken in vain because he is +said to have drunk out of a poisoned cup without hurt. All the invocation +in the world of the Saint will not, however, it is to be feared, make the +wretched _pálenza_ of the Wends--raw potato fusel--innocuous. It is true, +their throats will stand a good deal. By way of experiment, I once gave an +old woman a glass of raw spirit as it issued from the still, indicating +about 82 per cent. of alcohol. She made a face certainly, but it did not +hurt her; and she would without much coaxing have taken another glass. + +This article has already grown so long that of the many interesting +customs connected with the burial of the dead and the honouring of their +memory I can only refer to one very peculiar and picturesque rite. Having +taken the dying man out of his bed, and placed him (for economy) on straw +(which is afterwards burnt) to die, put him in his coffin, with whatever +he is supposed to love best, to make him comfortable--and in addition a +few bugs, to clear the house of them--the mourners carry him out of the +house, taking care to bump him on the high threshold, and in due course +the coffin is rested for part of the funeral service in front of the +parsonage or the church. In providing for the comfort of the dead the +survivors show themselves remarkably thoughtful. No male Wend is buried +without his pipe, no married female without her bridal dress. Children are +given toys, and eggs, and apples. Money used to be put into the coffin, +but people found that it got stolen. So now the practice is restricted to +the very few Jews who are to be found among the Wends and who, it is +thought, cannot possibly be happy without money; and, with a degree of +consideration which to some people will appear excessive, some stones are +added, in order that they may have them "to throw at the Saviour." In +front of the church or parsonage the coffin is once more opened, and the +mourners, all clad in white--which is the Wendish colour for mourning--are +invited to have a last look at the body. Then follows the _Dobra noc_, a +quaint and strictly racial ceremony. The nearest relative of the dead, a +young person, putting a dense white veil over his or her head and body, is +placed at the back of the coffin, and from that place in brief words +answers on behalf of the dead such questions as affection may prompt near +friends and relatives to put. That done, the whole company join in the +melodious _Dobra noc_--wishing the dead one last "Good-night." After that, +the lid is once more screwed down and the coffin is lowered into the +grave. + +There are few things more picturesque, I ought to say, than a funeral +procession in the Spreewald, made up of boats gliding noiselessly along +one of those dark forest canals, having the coffin hung with white, and +all the mourners dressed in the same colour, the women wearing the +regulation white handkerchief across their mouths. The gloom around is not +the half-night of Styx; but the thought of Charon and his boat +instinctively occurs to one. The whole seems rather like a melancholy +vision, or dream, than a reality. + +Hard pressed as I am for space, I must find some to say, at any rate, just +a few words about Wendish marriage customs. For its gaiety, and noise, and +lavish hospitality, and protracted merriment, its finery and its curious +ways, the Wendish wedding has become proverbial throughout Germany. Were I +to detail all its quaint little touches, all its peculiar observances, +each one pregnant with peculiar mystic meaning, all its humours and all +its fun, I should have to give it an article by itself. It is a curious +mixture of ancient and modern superstition and Christianity, diplomacy and +warfare. The bride is still ostensibly carried off by force. Only a short +time ago the bridegroom and his men were required to wear swords in token +of warfare and conquest. But all the formal negotiation is done by +diplomacy--very cautiously, very carefully, as if one were feeling his +way. First comes an old woman, the _schotta_, to clear the ground. After +that the _druzba_, the best man, appears on the scene--to inquire about +pigs, or buckwheat, or millet, or whatever it may be, and incidentally +also about the lovely Hilzicka, whom his friend Janko is rather thinking +of paying his addresses to--the fact being all the while that long since +Janko and Hilzicka have, on the sly, arranged between themselves that they +are to be man and wife. But observe that in Wendland girls may propose as +well as men; and that the bridegroom, like the bride, wears his "little +wreath of rue"--_if he be an honest man_, in token of his virtue. The girl +and her parents visit the suitor's house quite unexpectedly. And there and +then only does the young lady openly decide. If she sits down in the +house, that means "Yes." And forthwith preparations are busily set on +foot. Custom requires that the bride should give up dancing and gaiety and +all that, leave off wearing red, and stitch away at her _trousseau_, while +her parents kill the fatted calf. Starve themselves as they will at other +times, at a wedding they must be liberal like _parvenus_. Towards this +hospitality, it is true, their friends and neighbours contribute, sending +butter and milk, and the like, just before the wedding, as well as making +presents of money and other articles to the young people at the feast +itself. But we have not yet got to that by a long way. The young man, too, +has his preparations to make. He has to send out the _braska_, the +"bidder," in his gay dress, to deliver invitations. How people would stare +in this country, were they to see a _braska_ making his rounds, with a +wreath on his hat, one or two coloured handkerchiefs dangling showily from +different parts of his coat, besides any quantity of gay ribbons and +tinsel, and a herald's staff covered with diminutive bunting! Then there +are the banns to be published, and on the Sunday of the second time of +asking, the bride and bridegroom alike are expected to attend the Holy +Communion, and afterwards to go through a regular examination--in Bible, +in Catechism, in reading--at the hands of the parson. By preference the +latter makes them read aloud the seventh chapter of the First Epistle to +the Corinthians. At the wedding itself, the ceremonial is so complicated +that the _braska_, the master of ceremonies, has to be specially trained +for his duties. There is a little farce first at the bride's house. The +family pretend to know nothing of what is coming; their doors and windows +are all closely barred, and the _braska_ is made to knock a long time +before the door is cautiously opened, with a gruff greeting which bids him +go away and not trouble peaceable folk. His demand for "a little shelter" +is only granted after much further parleying and incredulous inquiry about +the respectability of the intruding persons. When the bride is asked for, +an old woman is produced in her stead, next a little girl, then one or two +wrong persons more, till at last the true bride is brought forth in all +the splendour of a costume to which it is scarcely possible to do justice +in writing. As much cloth as will make up four ordinary gowns is folded +into one huge skirt. On the bride's neck hangs all conceivable finery of +pearls, and ribbons, and necklaces, and strings of silver coins--as much, +in fact, as the neck will carry. There is any amount of starched frilling +and collar above the shoulders; a close-fitting, blue silk bodice below; +and a high cap, something like a conjuror's--the _borta_, or bride's +cap--upon her head. Even her stockings are not of the ordinary make, but +knitted particularly large so as to have to be laid in folds. The wedding +party, driving off to church, preceded by at least six outriders, make as +big a clatter as pistol-firing, singing, shouting, thumping with sticks, +and discordant trumpeting will produce. On the road, and in church, a +number of little observances are prescribed. At the feast the bride, like +the bridegroom, has her male attendants, _swats_, whose duty it is, above +all things, to dance with her, should she want a partner. For this is the +last day of her dancing for life, except on Shrove Tuesdays, and, in some +Prussian parishes, by express order of the Government, on the Emperor's +birthday and the anniversary of Sedan. The bridegroom, on the other hand, +must not dance at the wedding, though he may afterwards. Like the bride, +he has his own _slonka_--his "old lady," that is--to serve him as guide, +philosopher and friend. Hospitality flows in unstinted streams. Sometimes +as many as two hundred persons sit down to the meals, and keep it up, +eating, drinking and dancing, for three days at least, sometimes for a +whole week at a stretch. It would be a gross breach of etiquette to leave +anything of the large portions served out on the table. Whatever cannot be +eaten must be carried home. Hence those waterproof pockets of phenomenal +size which, in olden days, Wendish parsons used to wear under their long +coat-tails, and into which, at gentlemen's houses, they used to deposit a +goodly store of sundry meats, poultry, pudding and _méringues_, to be +finally christened--surreptitiously, of course--with rather incongruous +affusions of gravy or soup, administered by the mischievous young +gentlemen of "the House," for the benefit of Frau Pastorin and her +children at home. Sunday and Tuesday are favourite days for a wedding. +Thursday is rigorously avoided. For two days the company feast at the +bride's house. Taking her to bed on the first night is a peculiar +ceremony. The young girls crowd around her in a close circle, and refuse +to let her go. The young lads do the same by the bridegroom. When, at +last, the two force an exit, they are formally received into similar +circles of married men and women severally. The bride is bereft of her +_borta_, and receives a _cjepc_, a married woman's cap, in its place. +After some more hocuspocus, the two are accompanied severally by the +_braska_ and the bride's _slonka_ into the bridal chamber, the bride +protesting all the time that she is "not yet her bridegroom's wife." The +_braska_ serves as valet to the bridegroom, the _slonka_ undresses the +bride. Then the _braska_ formally blesses the marriage-bed, and out walk +the two attendants to leave the young folk by themselves. Next morning the +bride appears as "wife," looking very demure, in a married woman's garb. +On that day the presents are given, amid many jokes--especially when it +comes to a cradle, or a baby's bath--from the _braska_ and the +_zwada_--the latter a sort of clown specially retained to amuse the bride, +who is expected to be terribly sad throughout. The sadder she is at the +wedding, the merrier, it is said, will she be in married life. There is +any amount of rather rough fun. On the third day, the company adjourn to +the house of the bridegroom's parents, where, according to an ancient +custom, the bride ought to go at once into the cowhouse, and upset a can +of water, "for luck." After that she is made to sit down to a meal, her +husband standing by, and waiting upon her. That accomplished, she should +carry a portion of meat to the poorest person in the village. A week +later, the young couple visit the bride's parents, and have a "young +wedding" _en famille_. + +I have said enough, I hope, to shew what an interestingly childlike, +happily disposed, curious and contented race those few surviving Wends +are. And they are so peaceful and loyal. Russian and Bohemian Pan-slavists +have tried all their blandishments upon them, to rouse them up to an +anti-German agitation. In 1866 the Czar, besides dispensing decorations, +sent 63 cwts. of inflammatory literature among them. It was all to no +purpose. Surely these quiet, harmless folk, fathers as they are of the +North German race, might have been spared that uncalled-for nagging and +worrying which has often been pointed against them from Berlin for purely +political purposes! In the day of their power they were more tolerant of +Germanism. They fought side by side with the Franks, fought even under +Frankish chieftains. Germany owes them a debt, and should at least, as it +may be hoped that she now will, let them die in peace. Death no doubt is +bound to come. It cannot be averted. But it is a death which one may well +view with regret. For with the Wends will die a faithfully preserved +specimen of very ancient Slav life, quite unique in its way, as +interesting a piece of history, archæology and folk-lore as ever was met +with on the face of the globe. + + + + +VI.--VOLTAIRE AND KING STANISLAS.[9] + + +One can scarcely help wondering that among all the books written about +Voltaire and his varied experiences, there should be practically not one +which treats of that brief but eventful period during which, in company +with the "_sublime Emilie_," the great writer found himself the guest of +hospitable King Stanislas--"le philosophe-roi chez le roi-philosophe." To +Voltaire himself that was one of the most memorable episodes in his long +and changeful life. It left on his mind memories which lasted till death. +He showed this when, in 1757, looking about him for a peaceful haven of +rest, he fixed his eyes once more, as if instinctively, upon Lunéville as +a place in which to spend the evening of his days. Stanislas would have +been only too thankful to receive him. Old and feeble, rapidly growing +blind and helpless, and reduced by ill-health and the desertion of his +Court to the poor resource of playing _tric-trac_--backgammon--in his +lonely afternoons, with such uncourtly _bourgeois_ as his messengers could +pick up in the town, the _fainéant_ Duke would have hailed Voltaire's +presence, as he himself says, as a godsend. However, the _philosophe_ was +once more out of favour with Louis XV. Accordingly, the permission was +withheld, and the royal father-in-law found himself denied the small +solace which surely he might have looked for at the hand of his daughter's +husband. + +The biographical neglect of Voltaire's stay in Lorraine appears all the +more surprising since in Lorraine, almost alone of Voltaire's favourite +haunts, are there visible memorials left of his sojourn. Nowhere else is +anything preserved that could recall Voltaire. In Lorraine dragoons and +_piou-pious_ now tramp where in his day courtiers sauntered, and +nursemaids lounge where the first wits of the century made the air ring +with their _bon-mots_. Still, the stone buildings, at any rate, of +Lunéville and Commercy have been allowed to stand, and French +destructiveness has spared some of the flower-beds that delighted +Voltaire. In that pretty "Bosquet" of Lunéville you may walk where +Voltaire trod, where he rallied Madame de Boufflers on her "Magdalen's +tears," where Saint Lambert made sly appointments with Madame du +Châtelet--and with not a few other ladies as well. In the Palace you may +step into the upper room where Voltaire lived and wrote, and fought out +his battles with the bigot Alliot. You may walk into "le petit appartement +de la reine," on the ground-floor, which Stanislas good-naturedly gave up +to Madame du Châtelet for her confinement--and her death. There it was +that those impassioned scenes occurred of which every biographer of +Voltaire speaks, and there that the Marchioness's ring was found to tell +the mortifying tale of her unfaithfulness to her most devoted lover. You +may walk through that side-door through which, dazed with grief, the +stupefied philosopher stumbled; and sit on the low stone-step--one of a +short flight facing the town--on which he dropped in helpless despair, +"knocking his head against the pavement." In that hideously rococo church, +tawdrily gay with gew-gaw ornament, you may stand by the black marble +slab, still bare of any inscription, below which rest, rudely disturbed by +the rough mobs-men of the first Revolution, the decayed bones of the +_sublime_ but faithless _Emilie_. + +Barring his rather unnecessary grief over the threatened production of a +travestied _Semiramis_, there were for Voltaire no happier two years than +those which saw him, with one or two interruptions, King Stanislas' guest. +And to Stanislas, eager as he was to attach the great writer to his bright +little court, there could have been no more welcome rigour than that +which, at his daughter's instance, drove the leading spirit of the age +into temporary exile. Voltaire had paid his court a little too openly to +the powerful favourite. After that _cavagnole_ scandal at Fontainebleau, +neither he nor Madame du Châtelet stood for the time in the best of odours +at Court. Therefore, it probably required little persuasion on the part of +the two royal princesses, prompted by their revengeful mother, to prevail +upon Louis XV. in that one little square-rod of hallowed ground, over +which the power of the mighty Circe did not extend, their nursery, to +decree the banishment of the poet. Madame de Pompadour might have reversed +the judgment had she been given the chance; but she was not given it, and, +after all, Voltaire's exile did not make much difference to her. So the +philosopher and Emilie were allowed to pursue their cold winter's journey, +amid sundry break-downs and accidents, and prolonged involuntary +star-gazing in a frosty night, to that pretty little oasis in ugly +Champagne--a Lorrain _enclave_--in which stood the du Châtelets' castle. + +Stanislas did not allow the brilliant couple to remain long in their +uncongenial retirement. He was anxious not to be forestalled by Prussian +Frederick, who made wry faces enough on finding the preference over +himself and his famous Sans-souci given to the _prince bourgeois_ and his +_tabagie de Lunéville_. Stanislas' great ambition was, to make his Court a +favoured seat of learning and letters. In his own, rather too +complimentary opinion, he was himself something of a _littérateur_. +Voltaire laughed pretty freely--behind the king's back--at his uncouth and +incorrect prose and at those long and limping verses _de onze à quatorze +pieds_, which the world has long since forgotten, as well it might. There +are some well-put thoughts to be found in the king's _Réflexions sur +divers sujets de morale_--for instance: "l'esprit est bien peu de chose +quand ce n'est que de l'esprit," to say nothing of his oft-quoted motto: +"malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem." But, at best his +writings, however carefully revised by Solignac--his answer to Rousseau, +and his _Oeuvres d'un Philosophe Bienfaisant_--are but ephemeral trash. +Really, Stanislas could not even speak or write French correctly. But +though he was nothing of a writer, and not much more of a wit, he knew +thoroughly how to appreciate talent and genius in others. And in a man +occupying nominally royal rank, placed at the head of a brilliant Court, +having a civil list corresponding in value to at least 6,000,000 francs in +the present day, and a pension list of perfectly amazing length in his +bestowal, such appreciation must mean something. + +To understand the life of the little world into which, in 1748, Voltaire +entered, we ought to remember what at that time Lorraine and its Court +were. Stanislas had not been put upon his ephemeral throne without a +definite object. To lodge the French king's penniless father-in-law, who +no doubt had to be maintained somewhere, in the Palace of Lunéville, +instead of that of Meudon or of Blois, and to allow him to amuse himself +with playing at being king, was one thing. But very much more was required +of him. In 1737 France had, after toying for several centuries, with +greedy eyes and hungry tongue, with the precious morsel of Lorraine, at +length firmly and finally closed her jaws upon it. It was a bitter fate +for the duchy, in which France was detested; and the hardship was felt by +every one of its sons from the powerful "grands chevaux" down to the +humblest peasant. Of what French government meant, the Lorrains had had +more than one taste. They were sipping at the bitter cup at that very +time; they were having it raised daily to their lips, while that ablest of +French administrators, De la Galaizière--a veritable French Bismarck, +hard-headed, hard-hearted, inexorably firm, and pitilessly exacting--was +loading them with _corvées_, with _vingtièmes_, with the burden of +conscription for the French army, plaguing them with high-handed judgments +and oppressive penalties, all of which ran directly counter to the +constitution which the nominal sovereign, Stanislas, had sworn to observe. +It was Galaizière who was king, not Stanislas, the ornamental figure-head; +and under his stern rule all Lorraine cried out. + +Even courtly Saint Lambert, who, as a moneyless member of the _petite +noblesse_, with his mouth wide open for French favours, represented in +truth the least popular element in Lorrain Society, felt impelled by his +Muse to record his protest in verse: + + J'ai vu le magistrat qui régit la province + L'esclave de la Cour, et l'ennemi du prince, + Commander _la corvée_ à de tristes cantons, + Où Cérès et la faim commandoient les moissons. + On avoit consumé les grains de l'autre année; + Et je crois voir encore la veuve infortunée, + Le débile orphelin, le vieillard épuisé, + Se trainer, en pleurant, au travail imposé. + Si quelques malheureux, languissants, hors d'haleine, + Cherchent un gazon frais, le bord de la fontaine, + Un piqueur inhumain les ramène aux travaux, + Ou leur vend à prix d'or un moment de repos. + +But there was no help for it. Kind-hearted Stanislas was caused many a +wretched hour by the incongruity of his position, which led his "subjects" +to appeal to him against the oppression of "his chancellor," as he +patronizingly called him who was in truth his master. He had begged Louis +to appoint a more humane and merciful man, but his prayer had proved of no +avail. + +Still, there was something which Stanislas could do. Affable, genial, +kind, free-handed to a fault, the stranger puppet-king--the originally +distrusted "Polonais"--might, in spite of all harsh government +administered in his name, by tact and liberality gain the personal +affections of his nominal subjects, and so in the character of a Lorrain +Prince discharge better than any one else that odious task of +un-Lorraining the Lorrains. All things considered, he earned his civil +list. + +French writers have very needlessly contended over the motives which led +Father Menoux, of all men, the King's Jesuit confessor, to urge Stanislas +to invite the great _philosophe_ to his Court. Although repeatedly +assailed on the score of its inherent improbability, Voltaire's own +version is doubtless the most plausible. One of the leading +characteristics of the Lorrain Court, as Voltaire knew it, was the sharp +division prevailing between French and Lorrains, Jesuits and +_philosophes_. By all his antecedents--by his rigidly Romanist education, +by the principles carefully instilled into him, first by his parents, +later by his wife--Stanislas was predisposed to take sides staunchly with +the Jesuits. A more devout Catholic was not to be found. The king made all +his household attend mass, appointed a special almoner for his +_gardes-du-corps_, and directed the kitchen-folk to select a monastery for +the scene of their daily devotions. In respect of offerings, the Church +bled him freely, and found him a willing victim. More especially during +the lifetime of his wife, that homely, very religious Catherine Opalinska +whose _bourgeois_ manners gave such great offence to the courtiers of +Versailles, the Jesuit faction had it all their own way. + +But when Voltaire came to the Court, Catherine had been nearly a year in +her grave. King Stanislas' immediate _entourage_, it is true, was still +wholly Jesuit--the French governor, Galaizière; the King's _intendant_, +Alliot; his father-confessor, Menoux; his useful secretary, de Solignac; +Bathincourt, Thiange, and Madame de Grafigny's "Panpan," De Vaux. But +otherwise a decided change had come over the scene. The lady head of the +Court now was the peculiarly attractive Marquise de Boufflers, a declared +_philosophe_, and, in virtue of her birth, the powerful leader of the +Lorrain faction. She was a Beauvau, the daughter of that lovely Princesse +de Craon who had ruled the heart of the late Duke Leopold. Her husband +(who had not stood seriously in the way of her _amours_) was dead; and she +was therefore quite free to give herself up to her _liaison_ with +Stanislas, who had formally installed her in some of the best apartments +in the palace, in a suite adjoining his own, and handed over to her the +management of the Court. She must have been a remarkably fascinating +woman. We find Voltaire, in his courtly way, writing of her: + + Vos yeux sont beaux, mais votre âme est plus belle, + Vous êtes simple et naturelle, + Et sans prétendre à rien, vous triomphez de tous. + Si vous eussiez vécu du temps de Gabrielle, + Je ne sais ce qu'on eût dit de vous, + Mais l'on n'aurait point parlé d'elle. + +She is described as possessing a fine girlish figure, a peculiarly clear +and delicate complexion, exceptionally beautiful hair, and neat hands +(which made de Tressan enamoured of her "_comme un fou_") and, moreover, a +charming lightness and grace of movement and manner--endowments of nature +which scarcely needed a fine discriminating taste and more than average +intellectual powers to render effective. She sang, played, painted pastel, +and possessed an inexhaustible fund of tact and self-command. Whenever she +happened to be absent from the Court, de Tressan writes to Devaux, "Je me +meurs, je péris d'ennui. On ne joue point, la société est décousue." Her +nickname at Court was "La Dame de Volupté," which, as is shown by the +following lines, composed by herself for her epitaph, she accepted +good-humouredly:-- + + Ci gît, dans une paix profonde, + Cette Dame de Volupté, + Qui, pour plus grande sûreté, + Fit son paradis dans ce monde. + +To the priests her relations with Stanislas constituted a serious +stumbling-block, and many a lecture had the king to listen to from his +confessor, Menoux. He accepted it submissively, and even performed the +penances which on the score of Madame de Boufflers the Jesuit decreed. But +discard her he would not, on any consideration. Just as little, on the +other hand, would he discard the Jesuit, however good-humouredly he might +listen to Madame de Boufflers' rather violent abuse of him. + +Menoux was now trembling for his authority. Madame de Boufflers' +influence appeared to him to be growing too formidable. They were curious +relations which subsisted between Voltaire and the priest. With de Tressan +and other Academicians Menoux was at open and embittered feud. Voltaire +was more of a statesman. To their faces the two opponents invariably +professed the sincerest friendship and the warmest admiration. Even many +years after we find Voltaire, when writing to Menoux, declaring to him his +unaltered love and attachment, while at the same time paying the Abbé +delicate compliments on the score of his _esprit_: "Je voudrais que vous +m'aimassiez, car je vous aime." Behind their backs they called each other +names. Menoux was by no means a mere hierophantic prig or sacerdotal oaf. +Voltaire calls him "le plus intrigant et le plus hardi prêtre que j'ai +jamais connu," and adds that he had "milked" Stanislas to the extent of a +full million. D'Almbert describes him as the type of a Court +divine--"habitué au meilleur monde," without any "rigidité +claustrale"--"homme d'infiniment d'esprit, fin, délicat, intelligent, +subtile, ayant heureusement cultivé les lettres et en conservant les +grâces et la fraicheur sans la moindre trace de pédanterie." Between him +and Boufflers there was continual warfare--above-ground and below-ground, +by open hostilities and by schemes and intrigues. It was with a view to +checkmating Boufflers, so Voltaire relates, that Menoux first suggested an +invitation to Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet to come to the Court. Madame +du Châtelet was to become the favourite's rival. To this theory French +writers object that, as du Châtelet was some years older than Boufflers, +not nearly as good-looking, certainly not _dévote_, and another man's +property already, the scheme was absurd. In the result Menoux certainly +showed himself to have made a mistake; but that was owing to a +circumstance which neither he nor any one else could have foreseen. +Otherwise the scheme cannot be pronounced bad. To literary-minded +Stanislas, at his time of life, the intellectual graces of du Châtelet +might well balance the greater personal attractions of Boufflers. Besides, +Menoux did not look for an actual ally so much as for a rival to the +favourite. Even to lessen her absolute authority would be quite enough for +his purpose. He travelled all the way to Cirey to sound the two, and, +finding them willing, pressed their invitation upon Stanislas. + +Stanislas was, as Menoux had foreseen, only too eager to accept the +suggestion. He had had more than one taste of the pleasures of playing the +Mæcenas. Montesquieu had been at his Court, working there at his _Esprit +des Lois_, and Madame de Grafigny, Helvétius, Hénault, Maupertuis; and the +shy and retiring, but gifted Devaux was a fixture. However, Stanislas +wanted more. The only disappointment to Menoux was that he found the +invitation planned by himself actually issued by his rival, Madame de +Boufflers. It was, of course, accepted; and the beginning of 1748 saw +Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet safely arrived at Commercy. + +The Lorrain Court, always bright and gay, was at that time perhaps at its +very brightest. Stanislas, being permitted to play at being king, and +given ample pecuniary resources for doing so, played the game in good +earnest, with a due appreciation of showy externals, and with a +singularly happy grace. He had at his command an apparatus which any real +king might have envied. Here was Commercy, raised by Durand for the rich +and tasteful Prince de Vaudémont, the friend of our William III. and of +the elder Pretender, a blaze of magnificence, with gardens around it, and +sheets of water, and cascades, which cast Versailles into the shade. His +principal residence, however, one of the masterpieces designed by +Boffrand, was the Palace of Lunéville. On seeing it Louis XV., surprised +at its grandeur, exclaimed, "Mais, mon père, vous êtes mieux logé que +moi." That was the + + salon magnifique, + Moitié Turc et moitié Chinois, + Où le goût moderne et l'antique, + Sans se nuire, ont uni leurs lois, + +of which Voltaire writes--very incongruous, but decidedly splendid and +comfortable. Stanislas had added the delightful "Bosquet," laid out for +him by Gervais--overloading it, it is true, with kiosks and pavilions, +renaissance architecture and renaissance statuary, a hermitage, and +eventually with de Tressan's "Chartreuse." Like all persons of "taste" in +his day, Stanislas loved gimcrackery; he had utilized François Richard's +inventive genius for embellishing his principal residence with a unique +contrivance, admired by all Europe--an artificial rock with clockwork +machinery setting about eighty figures in motion. You may see a picture of +it still in the Nancy Museum. It must have been very ingenious and very +ugly. First, there was a miller's wife opening her casement-window to +answer some supposed caller; then two cronies appear on the scene, +engaging in a morning chat. A shepherd playing on his _musette_ leads his +flock, tinkling with bells, across the rock. Two wethers engage in a real +contest; a clockwork dog jumps up, barking, and separates them. There was +a forge, with hammers beating and sparks flying. An insatiable tippler +knocks at the closed door of the tavern, and is answered by the hostess +with a pailful of water emptied upon his head from a window above. In the +distance a pious hermit is seen telling his beads. And in the background +is discovered, standing on a balcony, to crown the whole, the Queen, +Catherine Opalinska, complacently looking down upon the scene, while two +sentries pace solemnly up and down, occasionally presenting arms. Such +were the toys of royalty in those days. Besides these two palaces +Stanislas had others--Chanteheux, well in view from Lunéville, built in +the Polish style: "rien de plus superbe, rien de plus irrégulier"; +Einville, flat and level, disparaged by the duc de Luynes, but +nevertheless grand, and possessing a "salon" famed for its magnificence +throughout Europe; and lastly the historic Malgrange, close to Nancy, the +"Sans souci" of Henri le Bon, in which Catherine of Bourbon had met the +Roman doctors of divinity, despatched to convert her, in learned +disputation, and sent them away discomfited, to the no little annoyance of +her brother, Henri IV. Beyond this, Héré was at work beautifying Nancy in +the Louis-Quinze style, with statuary and balustrades, gorgeous gateways, +and magnificent arches; and he was building that handsome palace, which +now serves as the Commanding General's quarters, in which, in 1814, when +the Emperor of Austria, the last real Lorrain Duke's grandson, was lodged +there, was hatched the Absolutist conspiracy of the "Holy Alliance." + +The Court itself was modelled entirely on the pattern of the superior +Olympus of Versailles. "On ne croyait pas avoir changé de lieu quand on +passait de Versailles à Lunéville," says Voltaire. There was splendour, +display, lavishness, gilding everywhere--only in Lorraine there was an +absolute absence of etiquette and restraint--"ce qui complétait le +charme." At Lunéville the etiquette was of the slightest. From the other +palaces it was wholly banished--"me voici dans un beau palais, avec la +plus grande liberté (et pourtant chez un roi)--à la Cour sans être +courtisan." "C'est un homme charmant que le roi Stanislas," Voltaire goes +on, in another letter. And not without cause. For Stanislas had placed +himself and all his household at the great writer's service. The king +entertained a perfect army of Court dignitaries, who had scarcely anything +to do for their salaries. He had his _gardes-du-corps_, resplendent in +scarlet and silver, his _cadets-gentilhommes_, who were practically pages, +half of them Lorrains, the remainder Poles, his regular pages, two of whom +must always stand by him, when playing at _tric-trac_, never moving a +muscle all the while. He had his pet dwarf "Bébé," decked out in military +dress, with a diminutive toy-coach and two goats to carry him about, and a +page in yellow and black always to wait upon him. This dwarf the king +would for a joke occasionally have baked up in a pie. Upon the pie being +opened Bébé would jump out, sword in hand, greatly frightening the ladies +and performing on the dinner-table a sort of war-dance, which was his +great accomplishment. Then he had his _musique_, headed by Anet, the +particular friend of Lulli, and with Baptiste, another friend of Lulli, +for "premier violon." The Lorrain court had always been noted for its +concerts, its theatricals and its _sauteries_--that was at the time the +fashionable name for balls. Adrienne Lecouvreur, Mademoiselle Clairon, +Fleury, had all come out first on the Lorrain stage. Lunéville it was +which invented the "Cotillon," which has become so popular all over the +continent. Lunéville also was the birthplace of the aristocratic and +graceful "Chapelet." And king Stanislas' orchestra enjoyed a European +reputation. "Do you pay your musicians better than I do?" asked Louis +Quinze of his father-in-law with a touch of jealousy. "No, my brother; but +I pay them for what they do, you pay them for what they know." There was +wit and fashion in abundance, and a galaxy of beauty--the royal-born +Princesse de Roche-sur-Yon, the Princesse de Lützelburg, the fascinating +Princesse de Talmonde, Stanislas' cousin, who subdued the heart of our +young Pretender, the Countess of Leiningen, the Princesse de Craon, Madame +de Mirepoix, Madame de Chimay, and others. But what of all things +Stanislas prided himself upon most were his table and his kitchen. He was, +as I have said, fond of gimcracks and he was a great eater, though he +often concentrated all his eating upon one Gargantuan meal. The +dinner-hour never came round fast enough for him, which made Galaizière +say, "If you go on like that, Sire, we shall shortly have you dining the +day before." His particular delight were quaint culinary refinements, +"imitations" and "surprises," which were only to be achieved with the +help of so accomplished a master as his supreme _chef de cuisine_ (there +were five other _chefs_ besides) Gilliers, the author of that unsurpassed +cookery-book, _Le cannaméliste français_. Every dining-table at Court was +a mechanical work of art. Touch a spring, when the cloth was removed, and +there would start up a magnificent _surtout_--there were some measuring +five feet by three--a silversmith's _chef d'oeuvre_, covered with rocks, +and castles, and trees, and statuary, a swan spouting water at a beautiful +Leda, and the like. And between these ornaments was set out a rich array +of dessert, likewise so shaped as to represent every variety of figures, +like Dresden China. One year, when all the fruit failed--I believe it was +while Voltaire was in Lorraine, in 1749, which was a year of unparalleled +distress--Gilliers kept the Court supplied with a continual succession of +imitation fruit, which did service for real plums and peaches. Stanislas +had introduced such "bizarreries septentrionales" as raw _choucroûte_ and +unsavoury messes of meat and fruit, and imitation _plongeon_ (great +northern diver), produced by plucking a goose alive, beating it to death +with rods, and preparing it in a peculiar way. A turkey treated in the +same manner found itself transformed into a sham capercailzie. But the +_chefs d'oeuvre_ were Gilliers' "surprises," prepared after much thought, +to which Stanislas contributed his share. Voltaire makes out that "bread +and wine"--which he did not always get--would have been amply sufficient +for his modest wants; but what we hear of the Lorrain Court shows him to +have been by no means indifferent to the products of Gillier's inimitable +_cuisine_. We read of Voltaire's eyes glistening with delight when, after +the removal of the cloth, what looked like a ham was brought upon the +table, and a truffled tongue. The ham turned out to be a confectionery +made up of strawberry preserve and whipped cream, _pané_ with macaroons; +the tongue something of the same sort, truffled with chocolate. I must not +forget the coffee, to which Voltaire, like most great writers, was +devoted. Swift declared that he could not write unless he had "his coffee +twice a week." Voltaire consumed from six to eight cups at a +sitting--which is nothing compared with the performance of Delille, who, +to keep off the megrim, swallowed twenty. Stanislas employed a special +_chef du café_, La Veuve Christian, who was responsible for its quality. +Then, there was the wine, Stanislas' special hobby. Of course, he had all +the Lorrain _crûs_. The best of these, that grown on the famous Côte de +Malzéville, close to Nancy, he had made sure of by bespeaking the entire +produce in advance for his lifetime, at twelve francs the "measure." His +peculiar pride, however, was his Tokay. Every year his predecessor, +Francis, become Emperor of Germany, sent him a large cask, escorted all +the way by a guard of Austrian grenadiers. As soon as ever that cask +arrived, Stanislas set personally to work. What with drugs, and syrups, +and sugar, and other wine, he manufactured out of one cask about ten, +which he drew off into bottles specially made for the purpose. Some he +kept for his own use at dessert. The larger portion he distributed among +his friends, who every one of them becomingly declared upon their oath +that better Tokay they had never tasted. + +But there were better things to entertain the Lorrain Court. There were +fêtes; there were theatricals--at some of which Voltaire and du Châtelet +performed in person, Voltaire as the "Assesseur" in _L'Etourderie_, du +Châtelet as "Issé"; there was brilliant conversation, music, everything +that money could buy and good company produce. And Voltaire was the fêted +of all. "Voltaire était dieu à la Cour de Stanislas," says Capefigue. He +could do as he liked--sleep, wake, work, mix with the company, stroll +about alone--without any restraint; the king and all were at his beck, all +eager for his every word, taking everything from him in the best part, +appreciating, admiring, worshipping. His plays were put upon the stage. He +was allowed to drill the actors at his pleasure. In this way, _Le +Glorieux_ was produced with great pomp; also _Nanine_, _Brutus_, _Mérope_, +and _Zaïre_, the last-named, for a novelty, by a troupe of children. +Whatever he wrote, he could make sure that he would have an attentive +audience of illustrious personages to hear him read out. + + Je coule ici mes heureux jours, + Dans la plus tranquille des Cours, + Sans intrigue, sans jalousie, + Auprès d'un roi sans courtisans, + Près de Boufflers et d'Emilie; + Je les vois et je les entends, + Il faut bien que je fasse envie. + +If Voltaire was "god," Madame du Châtelet was "goddess"--waited upon, +petted, having her every wish and every whim studied and gratified. There +could seemingly be no more congenial, mutually appreciative group of +persons than Stanislas and Voltaire, the Marquise de Boufflers and the +Marquise du Châtelet. + +Stanislas was then already an oldish man--according to one of his +biographers, Abbé Aubert, sixty-six; according to another, Abbé Proyart, +seventy-one. He was not quite the robust hero that he had been when he +accompanied Charles XII. on his trying ride to Bender, and shared rough +camp-life with Mazeppa. When, in 1744, Charles Alexander of Lorraine +crossed the Rhine at the head of 80,000 Austrians, and sent out manifestos +which gladdened his countrymen's hearts, proclaiming that he was coming to +take possession of the old Duchy--when signal-fires blazed on every +hilltop of the Vosges to bid him welcome, and all Lorraine was throbbing +with patriotic excitement; when Galaizière mustered what scratch forces he +could improvise for defence, and dragged the twelve ornamental pieces of +cannon out of the Lunéville Park to point against the foe--then Stanislas, +remembering his age, had discreetly retired, in a sad state of tremor, +behind the safe walls of Nancy. But in 1748 he was at any rate still hale +and hearty, and bore the weight of his years with an easy grace. He +managed to gallop to the Malgrange at a pace which left all his younger +companions far behind. He is described as of winning manners, rather +majestic in figure and bearing, of an engaging countenance, exceedingly +good-natured and affable. It was said that "il ne savait pas haïr." "Je ne +veux pas," he declared when multiplying charities and hospitals, "qu'il y +ait un genre de maladie dont mes sujets pauvres ne puissent se faire +traiter gratuitement." Among such "maladies" he included "the law"--for he +paid advocates to give gratuitous advice to the poor. + +Voltaire is described as about at his best at that period. The air of +Lorraine is said to have suited him particularly well. He was just turned +fifty--a little too old, as Madame du Châtelet was cruel enough to inform +him, to act the part of an ardent lover, but appearing to less exacting +persons still in the very vigour of manhood. "Après une vie sobre, réglée, +sagement laborieuse," he is represented as "well preserved"--slim, +straight, upright, of a good bearing, with a well-shaped leg and a neat +little foot. His features, we know, were wanting in regularity; but they +wore a benevolent and pleasing expression. His greatest charm is said to +have lain in his brilliant and expressive eyes, which seemed by their play +to be ever anticipating the action of his lips. His mind certainly was +still young, and so were his tastes. He is described as a most fastidious +dandy, _irréprochablement poudré et parfumé_, affecting clothes of the +latest cut and richly embroidered with gold. To his factotum at Paris, +Abbé Moussinot, he writes from Lunéville: "Send me some diamond buckles +for shoes or garters, twenty pounds of hair-powder, twenty pounds of +scent, a bottle of essence of jessamine, two 'enormous' pots of pomatum _à +la fleur d'orange_, two powder puffs, two embroidered vests,"--&c. He was, +moreover, an accomplished courtier. Properly to ingratiate himself with +his new host, he made his appearance at Commercy with a complimentary copy +of his _Henriade_ in his hand, on the flyleaf of which were penned these +lines: + + Le ciel, comme Henri, voulut vous éprouver: + La bonté, la valeur à tous deux fut commune, + Mais mon héros fit changer la fortune + Que votre vertu sut braver. + +Of Madame du Châtelet's appearance we have two hopelessly irreconcilable +accounts. She was certainly past forty-two; if her ill-natured cousin, the +Marquise de Créqui, speaks truly (and she refers doubters to the parish +register of St. Roch), she was even five years more. Voltaire's portrait +of her, painted with the brush of admiration, is probably more +complimentary than strictly truthful. Madame du Deffand limns her in very +different lines:--"Une femme grande et sèche, une maîtresse d'école sans +hanches, la poitrine étroite, et sur la poitrine une petite mappe-monde +perdue dans l'espace, de gros bras trop courts pour ses passions, des +pieds de grue, une tête d'oiseau de nuit, le nez pointu, deux petits yeux +verts de mer et verts de terre, le teint noir et rouge, la bouche plate et +les dents clair-semées." This hideous portraiture, it is true, Sainte +Beuve protests against as a "page plus amèrement satirique" than any to be +found in French literature. But Madame de Créqui has even worse to say of +her cousin, adding, by way of further embellishment, "des pieds terribles, +et des mains formidables"--let alone that, if Emilie was "une merveille de +force," she was also at the same time "un prodige de gaucherie." "Voilà la +belle Emilie!" Even Voltaire speaks of her "main d'encre encore salie." +However, everybody agrees in praising the grace of her manner, the +remarkably attractive play of her expressive eyes--Saint Lambert calls her +"la brune à l'oeil fripon"--and her peculiar skill in becomingly dressing +her dark hair. She spoke with engaging animation and quickly--"comme moi +quand je fais la française," says Madame de Grafigny (who was always proud +of being a Lorraine)--"comme un ange," she completes the sentence. If +during the day, while wholly engrossed upon her _Newton_, Emilie showed a +little too much of the pedant, according to the same lady's testimony--"le +soir elle est charmante." + +The advent of the brilliant couple from Cirey, it need not be stated, +added further strength to the _philosophe_ party. Abbé Menoux found out +that he had reckoned without his host. Between the two Marchionesses, De +Boufflers and du Châtelet, in the place of the expected jealousy and +rivalry, there proved to be nothing but sincere, close, and demonstrative +friendship. To some extent Madame du Châtelet's amiability towards the +Duke's favourite was a piece of diplomacy. She had not come into Lorraine +without a very material object in view. Her husband was not as well off as +either he or she might have wished; and, although in other matters she +showed herself very indifferent to the dull "_bonhomme_"--that is what she +used to call him--in matters of money she thoroughly supported his +interest. As in some respect a vassal of the Duke of Lorraine, and a +member of one of those four distinguished families which were known in +Lorraine as "Les grands Chevaux"--the Lignivilles, the Lenoncourts, the +Haraucourts and the du Châtelets--she considered that her husband had +something like a claim upon king Stanislas. One of King Stanislas' best +pieces of patronage, the post of _grand maréchal des maisons_, worth 2,000 +_écus_ a year, had at the time fallen vacant, and for her husband _la +belle Emilie_ resolved to secure it. It cost her a tough struggle, for +there was a formidable rival in the field in the person of Berchenyi, a +Hungarian, and one of the King's old favourites. However, her woman's +persistence triumphed in the end. Apart from such cupboard love, the two +women, both of them possessing _esprit_, both born courtiers, and both, +moreover, sharing a sublime contempt for the prosaic rules of what has +become known as the "Nonconformist Conscience," seemed thoroughly made for +one another. And their alliance told upon the Court. The Jesuits became +alarmed. Menoux put himself upon his defence, and threw himself into the +contest, more particularly with Voltaire, with a degree of vigour and +energy which taxed all the combative power of his opponent. Others might +eye the infidel askance and profess a holy horror of the opinions of one +whom Heaven was fully expected some day to punish in its own way. There is +an amusing anecdote of an unexpected encounter between Madame Alliot, the +wife of the "Jesuit" _intendant_, and Voltaire, both of whom rushed for +shelter, in a sudden and exceptionally violent storm, under the same tree. +At first the lady shrank from the atheist as from an unclean thing. The +rain, however, was inexorable. She revenged herself by preaching to the +infidel, attributing the entire displeasure of Heaven, as evidenced in +that fearful storm, to his unbelief. Voltaire, it is said, not feeling +quite sure of his ground while lightnings were flashing, and in no sort of +mood to play the Ajax, contented himself with meekly pleading that he had +"written very much more that was good of Him to whom the lady referred +than the lady herself could ever say in her whole life." Such harmless +little hits the _philosophe_ had now and then to put up with; but for +serious fighting few besides Menoux had any stomach. Devaux (Panpan), +however "dévot," was disarmed by being--quite on the sly, but no less +ardently--one of Madame de Boufflers' chosen admirers. Galaizière was +taken up with other things. Solignac was too much of a dependent. "Mon +Dieu" Choiseul did not carry sufficient weight. There was, indeed, another +Abbé at Court, who might have been expected to help: Porquet, who became +the Duke's almoner, a most amusing person in a passive way. But he was by +no means cut out for a champion. Besides, being tutor to the young de +Boufflers, he was scarcely a free agent. He himself describes himself as +an "homme empaillé." When first appointed almoner, and called upon to say +grace, he found that he had quite forgotten his Benedicite. Stanislas made +him occasionally read to him out of the Bible, with the result that, +half-dozing over the sacred page, he fell into mis-readings such as this: +"Dieu apparut en singe à Jacob." "Comment," interrupted the Duke, "c'est +'en songe' que vous voulez dire!" "Eh, Sire, tout n'est-il pas possible à +la puissance de Dieu?" + +There was one sturdy supporter of Catholicism, however, who never flinched +from the fight: that was Alliot, the Duke's _intendant_, who, by virtue of +his office, had it in his power to make his dislike sharply felt. With +what abhorrence he regarded the infidel guest, for whom he had to cater, +we may learn from the contemporary records of his clerical allies, +narratives which do not ordinarily come under the notice of persons +reading about Voltaire. One can scarcely help drawing the inference that +King Stanislas, with all his goodness and all his affected devotion to +_periculosa libertas_, was a little bit of a "Mr. Facing-both-ways," using +very different arguments in different companies--a Pharisee to the +Pharisees, a _philosophe_ to the _philosophes_. Only thus could it come +about that we have such extraordinary stories, altogether inconsistent +with known facts, vouched for on the authority of reverend divines like +Abbé Aubert and Abbé Proyart. "On vit quelquefois," says Abbé Proyart, "à +la Cour du roi de Pologne certains sujets peu dignes de sa confiance, et +le Prince les connoissoit; mais il trouvoit dans sa religion même des +motifs de ne pas les éloigner." It was represented to him (by Alliot) that +Voltaire "faisoit l'hypocrite." "C'est lui même, et non pas moi qu'il fait +dupe," replied the king. "Son hypocrisie du moins est un hommage qu'il +rend à la vertu. Et ne vaut-il pas mieux que nous le voyions hypocrite ici +que scandaleux ailleurs?" But "le vrai sage," the Abbé goes on, found +himself compelled at last to dismiss "le faux philosphe, qui commençoit à +répandre à sa Cour le poison de ses dangereuses maximes." Under this +clerical gloss the well-known story of Alliot stopping Voltaire's supply +of food and candles assumes a totally new shape. "Ce ne fut pas une petite +affaire que d'obliger Voltaire à sortir du château de Lunéville." In vain +did the king treat his guest with marked coldness; the philosopher would +not take the hint. In his predicament Stanislas appealed to the +_intendant_ for advice. "Sire," replies Alliot, "_hoc genus dæmoniorum non +ejicitur nisi in oratione et jejunio_," which means, he explains, that +"pour se débarrasser de pareilles pestes," having "prayed" them to go +without avail, he should now enforce a "fast," which would certainly drive +them out of the place. Stanislas is alleged to have fallen in with the +Jesuit's counsels; hence that open tiff with Alliot over the stoppage of +provisions, which made Voltaire complain that he had not been allowed +"bread, wine and candles." In truth, of course, all this clerical story is +pure invention. Of the stopping of the provisions Stanislas knew nothing +till advised by Voltaire, when he quickly set the matter right. + +What with feasting, working, acting, dancing, travelling, the time passed +most pleasantly. "En vérité," writes Voltaire to the Countess D'Argental, +"ce séjourci est délicieux; c'est un château enchanté dont le maître fait +les honneurs. Je crois que Madame du Châtelet passerait ici sa vie." +Sometimes at Commercy, sometimes at the Malgrange, most generally at +Lunéville, with visitors coming and going, discussions raised, attentions +being paid this side and that, gallantry, billiards, _tric-trac_, +_lansquenet_, _comète_ (which was a great favourite), marionettes, fancy +balls, time could hang heavily on no one's hands. "On a de tout ici, hors +du temps." Madame du Châtelet, writing till five o'clock in the morning, +though she rose not later than nine, worked hard at her translation of +_Newton_, which Voltaire cried up as a masterpiece--more particularly the +preface. Whenever she found herself at fault, she had a splendidly +fitted-up astronomical cabinet, kept up by Stanislas, to fall back upon, a +cabinet which, says Voltaire, "n'a pas son pareil en France." Voltaire +himself carried on a brisk correspondence with the Argentals, with +Frederick the Great, with his friend Falkener in Wandsworth, and with many +more, and worked at his history "de cette maudite guerre," at the _Siècle +de Louis XIV._, at _Catilina_, and so on, with the easy industry which +comes from comfort and absolute absence of restraint amid agreeable +surroundings. To ingratiate himself the more with Madame de Boufflers, he +wrote _La Femme qui a raison_. He acted and he criticized. He performed +with a magic lantern, to the great amusement of the Court; and at masked +balls he got himself up, sometimes as a "wild man," sometimes as an +ancient augur. He was sorely troubled when threatened with a performance +in Paris of a travesty of _Semiramis_. Then he lost some manuscripts. +Then, again, Menoux frightened him with a tale that _Le Mondain_ and _Le +Portatif_, published at Amsterdam, had both been in France traced to his +pen. Among the visitors who in the second year of his stay came to enliven +the Court was our Young Pretender--over whose misfortunes Voltaire had +pathetically lamented before King Stanislas--and Prince Cantacuzene. The +Pretender's cause Voltaire had espoused with fervid warmth. The news of +his arrest in Paris arrived at Lunéville at the very moment when he was +delighting the Lorrain Court with reading out his just completed chapter +of _Le Siècle de Louis XIV._, treating of the Stuarts. "O ciel!" he +exclaimed, "est-il possible que le roi souffre cet affront et que sa +gloire subisse une tache que toute l'eau de la Seine ne saurait laver?" +"Que les hommes privés," he wrote later, "qui se plaignent de leurs +infortunes jettent leurs yeux sur ce prince et sur ses ancêtres." + +Several times he left Lorraine for a brief time, going with Madame du +Châtelet to Cirey, to Châlons, and to Paris. One visit he paid to Paris by +himself, to see _Semiramis_ put on the stage. He came back in a pitiable +state, the account of which in Longchamp's journal reads comical enough. +"Il est vrai que j'ai été malade," he writes later, "mais il y a plaisir à +l'être chez le roi de Pologne; il n'y a personne assurément qui ait plus +soin de ses malades que lui. On ne peut pas être meilleur roi et meilleur +homme." One would think not. Voltaire was petted like an invalid child. He +had but to send word that he wished to see Stanislas, to bring the king to +his bedside. When he found himself "malingre, bon à rien qu' à perdre ses +regards vers la Vôge," he was taken out to Chanteheux, and made thoroughly +comfortable there, where he could best indulge in the idle pleasure of +contemplating the mountains. Meanwhile Madame du Châtelet had been to +Plombières with Madame de Boufflers, and had come home just as much +disgusted with the place as Voltaire himself had been nine or ten years +before. Then the gay Court reassembled, and there was the same life, the +same succession of pleasures, the same effusion of wit and raillery. +Gilliers invented new dishes. King Stanislas exhibited his indifferent +pastels. Madame de Boufflers played the harp, and courtiers with voices +sang to her accompaniment. Under Voltaire's inspiration, all the Court +turned _littérateur_ and engaged in versifying. Stanislas took up his pen +once more and wrote, among other things, _Le Philosophe +Chrétien_--horrifying thereby his daughter, the Queen of France, who +persuaded herself that in the book she discerned the malignant teaching of +the infidel Voltaire. Madame de Boufflers wrote; Saint Lambert composed +fresh ditties; Devaux grew industrious; even Galaizière found himself +impressed by the lyric Muse. Every courtier mounted his own little Pegasus +and made an attempt to produce something witty, or clever, or at least +readable. Lunéville became a modern Athens. + +But there was a snake in the grass. One of the pleasantest features of the +remarkably sociable life carried on by the brilliant company assembled +under the roof of Stanislas, while at Lunéville and at Commercy, were +those merry nocturnal gatherings held as soon as the king had retired to +rest--which he did punctually at ten o'clock, without ever troubling the +company, in spite of his jealousy, with an unexpected reappearance. Then +began Madame de Boufflers' reign in good earnest; and to the good cheer of +a choice little supper, to which often an exciting game of _comète_ or of +_cavagnole_ added a fresh delight, was summoned, by means of a lighted +candle placed in a particular window, a new guest, whom Stanislas' +jealousy would not otherwise tolerate in the palace. This guest was the +young and handsome Saint Lambert, a captain in the Duke of Lorraine's +Guards, the cynosure of the ladies' world, of whom it was said that no +fair heart to which he seriously laid siege could resist him. His muse had +not yet taken the frigid turn which eventually produced those dull and +chilling _Seasons_, a poem in which no one will now detect any merit, +though Voltaire praised it up to the skies, and French contemporaries +declared that the poet had surpassed Thomson. But he dabbled very neatly +in little ditties, _vers d'occasion_, and the like, some of them rather +light and pretty, though not of the most perfect style. Voltaire professes +to regard Saint Lambert as a _terrible élève_, of whose poetry he owns +himself "jealous." "Il prend un pen ma tournure et l'embellit--j'éspère +que la postérité m'en remerciera." Posterity has done nothing of the +kind. In matters of courtship Saint Lambert resembled the "_papillon +libertin_" sketched by himself in one of his prettiest _pièces +fugitives_:-- + + Plus pressant qu'amoureux, plus galant que fidèle, + De la rose coquette allez baiser le sein. + D'aimer et de changer faites-vous une loi: + A ces douces erreurs consacrez votre vie. + +Neither Society nor History would ever have known him, nor have detected +any talent in him, had it not been his fortune to dispossess his two great +contemporaries, Voltaire and Rousseau, successively of their mistresses, +conquering the heart, first of Madame du Châtelet, and later that of +Madame de Houdetot. Madame de Houdetot and he turned out to be really +congenial spirits. For Madame du Châtelet his own conduct shows that he +did not really care--as how could a young man of thirty-one for a woman of +forty-two or else forty-seven, who had been some years a grandmother? Her +letters are full of impassioned professions of affection, impatient +longings for his presence, reproaches for his indifference. On his side it +was all a question of vanity. It flattered him to think that he had +eclipsed the great genius of the age in the affections of a woman of whom +all the polite world was talking. What she was he knew well enough. More +than once had she tasted of the forbidden fruit. Voltaire's _Epître à la +Calomnie_ had not whitewashed the Magdalen who had had relations +successively with Guébriant, with Richelieu, and with Voltaire. Of +Voltaire's overstrained praise of her assumed modesty Saint Lambert +himself writes:-- + + De cette tendre Courtisane + Il faisait presque une Susanne. + +But what could have induced Madame du Châtelet to engage in this +conspiracy of deceit all round--deceit on her part towards Voltaire, +deceit on Saint Lambert's part towards both Voltaire (with whom he was not +then on terms of intimacy) and Madame de Boufflers (with whom he had a +standing _liaison_)? It was in Madame de Boufflers' drawing-room, of all +places, that the courtship was most actively carried on. Her gilt-framed +harp, we hear, served as a letter-box for the lovers. There was a slit in +it just of a convenient size to hold the letters, which passed daily. Of +Madame du Châtelet's passion there could be no doubt. She threw herself +into the _amour_ with the fervour of a girl of sixteen. She sent her lover +dainty _billets-doux_ written on pink and blue-edged, fringed, and scented +paper; declared that she could not live two days without hearing from him, +when he was away; appointed _rendez-vous_ in the "Bosquet"--watched and +waited for him. It seems ridiculous in a grandmother; but she was not the +first woman of her age to go wrong. + +Clogenson will have it that the attachment sprang up some years +before--that Madame du Châtelet became annoyed at Voltaire's long absence +at the Court of King Frederick, and looked out for a new lover. We know, +however, that Emilie and Saint Lambert met for the first time at the +Lorrain Court in 1748, when Voltaire had long been back from Berlin, and +was devoting himself to his lady with an assiduity which could not be +excelled. Besides, we know--from correspondence quite recently come to +light--that as late as 1744 the relations between Voltaire and Emilie were +still quite unclouded. The miniature portrait of Voltaire, which she wore +so long secretly in her ring, and which was after her death found to have +been replaced by one of Saint Lambert, was painted in 1744. In February of +that year she writes to Abbé Moussinot: "Je vous laisse la choix du +peintre, et je ne le trouverai pas cher, quoiqu'il puisse coûter." That +does not sound like pining for a fresh lover. Evidently the later +attachment dated only from 1748, when she first became personally +acquainted with Saint Lambert; and, as the late M. Meaume puts it, "threw +herself at his head." There is no need to look very far for an +explanation. Emilie herself is perfectly outspoken about it. The +temptation came. She had yielded so often that she had not sufficient +virtue left to resist. The odd part of the business is, that Voltaire so +readily forgave her; that he continued to dote upon her, to look upon her +as half of his own self; and that he grew fast and admiring friends, +almost _in consequence_ of the betrayal, with his betrayer, Saint Lambert. +Many years after, Saint Lambert very naïvely set forth his own views on +the proper conduct of friends in matters of this kind in his _Conte +Iroquois_. Voltaire accepted that not very chivalrous theory readily, and +contented himself with protesting--"O ciel! voilà bien les femmes! J'en +avais ôté Richelieu, Saint Lambert m'a expulsé: cela est dans l'ordre, un +clou chasse l'autre." + +Growing poetic, he says: + + "Dans ces vallons et dans ces bois, + Les fleurs dont Horace autrefois + Faisait des bouquets pour Glycère-- + Saint Lambert ce n'est que pour toi + Que ces belles fleurs sont écloses: + C'est ta main qui cueille les roses. + Et les épines sont pour moi." + +Indeed, his relations with Madame du Châtelet were not those of an +ordinary lover. He did not look upon her as in his young days he had +looked upon the inconstant "Pimpette," on the beautiful "Aurore," the +pretty "Artemire," on the very "natural" Rupelmonde, or the false +Adrienne. His heart beat to a different tune at Cirey from what it did in +the Rue Cloche Perce. She was a companion and a friend--"une âme pour qui +la mienne était faite." + +There is no need to review the incidents of that melancholy love-making in +detail. They are well known. It was at Commercy that the treachery was +detected, and that those half-comical, half pathetic scenes described by +Longchamp occurred--Voltaire, mad with a sense of the injury endured, +firing up, abjuring Emilie, almost accepting Saint Lambert's challenge to +fight, ordering his valet, Longchamp, to bespeak a coach and horses at +once, that very night, for Paris. Longchamp knew too well who was master. +Instead of rushing to the posting-house, he went quietly to Emilie, who +directed him to let post-master, horses, and coach alone, and report that +there were none to be had. Her cynically frank explanation, next morning, +in Voltaire's own room put matters straight and Saint Lambert was not +only pardoned but asked pardon of by Voltaire and admitted as a friend to +both parties. Later came the ludicrous trick played off upon the Marquis +at Cirey. Last of all, there was the sad ending at Lunéville. + +Madame du Châtelet had a short time before met Stanislas at the Trianon, +and had begged him for the use, for the time of her confinement, of "le +petit appartement de la reine" in the ducal palace, a handsome set of +apartments on the ground-floor, looking out on one side on the Cour +d'Honneur, on the other on the private gardens reserved for the +Court--apartments which were magnificently furnished, but were prized by +the petitioner chiefly for their comfort, and for their nearness to those +other rooms, on the first floor (which command a splendid view across the +Bosquet, bounded in the distance by the gorgeous façade of Chanteheux), in +which Voltaire was to be lodged. Those rooms in the first story are now +appropriated as a granary. Madame du Châtelet's apartments serve as +quarters for the divisional General. King Stanislas, kind-hearted as ever, +gladly acceded to the petition, and entered into all the arrangements with +particular personal interest, as if they had concerned some near relative +of his. Under his own and Madame de Bouffler's attentive care (to say +nothing of Voltaire and Mademoiselle du Thil), we know how admirably +Emilie was looked after, how satisfactorily at first all seemed to +proceed--her _Newton_ was finished just in the nick of time--till that +fatal glass of iced _orgeat_ suddenly turned happiness into grief, and +made the palace a house of mourning. + +Voltaire was dazed at the loss, unable to command his words or his steps. +He tottered out on to the little flight of stairs, where he sat in dull +despair and stupefaction. In spite of all that had happened of late, he +declared that he had lost, not a mistress, but "half of his own self." The +world would be a different world to him now. There was to be no more of +woman's love for him in his after-life. Lunéville was no longer a place +for him. "Je ne pourrais pas supporter Lunéville, où je l'ai perdue d'une +manière plus funeste que vous ne pensez." Stanislas, kind to the last, did +all that he could to comfort his distressed friend. On the day of his +great trial he went up thrice into his room, sat with him, and wept with +him. We hear little of the funeral, except that it was carried out in a +magnificent style, attended by the whole of the Court, and with all the +honours which were due to a member of one of the four "_Grands Chevaux_." +It seemed like a mockery of Fate that, on being carried out to be placed +on the car the bier should have broken down in the large saloon in which +only a few weeks before Emilie had gathered brilliant laurels in her +favourite character of Issé, and that a mass of flowers, with which her +coffin was covered, should have dropped on the very spot where on that +occasion had fallen a shower of bouquets thrown in token of admiration. +The parish church of St. Remy, then quite new, received the body--it is +that same hideously grotesque rococo church now dedicated to St. Jacques, +overladen with misshapen ornament, whose two lofty but gingerbread spires, +"bourgeoises, lourdes, cossues et bonhommes au demeurant," as Edmond About +describes them, stand up, a conspicuous landmark, visible from afar off, +and looking down on a scene far more attractive than themselves--the +little town with its rectangular streets and squares, brightly-green +vineyards all around, and laughing hop-grounds, carefully-kept gardens, +dark bosquets, and luxuriant meadows, watered on one side by the broad +Meurthe, on the other by the modest Vesouze--with the chain of the Vosges +rising in the distance, overtopping those prettily undulating elevations +with which Lunéville is fenced in. The tomb was new, the first dug in the +nave--and it has remained the last. A black marble slab, bearing no +inscription, was laid over the grave. That same black slab is there still. +It was displaced once, when the rough champions of the Revolution raised +it, in order to possess themselves of the lead of the coffin, scattering +about rudely the bones which that coffin enclosed--almost at the precise +moment when the body of Voltaire was being carried in triumph to the +Pantheon in Paris. Pious hands gathered the remains once more together, +and there they rest in the same humble vault. + +Voltaire wrote serious verses upon Emilie's death; King Frederick the +Great wrote flippant ones. Maupertuis lamented the possessor of brilliant +powers never put to a bad use, a woman guilty of "ni tracasserie, ni +médisance, ni mechanceté." Madame de Grafigny mourned over one who had +"never told a lie:" Voltaire added that she had "never spoken ill of +anyone." It all mattered little after she was gone. Voltaire packed up his +things, and hurried off sorrowfully to Cirey, where he gathered together +the various chattels with which he had made that place more habitable and +more attractive; and before the Marquis could seriously object, he had +carried them off to Paris. + +He had done his work at Lunéville. He had put the stamp of literature and +taste on the place. He had set the current of learning flowing towards the +Lorrain capital, where a year after de Tressan appeared, to add one more +captive to the admiring army vanquished by de Boufflers--Tressan, the +"Horace, Pollion et Tibulle" of Voltaire, but forgotten now--who in 1751 +founded, under Stanislas' auspices, that "Société de Sciences et de Belles +Lettres," which soon acquired the name of "Academy," and took rank in +public estimation almost on a par with the sacred Olympus of the "Forty" +at Paris. Montesquieu, Helvétius, Hénault, Fontenelle, Bishop Poncet, +Bishop Drouas--all begged as a favour to be admitted. Really, that +Academy--which is still a flourishing institution at Nancy--was Voltaire's +work. Stanislas' fond dream had been realized, and the Court of Lorraine +had become a foremost seat of the Muses. + +Voltaire never forgot the hospitality received at Stanislas' hands. To the +time of that nominal sovereign's melancholy death, he continued in +friendly and affectionate correspondence with him. In 1760, after Louis +XV. had refused him permission to settle once more on the banks of the +Vesouze, we find him writing to the Polish king:--"Je me souviendrai +toujours, Sire, avec la plus tendre et la plus respectueuse reconnaissance +des jours heureux que j'ai passés dans votre palais. Je me souviendrai que +vous daigniez faire les charmes de la société comme vous faisiez la +félicité de vos peuples, et que si c'était un bonheur de dépendre de vous, +c'en était un plus grand de vous approcher." + +Six years after that the little drama of the Lorrain Court was played out. +Blind, and old, and deserted, Stanislas was not even sufficiently cared +for to have some one handy to help when his silk dressing-gown caught +fire. He died of his wounds--with an innocent _bon-mot_ on his lips. The +Lorrains, who had been slow to welcome him, crowded round his sick bed and +his hearse. He had done his work. In spite of his failings, his posings, +his airs, and his frivolities, no one need grudge him that tribute of +esteem. He had made the change from independence, dear as life itself to +the Lorrains while under their own dukes, to incorporation with France +very much easier. He had done much material good to the Duchy, and to +literature he had rendered very useful service. His Court is forgotten +now. His Palace is turned into a barrack; and the once gay capital has, +but for its garrison, become a sleepy little provincial town, in which the +presence of a stray stranger puts the police at once on the _qui vive_. +The hop-trade and the manufacture of _dentelleries_ monopolize the +attention of the inhabitants; and only rarely is it that some inquiring +traveller comes to inspect with interest the spot on which was enacted the +most important scene of what the late Comte d'Haussonville has aptly +called "the great second act" of the _comédie_ of Voltaire's life--that +act which, according to the same gifted author, might be named "L'amour de +la science, et la science de l'amour." + + + + +VII.--THE PRINCE CONSORT'S UNIVERSITY DAYS.[10] + + "Quarum virtutum laude hominum animas, dum in hac urbe morabaris, + mirifice Tibi devinxisti."--_Address of the Senate of Bonn to Prince + Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, January, 28, 1840._ + + +There are incidents in a man's life--sometimes important, sometimes +insignificant--which impress themselves upon his mind as if graven in +"with a pen of iron." Thirty-two years have now passed away, but I +remember, as if it had happened only a few weeks ago, old "Senius" putting +his weather-worn face into my bedroom at Bonn, on the memorable grey +morning of mid-December, 1861, to make the melancholy announcement: "Uür +Prinz is doht." "Dat war 'ne johde Heer," he added rather impressively. + +"Senius" was our "Stiefelfuchs"--which means a great deal more than having +to "polish our boots." And in some capacity or other--it must have been a +subordinate one--it had been his fate to be employed in the Prince +Consort's household while the latter was a student at Bonn. What +qualified him for either of these positions I am at a loss to conjecture. +He was nothing of a valet. We used to beg him, for mercy's sake, not to +attempt to remove stains from our clothes, inasmuch as in doing so (in the +only way which seemed to suggest itself to his untutored mind) he +invariably made two smudges out of one by spitting just a little wide of +the mark. At least that was the tradition. For any delicate mission, such +as smuggling liquor into the "Carcer," he was absolutely useless. He knew +well enough how to bandage a man for a "Mensur." And on the bitter cold +days of a North-German winter the huge bowl of his ever-smoking pipe would +be very acceptable as a hand-warmer to those gloved for the fight. He was +honest, no doubt, and strictly faithful, and that must have helped to +ingratiate him with the Prince. But his main recommendation appears to +have been his curious capacity for saying odd things in an odd way, and in +the quaintest of broad Rhenish _patois_, which made them sound doubly +droll. What with quaint habits and quaint sayings, he had become a +"character" at Bonn, generally popular as such, known to every man, woman +and child in the place, and allowed almost any latitude of speech. The +Prince, whose relish for humour was, in his student days, fully as keen as +ever in after-life, appears to have been tickled with the man's unintended +drollery; for, according to "Senius's" own naïvely frank account, he made +it his amusement to "draw" him, eliciting odd answers by inoffensively +unmerciful chaff. And this may account for "Senius" remaining in the +princely household, and experiencing much kindness at his master's hands. +If gratitude be a return, the Prince had it in ample measure. That "dat +war 'ne johde Heer" was spoken with unmistakable feeling, and it proved +the prelude to a whole string of little anecdotes which--though not +perhaps in themselves particularly remarkable or worth repeating--were +poured forth with such simple earnestness as sufficiently testified, how +firmly a sense of regard and affection had taken root in the old man's +heart, to live there through many years of separation. + +"Senius" was not the only person in Bonn who could grow warm upon this +subject. The Prince's death, indeed, set loose in the University town a +whole flood of anecdotes and reminiscences, some very trivial and +commonplace, but all of them evidencing a lively interest and abiding +regard. It is strange what power some persons possess of impressing men's +minds. There have been scores of princes students at Bonn since, some of +them spending more money and making much more of a show; but memory has +closed over them like water over a ripple. There is none remembered like +the then Prince of Coburg--down to the days of his grandson, the present +Emperor, who, of course, conquered local hearts by identifying himself +rather demonstratively with the place. + +At my time people spoke frequently of "der Prinz Albehrt." All the older +townsfolk remembered the "bildschöne junge Mann," who sat his horse like a +born cavalier, and whose mere appearance was calculated to prepossess +people in his favour. Two friends of mine--the brothers von C---- (one of +them is now a retired general who has covered himself with glory in the +wars in 1866 and 1870)--used as boys to make a point of watching for the +Coburg Princes when about to mount horse, from the house of their +neighbour, Landrath von Hymmen, who lived just opposite. They would rush +out eagerly at the proper moment to hold the Princes' stirrups, and +consider themselves amply rewarded with a kind word or a genial smile. +Travelling Englishmen have afterwards made it a matter of duty, Murray or +Baedecker in hand, to "do" the simple house "in which Prince Albert +lived," as they "did" the Münster and the Alte Zoll. To the people of Bonn +the Prince's doings were a living memory. Only eighteen months ago I was +surprised, while accidentally alluding to the subject in conversation with +an old resident, since dead, to find that gentleman at once pulling out of +his pocket a photograph of the Prince's house, which he seemed to carry +about with him habitually. He knew all the windows, and the gateway, and +answered questions about the Prince's habits of life as if they had +referred to matters of yesterday. + +In truth, Bonn owes a great deal to the Prince Consort--more than most +people are aware. If the University has grown great and popular, a +favourite with reigning houses, a High School in which every King of +Prussia is expected to have pursued his studies, something like a "Christ +Church" among German Universities; if the town has grown rich and +flourishing, a favourite residence with wealth and position _en retraite_, +the merit is in no small measure due to the Prince who, practically +speaking, first set the fashion among illustrious folk. No scion of a +reigning house, to speak of--none, certainly, to make a mark--had been at +Bonn before. Indeed, Bonn, with its associations of the Burschenschaft, +of disaffection and of ecclesiastical strife, did not stand in the best of +odours. Hence, when a Prince came to break the ice, of more than ordinary +promise, and already connected by rumour with a high destiny, very +naturally, all eyes were turned upon him. His subsequent marriage with the +Queen--at that time certainly the most powerful sovereign in +Christendom--following almost immediately upon his studentship, no doubt +emphasised the effect and added force to the example. We see at once +princes flocking to the _Fridericia Guilelmia Rhenana_--Schaumburgs, and +Mecklenburgs, and Schleswig-Holsteins, and Meiningens. Twelve years after +we have the heir to the Prussian Crown matriculating as a student. We find +the roll of students growing at a bound from 650 to 731--to increase since +to above 1,200. In short, we see Bonn developing into a different place. +English folk--as the Prince's friend, Professor Loebell, puts it, rather +uncomplimentarily, in one of his Belgian letters--send their "young bears" +to Bonn in whole batches, "to be licked." Then the parents come +themselves, bringing their families with them, to settle there. German +rank and fashion follow in their wake, quintupling the population in less +than sixty years--and the reputation and position of the town are made. + +Bonn was a very different place from the fashionable town that it is now, +when, on May 3, 1837, Professor Wutzer, as Rector Magnificus, pledged +"Prinz Albrecht Franz, Herzog von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha", "by pressure of +hand in place of oath," to be a faithful "citizen" of the University. +Prince Ernest, the Prince's elder brother, matriculated at the same time. +There was also a Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, of whom little was seen +or heard; moreover, Prince William of Löwenstein, who grew to be the +Prince's intimate friend; and two Hohenlohes. (Prince Erbach is not in the +University Register included among persons of illustrious birth.) All the +wide belt of spruce and tidy villas set up amid laughing gardens, which +now make Bonn so charming and attractive, and impart to it so pleasing a +look of prosperity and comfort, were still a thing to come. The little +town, having only about 12,000 inhabitants, still lay hemmed in within the +lines of its old walls, the gates of which were carefully closed for +security every night. There was an air of "smallness" about everything, +except the handsome "Schloss," which Archbishop Clemens August had built +(with money received from France) as a sumptuous residence for himself, +but which King Frederick William III. in 1818, without much regard for +Roman Catholic susceptibilities, converted into a "double-denomination" +University. Lutheran divines now taught where the most orthodox of +Catholic princes had held court. A non-denominational Senate conferred +degrees where the last Archbishop-Elector, the Austrian Archduke Max +Franz--"Abbé Sacrebleu," as he was popularly called--had danced with most +unepiscopal perseverance and vigour. And at Poppelsdorf learned professors +made the air malodorous with chemical stenches in the same palace in which +that most courtly of all archbishops, Clemens August, had entertained +those beautiful ladies who got him into rather serious trouble at Rome. +But, apart from these costly buildings, all was country-townish. There was +no Coblenzer Strasse as yet--only a small cluster of houses, among which +the _Vinca Domini_--whilom the winepress of the local lord--and the villa +of the patriot Arndt, were alone conspicuous. Inside the walls the +students were much in evidence, rough in their uncouth costume of those +days, very "Guys" in embroidered "pikesches" and wide petticoat-trousers, +having long curls dangling from their heads and heavy rapiers from their +waists. However, opinion in high quarters was not altogether favourable to +them. The revolutionary "Burschenschaft" had been strong in Bonn, +numbering Heinrich Heine among its members. Rhineland was, moreover, at +that time still wholly unreconciled to Prussian rule. Its seventeen years +of incorporation with France had raised a crop of free and anti-Prussian +ideas which were not soon to be eradicated. And with Austria so powerful, +and Austrian sympathies so widely diffused, thanks to Max Franz, the +authorities had still to deal gingerly with their new subjects. It made +them wince to hear the words "'ne Prüss" commonly and openly used as a +term of reproach and contempt--they were so to down in the fifties. But +they could not interfere too rigorously. Then there was the ecclesiastical +squabble, foreshadowing Prince Bismarck's "Culturkampf," and every bit as +serious and as violent. Only incapacity like that of a Schmedding, and +infatuation like that of a Bunsen, could have created such a hopeless +dilemma. "Is your Government mad?" Cardinal Lambruschini is reported to +have asked, when Bunsen communicated to him the appointment of Droste von +Vischering to be Archbishop of Cologne, as a supposed "angel of peace." +The Crown Prince, subsequently Frederick William IV., favoured the +appointment. The "angel of peace" proved a very demon of war. What with +the dispute over mixed marriages, the Episcopal protest against State +interference in Church matters, the Anathema pronounced by the new prelate +against the latitudinarian school of the followers of Hermes, particularly +favoured by the Government and deliberately installed at Bonn, and the +Archbishop's uncompromising ban upon the University _Convictorium_, there +was war along the whole line. All Rhineland, be it remembered, was then +still staunchly Romanist. Bonn contained but a handful of Protestants. The +"concurrently endowed" University, planted in the midst of a Catholic +country, was a standing abomination and a perpetual taunt to the native +population. The Prince's letters of that time show how fully he +appreciated the grave significance of the struggle even at his early age. +It was while he was at Bonn that the refractory Archbishop was carried off +by force, to be "interned" at Minden. + +Under such circumstances it required some resolution for a young +Protestant Prince to settle amid an excited Romanist population. If to be +"'ne Prüss" was a reproach, to be "'ne Jüss"--that is "Gueux," or +Protestant--meant downright anathema. And Prince Albert settled right in +what may be called a little Protestant colony, saucily set up under the +very shadow of the beautiful east-end of that splendid old "Münster," +which traces its foundation to Constantine, and has been the scene of +Councils and Imperial coronations from the tenth century downwards. + +The Empress Frederick, a few years ago, when in Bonn, very naturally asked +to be shown the house in which her father had lived. By that time every +vestige of it had disappeared, and she could only be pointed out the +site--a garden it is now, fronting an entirely new building in the +Martinsplatz, close to where, up to the beginning of the century, stood +the church which gave the square its name. But I can perfectly recall the +unpretending structure, a three-storied, flat-gabled house, with a +two-storied wing--the old-fashioned windows set off by dark-green +shutters--lying rather in a hollow, within a yard enclosed in a stone wall +pierced by a gate, but generally open in situation and yet, thanks to the +enclosure, pretty private. It commanded very fair views of the +Poppelsdorfer Allee--the favourite strolling-ground, ever since it was +planted, for fashionable and unfashionable Bonn--of the Kreuzberg, and +sideways of the more distant Seven Mountains. It seemed a small house to +harbour two Princes and their suite, more especially when one was told +that what seemed the main portion was reserved for the use of the owner. +But it was a building of considerable depth, and so afforded sufficient +room for the illustrious inmates and all their not very numerous +household, which included, of course, the "excellent" Doctor Florschütz as +tutor, the rather starchy martinet-soldier Herr von Wiechmann, who acted +as governor, the Prince's favourite valet, and some more. All about the +household, as about the Prince's doings generally, was marked by extreme +simplicity, which could not, however, in any particular have suggested +anything like niggardliness, but merely the voluntary plain living of a +gentleman who had no taste for sumptuous habits. Meals, appointments, +entertainments, everything indicated a dislike of display. The Prince's +trap was such as an innkeeper living opposite could, on its original +owner's departure, purchase and use for his business-drives without +occasioning remark. If there was one material thing in respect of which +the Prince practised luxury, it was his little stud, which was small, but +generally admired as choice, and which was, it need scarcely be added, +much prized by its owner. The hours kept in the little green-shuttered +house were probably the most regular in all the town. Everything in the +illustrious student's life was subordinated to the purposes of study. +Every hour had its allotted task. He must have been an early riser who +could have seen the blinds down of a morning; and long before lights went +out in some of the adjoining houses, all was darkness and rest in the +Prince's home, which was a veritable temple of method and punctuality. + +The quarters had been selected because the Duke of Saxe-Coburg wished his +sons to be lodged with a professor. There were not many such with +sufficiently large dwellings to select from, and possibly on that ground +the choice had fallen upon a Professor of Medicine, who could have been of +little service to the Princes in the prosecution of their studies. He was +popularly known as "Gamaschenbischof"--"Gaiter-Bishop"--to distinguish him +from the other Geheimrath Bischoff who became better known as a great +professor of chemistry, but who wore no gaiters. I quite forget whether +"Gamaschenbischof" was a Roman Catholic or a Protestant. But his next-door +neighbour on the side of the old Neuthor--then still an old-fashioned +arched gateway with a substantial gate to keep out bad characters at +night--was the acknowledged head of the Lutheran congregation, then a +mere handful, the sparing growth of twenty years of Prussian rule. The +little community did not yet possess a church of their own as they do now. +Indeed, for many years after they had to content themselves with the use +of the bald but lofty University chapel, which for many decades they have +shared with their English fellow-Christians, often enough keeping the +latter waiting when their sermon happened to be long, and considerately +leaving a crucifix as a fixture for rigid Evangelicals to chafe at and +write letters about to successive chaplains. But the proper stronghold of +local Protestantism was to be found in that turreted little Château +Gaillard facing the Münster, in which Pusey's friend, Professor Sack, +Schleiermacher's least heterodox pupil, had at the Prince's time his +official residence. The Coburg Princes, who loyally upheld their own +Protestant church, were not infrequent visitors in the house of this +pastor, who was well-informed and sociable, and by no means an +unacceptable neighbour. Beyond the parsonage, directly abutting upon the +Neuthor, was another Protestant institution--the Lutheran school--which, +some years later, became a noted centre of attraction to males of all +creeds, by reason of the residence in it of "The Three Graces," the +_Küster's_--that is, the clerk and schoolmaster's--remarkably handsome +daughters. But in 1837 and 1838 those ladies were still too young to do +much mischief, even to so impressionable a cavalier as Prince Ernest. All +these buildings spoken of, which still stood at my time, have long since +been pulled down and made to give place to houses of a more modern type. + +All things considered, it would have been difficult for the Duke of +Coburg to make a better choice of a University in which to give his sons +the last finishing touch of education. Bonn has always stood high as a +home of learning. King Frederick William III. was careful, with the most +luxurious buildings and what was at that time considered a truly princely +endowment, to bestow upon his own peculiar "pet child" as competent a +teaching staff as money and favour could procure. And in 1837, though +Niebuhr was gone, and Arndt was suspended--for preaching too vigorously +the gospel of German union, which was then reputed rank heresy--and though +Dahlmann, who would have been a professor after Prince Albert's own heart, +had not yet come, the teaching staff could compare with that of any +period. But apart from that, there was a tone of freedom and geniality +prevailing at Bonn which distinguished that place from all other German +universities. It was the least Prussian of all Prussian High Schools--far +more in the world and in touch with the world than all its sisters. Set up +on "Frankish" soil, which used to give Germany its Emperors; the chosen +residence, until recently, of prelates of an ancient See, who had +entertained relations from time immemorial with all great Courts, and who +had been recruited from princely houses; and, last, but not least, only a +generation before an integral portion of the Republic, "one and +indivisible," which planted its tricolor nowhere without leaving its free +spirit behind, even after the outward ensign was gone--Bonn nourished a +more independent habit of thought and encouraged wider and larger views +than did the "zopf"-ruled universities of the East. It was here, +doubtless, among the patriotic aspirations of a "Young Germany" unchilled +by Carlsbad and Laibach, under the inspiring teaching of Arndt, that Duke +Ernest, prophetically styled _Spes patriæ_ in an address presented by the +Academical Senate, conceived that liberal, high-minded and unselfish +policy which paved the way as much as anything else for the Union of 1871. +And to Prince Albert, likewise, this must have seemed a wider world than +that of Coburg; and, in a period of life more formative of character than +any other, it must have served to prepare him better for that freer sphere +of action into which he was destined shortly to be called. + +Niebuhr, as observed, was gone from Bonn. Arndt was removed from his +"chair" for saying too freely in 1820 what Princes had openly proclaimed +in 1813. Dahlmann was, in truth, still one of "the Seven of Göttingen," +inasmuch as Ernest Augustus had not yet made his Hanoverians to regret +that they were governed by the Salic law. But there was Welcker, the great +historian of art, and the brilliant elocutionist, from whom the Prince +must have learnt much of that close knowledge and warm appreciation of art +which afterwards made him so efficient a furtherer of culture in this +kingdom. There were Loebell and Perthes, von Alten, Bethmann-Hollweg, +Walter, Brandis, Nitzsch, Deiters, Bleek, Breidenstein, Nöggerath, +Argelander, Schlegel, Fichte, Plücker, Böcking, and many more--not a few +of whom I can perfectly remember from my own days. The two Princes, and +more particularly Prince Albert, knew how to turn the opportunities at +their command to admirable account, not merely by attending the public +lectures with exemplary regularity, but, in addition, by seeking out +learning, so to speak, _en déshabillé_, and drawing from it in the easy +way of conversation and chat probably more information than it dispensed +on more formal occasions. Prince Albert was on excellent terms with the +most able of these men--Schlegel, Perthes, Bethmann-Hollweg, Walter and +some more--and was frequently to be seen walking with one or other of them +in the Poppelsdorfer Allee, or else on the Venusberg, or along the Rhine, +keeping up an animated conversation. And often would he ask some one or +two to his house, or else drop in--sometimes on his own invitation--to +that peculiarly German repast of evening "tea," further to prosecute his +cross-questioning. "Tea," of course, does not in this application mean +anything like our own "five o'clock," nor yet quite so substantial a meal +as our middle-class "high tea," but a light evening repast, such as is +usual (viz., after a good mid-day dinner) among the cultivated classes in +Germany, when _en famille_, from the Imperial Court downward. Taxing the +stomach but little, such a meal leaves the head all the more free for +intellectual occupation, and is, in truth, dependent for its best relish +on the Attic salt supplied by the company. (The "tea" itself is, +unfortunately, as a rule, indifferent in quality.) At Bonn these "teas" +became little feasts of reason, and used to be, I am told, one of the +Prince's particular delights. He was in the habit of discussing questions +of learning and politics and statesmanship very freely with his own chosen +little set, Prince Löwenstein and others. But he knew the difference +between this and putting Professors (who in Bonn were then not merely men +of the lamp) into the witness-box and pleasurably pumping them dry over +their own tea-table. Nobody relished this treatment more than the +Professors themselves, who in after-time often spoke of the enjoyable +evenings which they had spent, and the pleasure of discussing matters on +which they were masters with so apt a pupil, who knew how to put +brightness and stimulating interest into the conversation. The Prince's +enjoyment, it is to be suspected, went even a little further. For, men of +great learning as these Professors were, more than one of them had +contracted odd habits of speech and manner, which no man was more quick to +note and more apt inoffensively to caricature--in mien and with +pencil--than the Prince. We know that he could use pen and brush deftly +enough. And more particularly of his artist's work completed at Bonn +several specimens survive--for instance, the Queen's "Savoyard Boy." Some +of the caricature sketches referred to are said to have been admirable, +and no less so the mimicry which, without malice or guile, brought out +tellingly the little oddities of these learned gentry, to the intense +amusement of a privileged and very select audience. There was, as it +happened, ample material. Schlegel, the great and the witty--there could +have been no pleasanter companion than he who first made the Germans +understand Shakespeare--was, with all his merits, vain and conceited, and +foolishly insisted upon parading his conceit before the world. He was old +at that time, and lectured only at rare intervals, but every now and then +some of that old impetuosity would break out, which in earlier days had +made him, without regard for conventionalities, pull off his coat and +waistcoat in the midst of an evening party, in order to fling to his +brother Frederick the smaller garment, for which in a rash moment he had +bartered away a good story. Then there was Loebell, the friend of Tieck, +the uncompromising Protestant, full of historic lore as an egg is of meat, +and of truly magnetic attractiveness to his pupils, but ugly as a monkey, +diffident and gauche, and, thanks to his habitual absence of mind, a +source of the oddest and never-failing anecdote. Perthes and Fichte laid +themselves equally open to ridicule. The "University Judge" (Proctor) von +Salomon, commonly nicknamed "the Salamander," was made more than once to +sit for a comic portrait; and Oberberghauptmann Count Beust--the Prince's +own countryman, a native of Saxe-Coburg, with whom the Prince was on terms +of comparative intimacy--provided at times irresistible food for laughter, +not only by his curious squat little figure, but even more by that +genuinely Saxon sing-song accent, which seems to be a common feature of +all Beusts who have not remained in their old Brandenburg home. The +statesman of the same name, whom we have seen in our midst, shared this +same family defect, and was accordingly known in Saxony as "Beist;" and +one of the Ministries of which he formed a member was currently spoken of, +by way of joke, as "Behr _beisst_ Rabenhorst." As droll as any was +Professor Kaufmann, from whom, long before I listened to the curious +cadences of his speech, the Prince Consort learnt very orthodox political +economy conveyed in the prosiest of ways, fortunately relieved by the +quaintest illustrations of economic truths which could ever have issued +from the brain of man. He looked like one of Cruikshank's figures come to +life, and it was really difficult not to laugh at him. + +The Prince's shafts of wit never wanted point, but at the same time they +never struck painfully home. There was no mimicry or jest which even its +victims could not readily forgive. Years after the Prince had left Bonn, +the very men whom he had amused himself by taking off most mercilessly +looked back, not only without resentment, but with absolute satisfaction, +on all this intercourse. And when, on the approach of the Prince's +marriage, it was proposed to send him a Latin address of congratulation, +and to bestow upon him--as the fittest offering for the occasion that the +Senate could think of--the Degree of _Doctor utriusque juris_, the motion +was carried by acclamation, and the learned Professor Ritschl was at once +commissioned to compose a Latin ode, which turned out perfect in grammar +and prosody, but which is a trifle too long to be here quoted. + +With the students, generally speaking--apart from his own little princely +set--the Prince was less intimate. He would mingle with them in the +quadrangle, the lecture-hall, and the fencing-room, and he would invite +them periodically, in batches, to his hospitable table, where, of course, +he made a most genial host. But I have heard complaints of his supposed +reserve and coldness, and his keeping people at a distance, contrasting +just a little with the _engouement_ with which Prince Ernest was ready to +take part in the fun and frolic of German student life. It was said that +the coming engagement with the Queen, which rumour considerably +ante-dated, had chilled Prince Albert's young blood, and led him to stand +a little on his dignity. Probably this was to some extent a question of +manner. But, moreover, it ought to be borne in mind, that student life was +in those days just a trifle rough, and, knowing what it was, one can +readily understand the Prince's disinclination to identify himself +altogether with habits not by any means congenial to himself. He could +grow sociable enough with students on proper occasions. He is known to +have been a regular attendant at the _Fechtboden_--where, however, he +practised rather with the broad-sword than with the student's +rapier--ready to accept the challenge of any competent opponent; and he +would occasionally look on with interest at a real _Mensur_, whenever good +fencers were put forward to fight. We know that at a great fencing match +he carried off the first prize.[11] Even beyond this, from time to time he +would visit a students' _Kneipe_--having duly prepared himself for the +short nocturnal dissipation with a little snooze--and join very readily in +the fun and the mirth, more particularly in such amusements as allowed +play for the intellectual faculties. He was fond of German melodies, and +knew how to delight his audience with a song. And when it came to some +serio-comic diversion--such as the mock-trial know as a _Bierconvent_, a +travesty of legal proceedings, conceived, when ably led, in the spirit of +Demosthenes' hypothetical lawsuit about "the shadow of an ass"--he is said +to have been excellent. But mere beer-drinking and shouting were not in +his line. At home he was wont to cultivate the Muses, People still talk of +a little volume of poetry which the two brothers are said to have brought +out conjointly in support of a local charity, and to which Prince Albert +is supposed to have contributed the verse, and Prince Ernest the tunes. I +should not be surprised to learn that Prince Albert had as much to do with +the music as with the text. So far as there was poetry and music and +geniality to be found under the rough mask of student life, the Prince was +very ready to take part in it. And during the sixteen months of his +studentship he grew sufficiently familiar with some of his fellow-students +even to _tutoyer_. My friend, E. von C----, who was then a boy, distinctly +remembers meeting him walking towards the Rhine, and hearing him accosted +by two burly "Westphalians": "Wo gehst du hin, Albert?" "Ich gehe ins +Schiff," was his reply; "ich reise nach England." The Westphalians at once +turned round to see him off. That was an eventful journey "to England." + +How little _hauteur_ really had to do with the Prince's intercourse with +his fellow-men is testified by the friendly acquaintanceship which grew up +at Bonn between him and persons of an entirely different class, and which +has still left its honourable memories behind. + +Pretty well opposite his own quarters, cornering the Martinsplatz--where +now are two much-frequented shops--in those days stood a middle-sized +house, over the door of which might be read the inscription +"Weinwirthschaft von Peter Stamm." In later days, under a new proprietor, +the house came to be more ambitiously christened "Gasthaus zum Deutschen +Hof." In this establishment both Princes were frequent visitors, perhaps +Prince Albert more so than his brother. It was at this corner generally +that they mounted horse for a ride--I believe that some of their horses +were put up in the "Weinwirthschaft"--and here accordingly my friend, von +C----, used to watch for them, in order to hold their stirrups. In a +University town, in which + + Bibit hera, bibit herus, + Bibit miles, bibit clerus, + Bibit ille, bibit illa, + Bibit servus cum ancilla, + Bibit velox, bibit piger, + Bibit albus, bibit niger, + Bibit constans, bibit vagus, + Bibit rudis, bibit magus, + Bibit pauper et aegrotus, + Bibit exul et ignotus, + Bibit puer, bibit canus, + Bibit praesul et decanus, + Bibit soror, bibit frater, + Bibit anus, bibit mater, + Bibit iste, bibit ille, + Bibunt centum, bibunt mille: + Tam pro Papa, tam pro rege + Bibunt omnes sine lege, + +of course there are wine-shops many, and beer-shops many; and neither +student nor "Philistine" need ever be in any fear of having to remain +"dry" for want of liquor. But there has always been some one or other +wine-house raised a little above the common run, not by any pretentious +architecture or outfit--as a rule it was in external features one of the +most unpretending in the town--but by the superior quality of the liquor +served. Here would meet--as is doubtless the case now--the _honoratiores_ +of the town, and some other blithe spirits, admitted almost by favour, a +select _clientèle_, to sip down, to the accompaniment of fluent +conversation, not the vulgar "schoppen" of the multitude, but the +capitalist "special"--a half-pint held in a massive goblet-shaped glass. +In my time the "select" wine-house of this sort was that of +"Schmitzköbes"--which means "James Schmitz"--in the market-place. In the +Prince's time it was the house of Peter Stamm. However, it was not for the +wine that the Prince came to this house--though in moderation he +appreciated a glass of good Rhenish, or Walporzheim. In our +aristocratically organised country, where, moreover, sportsmanship is held +to be public property, as accessible to the stockbroker as to the squire, +we have no idea of the fast link which in Germany--altogether differently +constituted, at any rate, then--the love of sport will bind between +persons of totally different classes. It holds them together like a +bracket. Prince and farmer, noble and tradesman--it is all alike _quoad_ +sport; for that purpose genuine comradeship is established, on altogether +equal terms. There is no giving one's self away in this, nor yet any undue +presumption. The tradesman remains a tradesman, the prince no less a +prince; social differences are merely put aside. Now Peter Stamm was a +most zealous sportsman, who knew where to find a hare or a bird for many +miles round, and could spend whole nights and days with his dog and with +his gun--more particularly if there were some like-minded companion to +share the sport. And what was more for the present purpose, he was an +ardent horse-fancier, and a connaisseur of horse-flesh. His brother, +"Stamm-hannes"--that is, "John Stamm"--was a noted horse-dealer and +horse-breaker, who always had some good cattle on hand. And, moreover, +Peter Stamm was a great dog-fancier, and known for having the best dogs in +all Bonn. From him, I believe, it was that the Prince purchased that +handsome favourite of his, Eôs, whom he brought over with him to England, +his constant companion then on walks and drives and travels. So here was a +threefold cord which bound together these two neighbours, living within a +stone's throw of one another--a link which never broke in after-life. Long +after the Prince had left Bonn, there used to be messages going backwards +and forwards. When Peter was gone, Stamm-hannes kept up the intercourse, +and on one of his travels to England even visited the Prince as an old +friend. They are both dead now--and so is Nicolas, the third brother, who +kept the Bellevue Hotel on the Rhine. But to the present day old Fräulein +Stamm, now eighty-three years of age, carefully preserves and +affectionately cherishes the few keepsakes which still remain of the +Prince's giving--originally to Peter--and there is nothing that the old +lady is more fond of talking about than those old days, when the Prince +and Peter used to drive out to the Kottenforst together, and Peter would +come home and tell her of their common, not overexciting, adventures. The +keepsakes have dwindled down to three pictures and two porcelain cups, the +latter rather rudely painted, as was the fashion in those days, with views +of the Drachenfels and Rolandseck. Of the pictures, two are portraits of +the young Princes taken at Brussels before they repaired to Bonn, and +showing their boyish faces flanked by two heavy pairs of epaulettes. The +third, a woodcut, represents some unknown sportsman going a-stalking. +There used to be other small articles, such as sportsman friends are in +the habit of presenting to one another; but time has, one after the other, +disposed of them. + +The Prince, we know, was always particularly fond of bodily exercise. At +Bonn he would fence regularly. And he would swim with as much zest, and +think nothing of mixing with the common crowd in those rough-and-ready +swimming-baths which I well remember; for in my time they were still all +the convenience for river bathing that Bonn had to offer--a rude concern +on the other bank of the Rhine, knocked together out of a raft and a few +sheds. In those baths the Prince did not seem to mind whom he rubbed +shoulders with. In this respect he closely resembled his son-in-law, the +Emperor Frederick, whose popularity in Berlin was not a little enhanced by +the _sans gêne_ with which he would, while in the water, join in the +splashing and larking of his future subjects, to whom it never on such +occasions occurred to forget themselves. A simple "Na, Jungens, jetzt ist +genug" from the Prince would at once warn them back into proper distance. +The Prince Consort became just as popular among the swimmers at Bonn. The +Rhine is really a troublesome river to swim in, on account of the force of +its current. The Prince would have himself rowed up a pretty long +distance, to swim back. I once or twice swam the same distance, in company +with Count H----, of the "Borussians," and we both found it quite long +enough. A very favourite sport with the Prince was, to tumble little boys +into the water--the swimming-master being by for safety--and then dive +after them to bring them up. He would select such as were not likely to be +frightened. And they came to like the fun. + +But the Prince's favourite recreation of all was going a-shooting. In the +near neighbourhood of Bonn there is no very ambitious sport. The more +venturesome spirits go as far as the Eifel Mountains, there to kill +wild-boar and red-deer. For this the Prince grudged the time. So he had to +be content with hares and birds, an occasional roebuck--and, I dare say, +in those, early days he now and then brought down a fox, which in Germany +is reckoned rather good sport. When, in 1858, the Crown Prince, Emperor +Frederick, came back from his wedding, and found the officers of the Deutz +Cuirassiers drawn up in line at the Cologne station to salute him, he +singled out Count F----, of M--dorf, to present more especially to his +bride. "I must present Count F---- to you," he said; "it was on his estate +that I shot my first fox." Either Count F----'s conscience stung him, or +else he realised better than the Crown Prince in what light vulpicide is +regarded in the Princess's country: "It was not really a fox, Sir," he +explained with some embarrassment; "it was a wild cat." + +There were water-fowl near Brühl; there used to be a heronry there. But I +do not think the Prince went in that direction. His ordinary +shooting-ground was near Bergheim, on the other side of the Rhine and, +beyond the Venusberg, in the Kottenforst, a long stretch of forest, not +everywhere well-timbered, in which Peter Stamm had a "Jagd," to which of +course the Prince was welcome. Wherever the forest was a little ragged +there were, of course, black game. And then, in spring, to the Prince's +great delight, there was woodcock shooting. The "Schnepfenstrich" was his +pet sport, and never was he to be seen more regularly driving his plain +little trap out to Röttgen--where Stamm had his shooting--the faithful +Peter always by his side--than in the four weeks which precede Palm +Sunday, the season of all others sacred in Germany to woodcock shooting, +for + + Oculi, da kommen sie; + Laetare, das ist das wahre; + Judica, sind sie auch noch da; + Palmarum, Trallarum. + +The Latin words are the Lutheran calendar names for the four Sundays next +before Easter. + +Often Stamm-hannes would be of the party--often also Everard Sator, +another local Nimrod and horse-fancier, of Stamm's peculiar set, and +acceptable to the Prince. And some of the Prince's more aristocratic +companions would likewise occasionally join. But the Prince and Peter were +in this matter inseparables, roughing it out on the wooded heights from +sheer love of sport; and after that they would meet in the +"Weinwirthschaft" and talk over their common experiences, being +attentively overheard by a small company who reckoned it a privilege, +however little they might know about shooting, to listen to these +sportmen's tales, and bottle them up to retail to others after the Prince +was gone. + +There was another very faithful friend, of humbler station still, whose +heart the Prince managed to capture by his genial affability and the kind +interest which it was his wont to manifest in others. Nobody could have +stayed any time in Bonn at that particular period without becoming +acquainted with "Appeltring"--or, as she was more ceremoniously called to +her face, "Frau Gevatterin." She was, without question, the most popular +"character" in Bonn, and there was no man who had not a kind word for her, +and was not ready to test her well-known power of repartee by a little +joke. "Appeltring," of course, means "Apple-kate"--"Tring" standing for +Katherine by one of those extraordinary transformations of names which, +probably, not even Grimm could explain, and which in the Rhenish dialect +convert "Heinrich" into "Drickes," and "Reinhard" into "Nieres." She was +an apple-woman, as her name implies, or, rather, a seller of fruit +generally, and had her stall or tent just outside the Neuthor, close to +the Prince's quarters, and on a spot which he must pass several times +almost every day--a coign of vantage, moreover, from which all the +fashionable and unfashionable world taking the air in the Poppelsdorfer +Allee, might be surveyed, as can all the fine folk passing in and out of +Hyde Park from Hyde Park Corner. She was on that spot still when I was at +Bonn twenty-three years later, and she was there for some time after--a +weather-bronzed, wrinkled old woman then, but still full of chat and +lively talk, humour and repartee, and endowed with a truly encyclopædic +knowledge of everyone who had been anyone at Bonn, and of his life, and +failings, and little adventures. Even in the Prince's day she was +decidedly past her first youth, and devoid of personal attractions; but +she had still something of the halo about her then of a not very distant +serio-comic little love affair, about which she was made to hear no end of +chaff--with a trumpeter (named Bengler, if I recollect right) who lost his +life in that Russian war in which the great Moltke won his first spurs. +During all the time that she offered her wares outside the Neuthor her +stall was a favourite resort with folk who had a spare quarter of an hour +on their hands, some of them of the best blood. The Emperor Frederick has +sat on that spot many a time, watching the passers-by, and exchanging chat +with "Tring," while eating cherries from one of the shallow flat-bottomed +baskets in which "Frau Gevatterin," or her younger assistant, served them +from the tent; and so have the Coburg Princes, more particularly Prince +Albert, who had a peculiar liking for "Appeltring" and her quaint ways, +her good temper, and her ready answers. Barring the Princes, "Tring's" +customers were not always prompt paymasters. This necessitated the keeping +of accounts, which, as "Tring" was nothing of a penwoman, resulted in a +description of bookkeeping so curious as to induce a learned archæological +society of Bonn afterwards to publish her records in facsimile. There were +no names, but rude imitations of a beard, or a tassel, or big top-boots, +or else a peculiar nose, or a pair of spectacles, or some other +distinguishing feature about the particular debtor. + +The habit of almost daily chat begot a peculiar familiarity and interest +in one another's affairs between these two people at opposite poles of +society, and inspired "Tring" with a devotion to the Prince which has +just a touch of romance about it. To her simple but honest mind the Prince +was the noblest creature that walked the earth. Whenever he failed to pass +to bid her good-day, she seemed to feel as if deprived of a substantial +pleasure. For years and decades after he had gone she would relate with +striking animation little stories of his life in Bonn, and tell of his +kindness to her. She was indefatigable in inquiries about him, and would +draw in every word of information received with eager curiosity. Nor did +she ever hear of anyone going to England without commissioning +him--"Jrüsse Se den Prinzen Albehrt." It sounded very ridiculous to some, +no doubt. But I venture to surmise, that to the Prince himself that +broadly Rhenish "Jrüsse Se den Prinzen Albehrt" would have been a not +unwelcome greeting. + +Most of the good people here spoken of, with whom the Prince exchanged +jokes and more serious intercourse, whom he charmed with his happy temper +or edified with graver talk, are now dead and gone. Bonn has grown a town +of 50,000 or 60,000 inhabitants, well-to-do, bright and attractive, adding +to its population year by year. The University has throughout its history +maintained its old high rank. As a new generation rises up old +reminiscences are dying out. Stories which thirty years ago passed current +from mouth to mouth are gradually being forgotten. There is so much more +that used to be told of the Prince, when memories were fresh; indeed, +there is much that might be told still, only the incidents seem trivial in +themselves, and memorable only as demonstrating what singular power their +hero possessed of riveting men's affections, and as concurring in +impressing a stamp of noble principle, unselfish consideration for others, +of a genial and happy disposition, and laborious devotion to study upon +his student life of sixteen months. There was, there is reason to believe, +very much good done in private, of which the outside world never heard. To +Bonn the Prince's stay was a turning-point in its history; and, since +elsewhere scarcely anything has been said about that particular epoch in +the Prince's life, it may not be unmeet to gather together the fragments +of traditions and reminiscences surviving, before they pass finally out of +men's minds, and thus to fill a gap hitherto left in the memorials of a +life which has in its later periods amply realized the promise given in +the early days of youth here spoken of. + + + + +VIII.--SOMETHING ABOUT BEER.[12] + + +When Judas Iscariot, as the legend has it, prompted by a presumptuous +ambition to emulate Our Saviour in the performance of a miracle similar to +that of Cana, spoke his cabalistic words over the water which he desired +to make potable, it may be argued that a worse product might have resulted +from the process than beer--at any rate from a non-teetotal point of view. +According to another legend, of wider currency, the inventor of beer was +not the apostate apostle, but a more or less mythical king of Brabant, +named Gambrinus. His bine-crowned visage may be seen beaming from the +walls of most tap-rooms in Germany and in those more or less German +provinces which once formed, or should have formed, or still form, that +political desideratum, the "Middle Kingdom." This is a case of _ex +vocabulo fabula_. For Gambrivium is Cambray--the Cambray of the League and +also of early brewing. And "Gambrinus" is either John the Victorious of +Brabant, who fell in a tournament held at Bar-le-Duc on the occasion of +the marriage of Henri, count of that country, with Eleanor, daughter of +our King Edward I., or else--and more probably--it is Jean Sans-Peur of +Burgundy, who, to ingratiate himself with his Flemish subjects, had a +dollar coined, showing a wreath of hop-bine encircling his head--and also +instituted the order of the _Houblon_, giving no little offence thereby to +his loyal clergy. Not that there was anything at all heretical in his act. +No; but the case was really much worse. For the clergy, it turned out, in +those days had a vested interest in beer. That was in the fourteenth +century, when the liquor was still generally brewed without hops, a +mixture of aromatic herbs being used instead, which was in most cases +supplied from episcopal forests. So it was in Brabant. The Bishop of Liége +possessed virtually a monopoly of the trade in _gruyt_, and when Duke John +favoured the cultivation of hops, the bishop's income suffered a serious +diminution. Accordingly, his Eminence remonstrated--just as in our +country, about 1400, and again in 1442, complaint was made to Parliament +of the introduction of that "wicked weed, that would spoil the taste of +drink and endanger the people." In the dioceses of Utrecht and Cologne it +was just the same thing. The bishops fought hard for their _gruyt_ or +_krüt_, using their crosiers as a defensive weapon, but had eventually to +give in. From this it would appear that what King Gambrinus really did +introduce was not beer, but the use in the brewing of it of hops, the +ingredient over which that eminent saint, Abbess Hildegardis of +Rupertusberg, had already pronounced her benediction. St. Hildegardis was +a saint of unquestionable authority, having been specially recognised at +the Council of Trèves as a prophetess by St. Bernard and Pope Eugenius IV. +She recommended hops on the ground that, though "heating and drying," and +productive of "a certain melancholy and sadness" (she must have been +thinking of the effects next day), they possess the sovereign virtues of +preventing noxious fermentation and also of preserving the beer. (Burton, +in partial opposition to the saint, asserts that beer--hopped, of +course--"hath an especial virtue _against_ melancholy, as our herbalists +confess.") St. Hildegardis' opinion was given in the twelfth century. That +was not by any means the earliest age of beer; for we find it referred to +in history some centuries before. Whether the inhabitants of Chalcedon, +when they shouted in derision after the Emperor Valens, "Sabajarius! +Sabajarius!"--which has been translated, "drinker of beer"--really +referred to beer, as we now understand it, must appear doubtful. In the +same way, the reputed "beer" of the early Egyptians and Hebrews--alluded +to by Xenophon, Herodotus, and other ancient writers--may or may not have +been beer in our sense. But in the eighth century we find Charlemagne +enjoining brewing in his dominions. In 862 we have Charles the Bald making +to the monks of St. Denis a grant of ninety _boisseaux d'épeautre_ a year +_pour faire de la cervoise_. In 1042 we have Henri I. conferring on the +monks of Montreuil-sur-Marne the valuable right of brewing, and in 1268 +St. Louis laying down rules for the guidance of brewers in Paris. Paris +was then, as it now is becoming again--I cannot say that I like the +idea--a very "beery" place. Its brewers, even at a very remote time, +formed a highly respected corporation, using as their insignia and +trade-mark an image of the Holy Virgin--their patron saint--incongruously +enough grouped together with Ceres, both being encircled by the +legend:--_Bacchi Ceres aemula_. No modern Pope would allow such crossing +of the two religions. Ceres was of course in olden time looked upon as the +especial goddess of beer, made of barley, which was after her named +_Cerevisia_. Juvenal mentions _Demetrius_ as its name, derived of course +from Demeter. However, Fischart, a notable German poet, who lived in the +sixteenth century, ascribes its invention to Bacchus, as an intended +substitute for wine wherever there are no grapes. Modern Germany has +produced a very pretty song, which represents Wine as a wonder-working +nobleman, making a triumphal progress in grand style, clad in silk and +gold, and Beer crossing his path as a sturdy but rather perky peasant, in +a frieze jacket and top-boots, challenging him to a thaumaturgic tourney, +as Jannes and Jambres challenged Moses. After an amusing little squabble +the two make friends, and henceforth rule the world in joint sovereignty +and happy unity. At Paris, in the reign of Charles V., we find the local +brewers, twenty-one in number, so wealthy as to be able to pay a million +_écus d'or_ for their licenses. Under Charles VI., beer had become a +regulation drink at the French court, and we have our own Richard II. +presenting the French king with a "_vaisseau à boire cervoise_." From this +it may be inferred that the famous verselet-- + + Hops and turkeys, carps and beer, + +or, as some rigid Anglican has improved it-- + + Hops, reformation, bays, and beer + Came to England all in one year-- + +to wit, the year 1525--is a little wrong in its date, and that beer was +known earlier. After the date named, we know that it soon made its way +into the highest circles. As proof of this we have the one shoe which +Queen Bess carelessly left behind after that lunch, of which beer formed +an item, with which she was regaled on her progress through Sussex, under +the spreading oak still shown in that pretty village of Northiam-- + + O fair Norjem! thou dost far exceed + Beckley, Peasmarsh, Udimore, and Brede-- + +which shoe may still be seen, by favour, in the private archæological +collection at Brickwall House, in company with Accepted Frewen's +toasting-fork. + +Saxon descent may have had much to do with the development of our own +peculiar cerevisial taste--taste, that is, for beer with some body and a +good strong flavour of malt. There can be no doubt that, compared with the +produce of other countries, our beer is still the best--if only one's +liver will stand it--the most tasty, the most nourishing--"meat, drink and +cloth," as Sir John Linger puts it--beer which will occasionally "make a +cat speak and a wise man dumb." The Saxons always had a liking for beer +with something in it--not merely "strong water," as Sir Richard l'Estrange +calls the small stuff. The ancient Teutons, we know, were all of them +furious drinkers. Accordingly, not a few of the modern generation hold, +with Luther's Elector of Saxony, that a custom of such very venerable +antiquity ought not to be lightly abandoned. Tacitus writes that the +Germans think it no shame to spend a whole day and night a-drinking. The +Greek Emperor Nicephoras Phorcas told the ambassador of Emperor Otho that +his master's soldiers had no other proficiency but in getting drunk. +Rudolph of Hapsburgh grew vociferous over the discovery of good beer. +"Walk in, walk in!" he shouted, standing at a tavern door in Erfurt, +wholly oblivious of his imperial dignity; "there is excellent beer to be +had inside." And "good King Wenceslas" of our Christmas carol--described +as "good" nowhere else--was an habitual toper, and was "done" accordingly +by the French at Rheims, where he thought more of the wine than of the +treaty which he was negotiating. Henri Quatre would on no account marry a +German wife. "Je croirais," he said, "toujours avoir un pot de vin auprès +de moi." A modern writer, Charles Monselet, says that in Strassburg--in +this respect a typically German town--"tout se ressent de la domination de +la bière." Beer lends its colour to the faces of the inhabitants, to their +hair, to their clothes; to the soil and the houses; and the very women +seem nothing but "walking _chopes_." But the Saxons in particular--not the +modern ones, but those of the North, some of whom found their way into +England--always loved good stout nutritious drink, such as that to which +the German composer Von Flotow ascribes our sturdy robustness: + + Das ist das treffliche Elixir, + Das ist das kräftige Porterbier. + +Obsopæus says of the ancient Saxons: + + Coctam Cererem potant _crassosque liquores_. + +And an old rhyme, still quoted with gusto, goes to this effect: + + Ein echter Sachse wird, wie alle Völker sagen, + Nie schmal in Schultern sein, noch schlaffe Lenden tragen. + Fragt Einer, welches denn die Ursach' sei: + Er isset Speck und Wurst, und trinket _Mumm_ dabei. + +"Mumm" is our own good old "mum," about the meaning of which in an Act of +Parliament there was recently some controversy, when even Mr. Gladstone +did not quite know how to explain it. It is the good, thick, stout, +nourishing beer--_nil spissius illo_--which makes blood and flesh, and +gives strength--"vires præstat et augmentat carnem, generatque cruorem," +says the school of Salerno. Very presumably it is such beer as this, too, +of which the unnamed witty poet quoted in Percy's "Reliques" writes: + + nobilis ale-a + Efficit heroas dignamque heroe puellam. + +No doubt beer has had a good many nasty things said about it. The same +school of Salerno lays it down that "crassos humores nutrit cerevisia, +ventrem quoque mollit et inflat." It also affirms that ebriety resulting +from beer is more hurtful than that produced by wine. But, notwithstanding +this, it endorses the advice given by Matthew de Gradibus, which is, to +drink it in preference to wine at the beginning of, or even throughout, +meals, and above all things after any great exertion. "Cerevisia vero +utpote crassior, et ad concoctionem pertinacior, non tam avide rapitur: +quare ab ea potus in principio prandii vel coenae utilius inchoatur. +Cerevisia humores etiam orificio stomachi insidentes abluit, et sitim, quæ +ex nimia vini potatione timetur, praeterea et quamlibet aliam mendosam +coercet ac reprimit." To say nothing of the censure pronounced by Crato, +Henry of Avranches, and Wolfram von Eschenbach--that pillar of the Roman +Church, Cardinal Chigi, charitably suggests that if beer had but a little +sulphur added, it would become a right infernal drink. And Moscherosch, +joking on the admixture of pitch with beer, common in his time--possibly +copied from a similar practice applied to wine in the days of ancient +Greece--speaks of "la bière poissée qui habitue au feu de l'enfer." "Pix +intrantibus" used to be a familiar superscription placed for a joke over +tavern doors. Then, again, we have Luther barely qualifying the old German +rhyme-- + + Gott machte Gutes, Böses wir: + Er braute Wein, wir brauen Bier-- + +by laying it down that "Vinum est donatio Dei, cerevisia traditio humana." +And he went so far as to pronounce the leading brewer of his time "Pestis +Germaniae." But this same Luther was himself a zealous beer-toper. He +drank beer, it is on record, when plotting the Reformation with +Melanchthon at Torgau. He called for _Bierseidel_ when Carlstadt came to +the "Bear" at Jena to discuss with him the subject of consubstantiation. +And the two divines used their pewters very freely by way of accentuating +their theological arguments, and, towards the close of the sitting, even +in substitution of them. Luther records with satisfaction, in his "Table +Talk," that many presents reached him from France, Prussia, and Russia, of +"wormwood-beer." And at Worms, where he was pleading the cause of the +reformed faith before a hostile Diet, the one ray of comfort which +pierced through the gloom of his imprisonment was the arrival, +particularly mentioned in his letters, of a small cask of "Eimbeck" beer +from one of the friendly princes. Like our modern M.P.'s annually +exercised about the matter, the German reformer had a fervent zeal for the +"purity of beer"--so fervent, that he actually threatened adulterating +brewers with Divine wrath. He wrote these lines: + + Am jüngsten Tage wird geschaut + Was jeder für ein Bier gebraut. + +On the other hand, Cardinal Chigi's Roman anathema is more than +neutralised by any number of benedictions, expressed or implied, from holy +men of his Church. There are the regulations of St. Louis, of St. +Hildegardis, the enlisted interest of the Bishops of Cologne, Utrecht, and +Liége, the patron-saintship of St. Amandus, St. Leonard, St. Adrian, and +the Irish St. Florentius, and, moreover, the very close connection which +from time immemorial monks and religious houses have maintained with +brewing. In olden days they were the brewers _par excellence_. In Lorraine +our English Benedictines of Dieulouard, who maintained themselves in their +monastery near Pont-à-Mousson down to the time of the Revolution, long +possessed an absolute monopoly of brewing, and were famed for their +produce. And M. Reiber will have it that there are still in Germany, at +the present day, _des congrégations de moines brasseurs_. Then there is +St. Chrodegang, a near relative of Charlemagne, the great reformer of +monastic orders, who particularly directed--and the rule is still +observed--that monks should be allowed the option of either beer or wine. +And sensible monks, a communicative Carthusian confided to me the other +day, prefer good beer any day to bad wine. + +If, in face of all this, neither Romanists nor Protestants can say +anything against beer, much less are Mussulmans in a position to do so. +For Mahomet actually, though he expressly forbids wine, never says a word +in prohibition of beer--thus leaving a convenient loophole to thirsty +Mahommedans, of which French writers tell us that bibulous Algerians +eagerly avail themselves. + +From all this it will be seen that, despite teetotal disparagement, beer +comes before the world, so to speak, with very respectable credentials, +entitling it to a fairly good reception. Brillat-Savarin, it is true, +admits to its detriment that "l'eau est la seule boisson qui apaise +véritablement la soif." But "l'eau," says another French writer, M. +Reiber, "est la prose des liquides, l'alcool en est la poésie." Speaking +more particularly of beer, among alcoholic drinks, M. Dubrunfaut writes: +"La bière occupe incontestablement le premier rang parmi les boissons +hygiéniques connues." And he goes on to say that among the beer-drinking +nations one finds, as a rule, manly qualities most developed--as among the +English, the Germans, the Dutch, the Belgians, and the Northern French. +Brillat-Savarin only objects that beer makes people stout. + +Of course there is beer and beer. The wise doctors of Salerno very rightly +gave particular attention to this subject--as well they might, for beer +was adulterated in their days with no more scruple than it is in ours. The +Minnesinger Marner, in the thirteenth century, bitterly complains that +brewers make beer even without malt. There was no minnesinging to be done +on such drink. Then there was the manufacture of the aroma. Before there +were hops--and even after--people had a violent fancy for spices, the +indulgence in which was carried to such a point that the Church, meeting +in Council at Worms in 868, and at Trèves in 895, felt bound to take +notice of the matter, and in a special canon laid down the rule that beer +spiced after the manner then prevalent should be allowed, as a luxury, +only on Sundays and saints' days. What those spices were may be gathered +from the following recipe for making beer, which appears to have been +first published at Strassburg (from early days a cerevisian city) in 1512, +and which was twice re-issued, under special approbation--namely, in 1552 +and 1679. "To one pound of coloured 'sweet-root' (probably liquorice) add +seven ounces of good cinnamon, four ounces of the best ginger, one ounce +each of cloves, 'long' pepper, galanga, and nutmeg, half an ounce each of +mace and of cardamom, and two ounces of genuine Italian saffron." Whatever +might be added in the shape of malt, who would recognise in this decoction +anything remotely worthy of the name of beer? It is of such stuff that +Cardinal Chigi must have been thinking when he pronounced beer "infernal +drink." For brewing beer the school of Salerno give the following good +advice: + + Non acidum sapiat cerevisia, sit bene clara. + Ex granis sit cocta bonis satis, ac veterata. + +It must not, above all things, be sour. For acidity "ventriculo inimica +est. Acetus nervosas offendit partes." As the Germans have it--and they +ought to know-- + + Ein böses Weib und sauer Bier + Behüt' der Himmel dich dafür! + +It should be clear, because "turbida impinguat, flatus gignit, atque +brevem spiritum efficit." "Bene cocta" it should be, for "male cocta +ventris inflationes, tormina et colicos cruciatos generat"--which Latin +speaks for itself. As for good grain, the doctors appear to prefer a +mixture of barley and oats. They allow either wheat, barley, or oats. +Wheat, they say, makes the most nourishing beer, but heating and +astringent. Barley alone makes the beer cold and dry. A mixture of barley +and oats renders it less nourishing, but also lighter on the stomach, and +less confining and distending. The Germans nowadays brew beer of every +conceivable grain and no-grain, even potatoes. But according to the +material so is the product. Lastly, say the doctors, beer, like wine, +should be old, or you will feel the effects in your stomach. + +We cannot at the present period dissociate from beer the idea of hops. But +it was comparatively late in history before hops were regarded as an +indispensable ingredient. The Sclav nations are reported to have had them +early; also the Mahommedans of the East. Haroun-al-Rashid's physician +states that in his day they were given as medicine. In France, the first +record of their cultivation is of the year 768, when Pepin le Bref gave +some directions as to the hop-grounds belonging to the monastery of St. +Denis. In Germany they are known to have been successfully cultivated +about Magdeburg in 1070. We are supposed to have received them over here +in 1525. In Alsace, beer-drinking country as it is, they were not +cultivated till 1802. The soil being very suitable, they then made way +with such rapidity that they soon crowded out completely madder and woad, +which had previously been considered the most profitable crops--so +profitable, that from the _coques de pastel_ (woad), which were looked +upon as the emblem of prosperity and well-being, the Lauraguais, and +indeed the whole country round Toulouse, came to be christened _le pays de +Cocagne_. Hence our own word of "Cockaigne," about the derivation of which +so many contradictory guesses have been made. It may be interesting to +note that in Strassburg the bakers at one time used to put hops into their +yeast, and that in some foreign countries the young shoots of the hop-bine +furnish a favourite vegetable, dressed like asparagus. + +Drinking habits are of course by far the most developed in Germany, where +beer has really become the object of a cult. Blessed with a healthy +thirst, which made our own poet Owen exclaim-- + + Si latet in vino verum, ut proverbia dicunt, + Invenit verum Teuto, vel inveniet-- + +the nation has seized upon beer as a second faith, "outside which there is +no salvation." Fischart, indeed, in his verses bade people who _must_ +drink beer, and would not be satisfied with German wine, "go to +Copenhagen; there they would find beer enough." Denmark truly was of +old--we know from "Hamlet"--a grand country for drinking. But in respect +of beer, in the present day, it is not "in it" with Germany. Tacitus wrote +about German drinking. Emperor Charlemagne felt bound to pass a law +against it. The earlier Popes, before consenting to crown a German +emperor, exacted from him an affirmative reply to the standing question: +"Vis sobrietatem cum Dei auxilio custodire?" Of the old Palsgraves it +used to be said: "Potatores sub coelo non meliores;" and "bibere more +palatino" became a byword. Maximilian I. felt called upon to pass +stringent laws. In the sixteenth century Germany went by the name of "Die +grossen Trinklande." And Luther, when resting from his _seidels_ +accompanying theological disputations, expressed a fear "lest this devil +(of thirst) should go on tormenting Germany till the day of judgment." The +modern Germans have remained true to the custom of their forefathers, and +have developed it scientifically. + + Um den Gerstensaft, geliebte Seelen, + Dreht sich unser ganzer Staat herum. + +The whole commonwealth literally "hinges" upon beer. The Emperor has drunk +it as a student at Bonn, and presumably still drinks it--in moderation. +The German Chancellor, instead of the parliamentary full-dress dinners +customary among ourselves, invites the members of the Diet to +"beer-evenings." If a learned professor discover a new bacillus or +antidotal lymph; if an African traveller annex a new province; if a +statesman attain his jubilee--there is but one form of public recognition +for all varieties of merit and distinction, and that is a _biercommers_. +No doubt the great extension of university education has a great deal to +do with the spread of regulated beer-drinking. The learned classes set the +tone, and the many follow it. + + Cerevisiam bibunt homines, animalia cætera fontes. + +That has become the general motto. It sounds very filthy to hear of the +astounding quantities of liquor consumed. But, in the first place, where +much is drunk, it is only very light stuff. And, to make it less trying, +the drinkers adopt the Socratic maxim of "small cups and many," by +frothing the beer up incredibly. Altogether they follow good classical +rules, which it is curious to trace, and which make their symposia rather +interesting. Drinking is not the end, but only the natural means for +attaining hilarity. And there is a good deal of rough geniality about it. +Like the ancient Greeks, these organised drinkers fix a well-recognised +[Greek: tropos tês poseôs]. They have their absolute ruler, the +symposiarch, their accepted order of drinking, their proper scale of +fines. And also, as in Greece, only too often drinking is not a voluntary +act, but [Greek: anagkazesthai], and it is made to be [Greek: apneusti +pinein]--drinking without taking breath. There is the [Greek: propinein +philotêsias]--drinking to one another--which _must_ be answered. There are +songs and jokes--though no _tæniæ_ and, fortunately, no kisses. And the +small cups are duly followed up with the large horns, the [Greek: kerata], +and the huge vessels which the Greeks called [Greek: phreata]. Nay, these +modern classics even imitate the Greeks in respect of the [Greek: hales +kai kyminon]. For in many places the well-salted and carawayed [Greek: +epipasta] forms a standing accompaniment to the liquor. And next day, if +they are a trifle "foxed," they copy the Greeks in [Greek: kraipalên +kraipalê exelaunein], or, as Sir John Linger calls it in better +"understanded" language, they take "a hair of the same dog," with a +pickled herring covered with raw onions for a companion, which is supposed +to set all things right. There are beer-courts to adjudge upon disputes, +there are indeterminate beer-minutes to settle the time--everything is +"beer." In all this joking there is no harm. As little harm is _meant_ to +be in the _missoe cerevisiales_ which tradition has handed down from the +time when monks were both the greatest brewers and also the greatest +drinkers, and, probably, in their refectories and misericords made as much +fun of the service over their cups as do now--or did until lately--German +students. There is the genuine chanting of versicles and responses, but +the words have reference to beer. This practice, I am glad to say, is now +very much on the decline. + +All this is scarcely surprising. We all knew it of the Germans long ago. +But it is a little strange to find France once more--few people know about +the first time--taking her place among beer-drinking countries and placing +the _honestas chopinandi_ among the precepts of the modern decalogue. The +French are good enough to explain that they do this, not for their own +gratification, but as a public service, as "saviours of society," to +"rendre les moeurs gambrinales plus aimables." That may be. But the fact +remains, that the annual consumption of beer per head of the population in +France has now risen to 21 litres (about 14 quarts), which on the top of +119 litres of wine (however light), 20 litres of cider, and 4 litres of +spirits, is a respectable allowance enough. For Germany the figures are +said to be--93 litres of beer, 6 of wine, and 10 of spirits--and such +spirits! France brews every year more than eight millions of hectolitres +of beer, and consumes considerably more. To do this, of course it must +import from abroad. And very rightly too, I should say. For though French +beer may no longer deserve the description given of it by the Emperor +Julian, who condemned it as "smelling strongly of the goat," there is +still little enough that is really good. And it is drunk out of such tiny +thimbles! I suspect that there is a dodge in this. The "bocks" have grown +smaller and smaller, till in some places they are mere tea-cups. But then +out come the _restaurateurs_ with their old disused "bocks," now +re-christened _bocks sérieux_, and charge double price. That promises to +make France a real brewers' paradise. But, large glasses or small, there +is something about the beer which you must first get used to. Accordingly, +many of those gorgeous _brasseries_, of genuinely German type, which seem +so out of place in the Paris boulevards, are supplied, not from +Tantonville or Xertigny, but from Munich or Vienna, or else from +Strassburg. For, of course, the attachment which Frenchmen feel for their +lost provinces had a great deal to do with their new departure in the way +of a liking for beer. France, as it happens, owes some reparation to +Strassburg, and more particularly to its brewers. For at various times it +has treated the latter most unkindly. In the first place, the Second +Empire unmercifully hastened on the hour of "Bruce," making it eleven +"sharp," instead of the quarter past which had been previously allowed. +This threatens never to be forgotten or forgiven. In the second place, the +First Republic, though it honoured hops by assigning to them, in the place +of the calendar saint, St. Omer, the patronship of the 9th of September, +inflicted a very grievous injury when, in the _An II._ of its era, its +_tribunal révolutionnaire_ imposed a fine of 255,000 livres upon the +brewing trade, as is stated in the official _Livre Bleu_, "pour les abus +qu'ils ont pu se permettre sur leur comestibilité." The mulct is explained +in this wise:--"Considérant que la soif de l'or a constamment guidé les +brasseurs, il les condamne à deux cents cinquante-cinq mille livres +d'amende, qu'ils doivent payer dans trois jours, sous peine d'être +déclarés rebelles à la loi et de voir leurs biens confisqués." There is no +talk of "compensation," as among ourselves. To be sure, the bakers, with +nothing against them--except it be on the score of weight--fared worse. +For they were declared _hostes generis humani_, and fined 300,000 livres. +The brewers really paid only 188,000 livres. But that was considered heavy +enough. In spite of this imposition, the brewing trade in Strassburg has +made tremendous strides, and continues flourishing. And very much more +beer is now consumed in the city than wine. For 1878 the figures were: +121,345 hectolitres of beer and 36,583 of wine. Paris in 1881 consumed +300,000 hectolitres of beer; in 1853 only 7,000 and in 1864 still only +40,000 hectolitres. (All this beer-drinking, it will be seen, dates from +1870.) In Paris, in spite of protection, the brewing interest appears to +find foreign competition rather formidable. At the time of the first +revolution, a French general (Santerre), with the assistance of government +subsidies, tried very hard to oust us from the market by brewing "ale" and +"porter." This earned the veteran the nickname of "Le Général Mousseux." +But the speculation did not pay, and had to be abandoned. Having become so +popular, beer has, of course, found many fervid apologists in France. "La +bière fait en ce moment le tour du monde. Mieux que tous les raisonnements +et quoi qu'en disent les esprits chagrins, sa vogue prouve que la boisson +en houblon est utile, que l'humanité l'apprécie et en a besoin." So says +M. Reiber. "La bonne bière n'est pas une boisson malsaine; elle est +tonique et nourrissante." So says Dr. Tourdes. + +But really this is nothing new. Old inscriptions, dating from the +Gallo-Roman era, show that Pliny was correct in setting down, at his +period, the Gauls as a largely beer-drinking race. They had earthenware +beer-pots, some of which have been exhumed, bearing the inscription, +"Cerevisariis felicitas!" An old Gallo-Roman flagon is preserved in Paris, +on which is engraved--"Hospita reple lagenam cervisia!" The oldest +beer-song extant is Old-French, dating from the thirteenth century. It is +as follows: + + LETABUNDUS + Or hi purra; + La _cerveyse_ nos chauntera + Alleluia! + Qui que aukes en beyt + Si tel seyt comme estre doit + Res miranda. + +The prohibition which Charlemagne issued against keeping St. Stephen's Day +too zealously by the consumption of beer and wine, applied to France no +less than to Germany. The French were, in truth, great respecters of +saints' days in a bibulous way. St. Martin's Day was with them a favourite +occasion for drinking. Hence _martiner_ still currently signifies drinking +more than one ought. Another suggestive popular term is "Boire comme un +Templier." France then has really only returned to her _premier amour_. +But in doing so she has set upon it a seal of domination, which is +significant, as meaning that it is not likely to be readily surrendered. + +No doubt beer, having held its own so long, though much assailed, will +still continue to maintain its position. There is too much of human nature +in man to admit of its being effectually proscribed. "Abusus non tollit +usum." The same school of Salerno which praises beer as a wholesome drink +adds this wise proviso:--"Hic unicum de cervisiæ usu præceptum traditur: +nempe ut modice sumatur, neque ea stomachus prægravetur vel ebrietas +concilietur." Sebastian Brant writes in old German: + + Eyn Narr muosz vil gesoffen han, + Eyn Wyser maesslich drincken kann. + +There is great virtue in the _modice sumatur_. The wine-trade has passed +through a similar change. Though four-bottle men have died out, the +wine-trade is doing better than it did in olden days. So it will probably +be with beer. However temperance advocates may regret it, it is not to be +got rid of by railing. In truth it is now indeed making _le tour du +monde_. And, unless mankind changes its character altogether, it will +probably go on drinking--more or less _modice_--to the end of the chapter, +a beverage which stands commended by so exemplary a Father of the Church +as the whilom Bishop of Bath and Wells, Polydore Virgil, who pronounces it + + Potus tum salubris tum jucundus. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Blackwood's Magazine, August, 1894. + +[2] The church encloses, in addition to one of the "true" pebbles with +which was stoned, says M. Bellot-Herment, the chronicler of Bar, "_St +Etienne, curé de Gamaliel, bourg du diocèse de Jerusalem_," that boldly +original sculpture from the chisel of the great Lorrain artist, Ligier +Richier, whom we so undeservedly ignore, the famous "_Squelette_"--the +mere name of which frightened Dibdin away, as he himself relates. Durival +terms this sculpture "_une affreuse beauté_"--but "_beauté_" it +undoubtedly is. + +[3] Patriotic Frenchmen derive this name from the Latin _fascinatio_. But +quite evidently it is a gallicised form of the German _fastnacht_, which +in Alsace is pronounced _fàsenacht_, or very nearly _fàsenocht_; in a +French mouth it would naturally become _faschinottes_. + +[4] Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1891. + +[5] National Review, February, 1892. + +[6] Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1893. + +[7] See the _Memoirs of the Family of Taaffe_, p. 13. + +[8] Westminster Review, May, 1892. + +[9] National Review, May, 1892. + +[10] Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1894. + +[11] The "English" student who took the second prize on the occasion must, +I think, have been Edmund Arnold. At any rate, I can discover no other +English name on the register. English students were still few in those +days. + +[12] Gentleman's Magazine, March, 1891. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. + +Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}. + +The original text contains letters with diacritical marks that are not +represented in this text version. + +The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these +letters have been replaced with transliterations. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Odd Bits of History, by Henry W. 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Wolff—A Project Gutenberg eBook + </title> + + <style type="text/css"> + + p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;} + + body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center; clear: both;} + + hr {width: 33%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;} + + table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} + + .huge {font-size: 150%} + .large {font-size: 125%} + + .poem {margin-left: 15%;} + .note {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%;} + .title {text-align: center; font-size: 150%;} + + .right {text-align: right;} + .center {text-align: center;} + + .smcaplc {text-transform: lowercase; font-variant: small-caps;} + + a:link {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:#6633cc; text-decoration:none} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Odd Bits of History, by Henry W. Wolff + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: Odd Bits of History + Being Short Chapters Intended to Fill Some Blanks + +Author: Henry W. Wolff + +Release Date: May 14, 2012 [EBook #39696] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ODD BITS OF HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<h1>ODD BITS OF HISTORY.</h1> + +<p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> + +<p class="center"><span class="huge">ODD BITS OF HISTORY</span><br /> +<small>BEING</small><br /> +<span class="large"><i>SHORT CHAPTERS INTENDED TO FILL SOME BLANKS</i></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center"><small>BY</small><br /> +<span class="large">HENRY W. WOLFF</span></p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center">LONDON<br /> +LONGMANS, GREEN & Co.<br /> +<span class="smcaplc">AND</span> NEW-YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET<br /> +1894.</p> +<p class="center"><i>(All rights reserved.)</i></p> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>The chapters composing this book appeared originally in the shape of +review articles. I owe acknowledgments to the Editors of <i>Blackwood's +Magazine</i>, the <i>National Review</i> and the <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i> for the +permission kindly accorded me to republish them.</p> + +<p>To my regret I find, on receiving the clean sheets, that pressure of time +and a rather troublesome nervous affection of one eye have led me to +overlook a few printer's errors, such as: p. 70, <i>occassion</i> for +<i>occasion</i>; p. 137, <i>Fuensaldana</i> for <i>Fuensaldaña</i>; p. 253, <i>Nicephoras +Phorcas</i> for <i>Nicephorus Phocas</i>; p. 267, <i>Polydore Virgil</i> for <i>Polydore +Vergil</i>. The misprints will in every instance, I believe, explain +themselves.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 4em;">H. W. W.</span></p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p class="title">CONTENTS.</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table"> +<tr><td><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td> </td><td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">I.</td> + <td>THE PRETENDER AT BAR-LE-DUC</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">II.</td> + <td>RICHARD DE LA POLE, "WHITE ROSE"</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">III.</td> + <td>THE EARLY ANCESTORS OF OUR QUEEN</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IV.</td> + <td>ABOUT A PORTRAIT AT WINDSOR</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">V.</td> + <td>THE REMNANT OF A GREAT RACE</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_145">145</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VI.</td> + <td>VOLTAIRE AND KING STANISLAS</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VII.</td> + <td>THE PRINCE CONSORT'S UNIVERSITY DAYS</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_219">219</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VIII.</td> + <td>SOMETHING ABOUT BEER</td> + <td align="right"><a href="#Page_148">248</a></td></tr></table> + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2>I.—THE PRETENDER AT BAR-LE-DUC.<a name='fna_1' id='fna_1' href='#f_1'><small>[1]</small></a></h2> + + +<p>"The Pretender Charles Edward resided here three years in a house which is +still pointed out." So you may read in "Murray," under the head of +"Bar-le-Duc." The information, which is apt to suggest inquiry to those +who, like myself, are fond of picking up a little bit of neglected history +on their travels, is, as it happens, not altogether accurate. For, in the +first place, the "Pretender" who "resided" at Bar was not "Charles Edward" +at all—<i>could</i> not have been "Charles Edward," who was not born till five +years after the Pretender who <i>did</i> reside there had left. In the second, +so little is "the house still pointed out" that, on my first visit to Bar, +in August, 1890, I could actually not find a soul to give me even the +vaguest information as to its whereabouts. Even mine hostess of the +"Cygne," in whose stables, I afterwards discovered,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> some of the +Pretender's horses had been put up, had never heard of our political +exile. "<i>Cela doit être dans la Haute Ville</i>"—"<i>Cela doit être dans la +Basse Ville</i>"—"<i>Eh bien, moi je n'en sais rien</i>." Why should they know +about the Pretender? There were no thanks, surely, due to him. While in +the town, he had given himself intolerable airs, had put the town to no +end of expense and all manner of trouble, and in the end had slunk away +without so much as a word of thanks or farewell, leaving a heavy score of +debts to be paid—and, up in a cottage perched on the very brow of the +picturesque hill—for which some one else had to pay the rent—one pretty +little Barisienne disconsolate, betrayed, disgraced. There was, in fact, +but one man belonging to the town who had taken the trouble to trace the +house from the description given in the local archives—a description, +indeed, exact enough—M. Vladimir Konarski, and he was away on his +holiday. There was nothing, then, for me to do, but to go home with an +empty note-book, <i>quoad</i> Bar, and return in 1891 to resume my inquiry.</p> + +<p>Even to us Englishmen the first Pretender is not a particularly attractive +personage. But he is a historical character. And about his doings at Bar +thus far very little has been made known. With the help of M. Konarski's +notes, of the local archives, freely placed at my disposal by the kindness +of M. A. Jacob, of the manuscripts in the <i>Archives Nationales</i>, in the +Archives of Nancy and in the Foreign Office at Paris, of the Stuart MSS. +in London, and of other neglected sources of information, as well as some +rather minute local research, I have managed to gather together +sufficient<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> historical crumbs to make up a fairly substantial loaf—all +the information on the subject, I suppose, that is to be got. And, at any +rate, as a secondary side-chapter to our national history at an important +epoch, perhaps the account which within the limits of a magazine article I +shall be able to give, may prove of passing interest to more besides those +staunch surviving Jacobites who still from time to time "play at treason" +in out-of-the-way places.</p> + +<p>What sent the Pretender to Bar every schoolboy knows. We had fought with +France and were, in 1713, about to conclude peace. Our court had, as a +Stuart MS. in Paris puts it, showed itself extremely "<i>chatouilleuse et +susceptible</i>" with respect to the countenance given at Versailles to +James, and to his residence in France—where he seemed to us perpetually +on the spring for mischief. Louis XIV., we were aware, had expressed his +desire to render to the Pretender's family "<i>de plus grands et plus +heureux services</i>" than he had yet been able to give. And so, very +naturally, before engaging to suspend hostilities, we insisted that James +should be turned out of France. Once we were about it, we might as well +have asked a little more, and pressed for his removal to a farther +distance from our shores. Considering all the commotion which afterwards +arose upon this point, how Queen Anne was periodically pestered with +addresses calling upon her to demand his removal, one might have thought +that so much forethought might have been exercised. However, the idea +seems never to have suggested itself to our wise statesmen at the proper +time. On the contrary, the one thing which in 1712 and 1713 they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> appeared +eager for was, that James should <i>not</i> be allowed to settle in +"papistical" Italy—the very country into which afterwards, just <i>because</i> +it was papistical, so M. de Robethon's official letters admit in the +plainest terms, the Court of Hanover was extremely anxious to see its +enemy decoyed. If he would but go to Rome, that would be best of all. For +it would do for him entirely at home, M. de Robethon thinks. However, in +1713 we took a different view, and, as Lorraine lay particularly handy and +convenient, from the French point of view—being near, and though +nominally an independent duchy, entirely under French influence—to +Lorraine James was sent. There was some talk of his going to Nancy. He +himself did not at first fancy Bar-le-Duc. He feared that he might find it +slow. The French king believed that in a large town like Nancy, which had +still some poor remnants of its once famous fortifications left, he would +be safer. And when Duke Leopold had gone to all the trouble of putting the +half-dilapidated château of Bar into habitable order, taking to it the +pick of his own furniture from the palace at Nancy, and embarking in +additional large purchases—in order to make James thoroughly comfortable, +as Louis had told him that he must—he not unnaturally became, as the +French envoy M. d'Audriffet reports, "<i>fort agité</i>," on being unexpectedly +advised that after all the Chevalier was to go elsewhere. "Very well," +said he in high dudgeon, "I will take back all my furniture. But I wash my +hands of the whole business. At Bar I could have answered for the +Chevalier's safety within reasonable limits. At Nancy the king will have +to see to it himself. That is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> 'neutral' town, and every dangerous +character from any part of Europe—cut-throat, assassin, Hanoverian +emissary—has access to it. You will have to watch every stranger, to keep +the exile perpetually under lock and key, to give him a large escort every +time he leaves the town. To mark my refusal of all responsibility, I shall +at once withdraw my little garrison of a company of guards from the +place"—a brilliant little troop, decked out gaily in scarlet-and-silver. +James, who was at the time at Châlons, awaiting the king's +pleasure—waiting also for a passport and safe conduct (a most important +requisite in those days)—and waiting, not least, for money, of which he +was chronically, and at that moment most acutely, in want—his mother says +that he had none at all—did not relish the idea of so much restraint and +danger. So he begged Louis to change his mind back again, and to allow him +after all to go to Bar. And Louis, having put poor Leopold to more +trouble—for he had at once set eighty men at work at Nancy, turning his +palace, "<i>pillé, dégradé, négligé</i>" that it was, to rights—coolly has +Leopold informed that his first choice is again to hold good, with not a +word of regret added to sweeten the pill, except it be, that all the +trouble incurred "<i>sera bientost reparé</i>." Later, James found the air at +Bar "<i>trop vif</i>" and accordingly thought of moving to Saint Mihiel. After +that, his courtiers hoped that he would prevail upon the Duke to lend him +his rather magnificent palace of Einville, near Lunéville. And in one of +the despatches it is shown that their suspicion that Lord Middleton was +opposing this proposal was one of the reasons why they so very much +disliked him. But,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> after all, with the interruptions caused by very +frequent, and often prolonged, visits to Lunéville, to Commercy, and to +Nancy—as well as to Plombières, and one or two sly expeditions to Paris +and St Germains—in the interesting and picturesque little capital of the +Barrois, washed by the foaming Ornain, did the Chevalier remain, hatching +schemes, writing despatches to the Pope, <i>quâ</i> king, moreover making love +to his nameless fair one, and beguiling the time with the games of the +period, until the <i>Fata Morgana</i> of rather hoped for than anticipated +success lured him on that unhappy expedition into Scotland.</p> + +<p>James tries to make a serious hardship of his "exile" at Bar. But he +might, without much trouble, have fixed upon a very much worse spot. Bar +was not in his day the important town that it had been. The resident +dukes, with their courts and knighthood, their tourneys and banquets, and +all the pageantry of the days of early chivalry, had passed away. The +famous University of de Tholozan, highly praised by Jodocus Sincerus, had +likewise disappeared. Nor was the town anything like as accessible as it +is now. There was no railway leading to it, no Rhine-Marne +Canal—beautifying the scene wherever it passes—to carry life and +business into the place. The roads were simply execrable. The surrounding +woods swarmed with brigands, outlaws, and other bad characters, whom +special <i>chasse-coquins</i> were retained to keep in awe. Whenever "His +Majesty" moved from one place to another, the forest-roads had to be +literally lined with troops to ensure his safety. But all this was no +drawback peculiar to Bar. The entire duchy of Lorraine was suffering from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> +the same trouble—the after-effect of French ravages and French +occupation. Leave that out of account, and Bar must have been attractive +enough. Its situation is remarkably picturesque. The castle-hill rises up +steeply, all but isolated from the surrounding heights, above the smiling +valley of the Ornain, with delightfully green and tempting side-valleys +curling around it, like natural fosses, on either side. The view of the +long, bright green stretch of meadows bordering the river; the laughing +gardens, full of flowers and shrubs; the luxuriant fruit-trees and hedges; +the half-archaic-looking streets, venerable with their churches and +monasteries, and the eleven old turreted gates, as they were then; the +soft, rounded <i>côtes</i>, covered with clustering vines, but looking at a +distance as if carpeted with velvety lawn; the picturesque range of hills +on the opposite bank, contoured into a telling sky-line; the dark forests +of richly varied foliage, and the charming "hangers" which drop down +gracefully here and there, with pleasingly effective irregularity, into +the plain; the pretty little cottage plots, bright with flowers, shady +with overhanging trees, which then as now lined that useful <i>Canal +Urbain</i>; and the peculiarly engaging perspective of the landscape +spreading out right and left—all this combines to form a truly +fascinating picture. The view of the castle-hill from below is no less +pleasing. In James's day the hill was still crowned with the old historic +castle, built in the tenth century, but embodying in its masonry the +remains of the much more ancient structure in which Childéric I. had, like +the Stuart prince, found a welcome refuge—the castle in which Francis of +Guise was born, who drove us out of Calais—the castle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> in which Mary +Queen of Scots, bright with youthful beauty, and radiant with happiness, +delighted with her cheering presence the gay Court of her cousin and +playmate, Charles III., fresh to his ducal coronet, as she was to the +second crown which decked her head—for she was newly married to Francis +II., newly crowned Queen of France at Rheims. The daughter of Marie de +Lorraine, brought up in Lorrain Condé, she reckoned herself a Lorraine +princess, and as a Lorraine princess the Lorrains have ever regarded, and +idolised, her. To the memory of this unhappy queen, round which time had +gathered a bright halo of romance, not least was due that hearty welcome +which the Lorrains readily extended to her exiled kinsman. Most +picturesque must the castle have been in olden days, when those seventeen +medieval towers (removed by order of Louis XIV. in 1670) still stood round +about it like sturdy sentries, each laden with historic memories. Even now +the view of the hill is pleasing enough—with its winding roads, its steep +steps, its antique clock-tower, its terraced gardens and rambling lanes, +with that rather imposing convent-school raising its walls perpendicularly +many storeys high, the quaint church of St Peter<a name='fna_2' id='fna_2' href='#f_2'><small>[2]</small></a> topping the southern +summit with its tower flattened to resist the wind, with those +delightfully green and shady Pâquis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> just beyond, densely wooded with +trees, including the two largest elms in France—the Pâquis which, with +their <i>paslemaile</i>, formed the favourite resort of James while at Bar, and +in the shady seclusion of which he spun his web of deceiving flattery +round the guileless heart of the girl whom he betrayed. Only to please +him, we read in the archives, it was that the town council put up benches +in that shade, which cost the town nine livres.</p> + +<p>At James's time Bar was still a rather considerable provincial capital, +the <i>chef-lieu</i> of the largest <i>bailliage</i> in Lorraine. And in that little +"West End" of the <i>Haute Ville</i>, where a cluster of Louis-Quatorze houses +still stand in decayed grandeur, to recall past fashionableness, the +nobility of the little Barrois, locally always a powerful and influential +body—the Bassompierres, the Haraucourts, the Lenoncourts, the +Stainvilles, the Romécourts—had their town houses, and there also dwelt +the pick of the bureaucracy, all ready to pay their court to the Stuart +"king," to whom even the French envoy reckoned it "an honour" to be +introduced. The town had its own municipal government—at one time with +its own <i>clergé</i>, <i>noblesse</i>, and <i>tiers état</i>; in James's day still with +its <i>syndic</i>, to represent the Crown, its elected <i>mayeur</i>, <i>Maître des +Comptes</i>, so many <i>eschargeots</i>, <i>esvardeurs</i>, <i>gouverneurs de +carrefours</i>, and so on. It had a wall all round with no fewer than eleven +gates. When James was there, Bar was famed throughout France and Lorraine +for its peculiarly "elegant" <i>poignées d'épée</i> (sword-hilts) and other +cutlery. Corneille tells us that the whole street of Entre Deux Ponts was +full of cutlers' shops, and no visitor ever came to the place but he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> must +carry off at least one sword-hilt as a keepsake. The town already +manufactured its famous <i>dragées</i> and <i>confitures</i>, and pressed that same +sour wine which "Murray" will have it—on what ground I know +not—"resembles champagne," and which then was appreciated as a delicacy. +The sanitary arrangements were not perfect. The <i>Canal Urbain</i> +occasionally overflowed its banks and swamped the entire Rue des Tanneurs, +in which the Pretender's house was situated. And, together with the rest +of Bar and Lorraine, the town was still a little bit destitute after the +havoc wrought by French and Swedes, Croats and Germans, <i>Cravates</i> (local +brigands) and Champenois peasants, and all that "omnium bipedum +sceleratissima colluvies," which had again and again overrun the duchy, +robbing, burning, pillaging, violating, desecrating, torturing, exacting, +and sucking the country dry to the very bone. Of all the world "only +Jerusalem" had experienced worse horrors, so a pious Lorrain chronicler +affirms. Oh, how the Lorrains of that day—and long after—hated and +detested the French! When in November, 1714, those habitual invaders at +length evacuated Nancy, the mob dressed up a straw figure in a French +uniform, and led it forth amid jeers and execrations to an <i>auto-da-fé</i>. +Even after annexation, a Nancy housewife declared herself most grossly +"insulted" by a French officer, who simply explained the benefits which he +thought that annexation must bring with it, and in anger she threw the +<i>friture</i>, just frizzling in her pan, straight in his face.</p> + +<p>Lorraine had been sadly afflicted indeed with long years of warfare. But +in 1713 things were beginning to mend. Leopold, restored by the Treaty of +Ryswick to his duchy—in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> which, as duke, his father had never set +foot—had been on the throne getting on for sixteen years. And what with +the excellent counsels of that best of Chancellors, Irish Earl +Carlingford, and his own intuitive judgment and enlightened and paternal +despotism, Lorraine was becoming populous and prosperous, happy and +contented, once more. Leopold earned himself a name for a shrewd and +prudent ruler. His brother-in-law, Philip of Orleans (the Regent), said of +him, that of all rulers of Europe he did not know one who was his superior +"<i>en expérience, en sagesse, et en politique</i>." And Voltaire has +immortalised his virtues by saying: "<i>Il est à souhaiter que la dernière +postérité apprenne qu'un des plus petits souverains de l'Europe a été +celui qui fit le plus de bien à son peuple</i>." In fact, he was the very +ruler whom Lorraine at that juncture wanted. Autocratic he was, and vain, +and self-important, notwithstanding the homely <i>bourgeoisie</i> of his +manner. But he knew exactly where the shoe pinched, and how to devise a +remedy. He it was who first conceived the idea, which has helped to make +France prosperous, of a wide network of canals. He it was, who, in 1724, +set Europe an example, which at the time made him famous, of covering his +country with a network of model roads. And though he again and again +proposed, for the benefit of his own family, to "swap" poor little +Lorraine—for the Milanais, for a bit of the Low Countries, or for other +valuable possessions—while he was duke, he managed to make himself +popular, and he was resolved to do his duty. "<i>Je quitterais demain ma +souveraineté si je ne pouvais faire du bien</i>," so he said. Under his +father, that <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>brilliant general, Charles V., he had given proof of his +pluck and prowess at Temeswar, of his military ability before Ebersburg. +But in Lorraine, he knew, the one thing needful was peace. And with a +dogged determination which was bound to overcome all difficulties, though +the stars in their courses seemed to be fighting against him, that peace +he managed to maintain, in the midst of a raging sea of war all round, +which had drawn all neighbouring countries into its whirl. He did it—it +is worth recording, because it materially affected James's position at his +Court—by as adroit balancing between the two great belligerent Powers of +the Continent as ever diplomatist managed to achieve. Born and bred in +Austria, allied to the Imperial family by the closest ties of blood—his +mother was an archduchess—trained in Austrian etiquette, an officer in +the Austrian army, beholden to Austria for many past favours—and keenly +alive to the fact that for any favours which might yet be to come he must +look exclusively to the Court of Vienna—in his leanings and +prepossessions he was entirely Austrian. But under his father and +great-uncle history had taught his country the severe lesson, that without +observing the best, though they be the most obsequious, relations towards +France, at whose mercy the country lay, no Lorraine was possible. +Accordingly, almost Leopold's very first act as Duke was to send M. de +Couvange to Paris, to solicit on his behalf the hand of "Mademoiselle," +the Princess of Orleans. Her hand was gladly accorded. There was a +tradition—with a very obvious object—at Paris in favour of Lorrain +marriages. This was the thirty-third, and there remained a thirty-fourth +to conclude—the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> ill-starred marriage of Marie Antoinette. King James II. +and his Queen attended the wedding at Fontainebleau, and Elizabeth +Charlotte became one of the best of wives, and best and most popular of +Lorraine duchesses, bearing her husband no less than fourteen children. +Balancing between Austria and France, maintaining his private relations +with the one, giving way in everything to the other, was Leopold's prudent +maxim throughout his reign. So long as he adhered to that he felt himself +safe. Whenever he departed from it, he found himself getting into +mischief.</p> + +<p>Leopold has been much abused by our writers and politicians, as if he had +been a deliberate anti-English plotter and Jacobite accomplice. It is but +fair to him to explain why he afforded our Pretender such liberal +hospitality. The real fact is, that he could not help himself. He was +bound to. France demanded it, and he <i>could not</i> refuse—nor yet refuse to +make his hospitality generous and lavish. There was the additional +attraction, indeed, of a show of importance, of a little implication in +diplomatic negotiations and playing a part in European high politics, +which to Leopold must have been strongly seductive. A good deal is also +said about religious motives, the suggestion of which must have helped +Leopold equally with the Curia and the Imperial Court, with both of whom +he was anxious to stand well. The Pope—it is true, under pressure from +James—subsequently thanked Leopold in a special brief, "<i>ample et bien +exprimé</i>," for the proof of attachment which he had rendered to the Church +by his reception of the English Pretender, the emblem to all Europe of the +Church of Rome under persecution. Leopold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> was an exceptionally devout +Roman Catholic. He heard mass religiously every day, spent an hour in +prayer after dinner, and "adored the Sacrament" every evening. He had +revived Charles III.'s stringent provisions against Protestants, +interdicting all public worship and, in theory at any rate, declaring +Protestantism a crime deserving of hanging. In his excessive zeal he would +not even allow the Cistercian monks of Beaupré to retain in their service +a Protestant shepherd, though they pleaded hard that he was the best +shepherd whom they had ever had. So zealous a believer was of course a man +after the very heart of the widow and son of that "<i>fort bon homme</i>," as +Archbishop Le Tellier scoffingly termed James II., who had "sacrificed +three kingdoms for a mass." To himself, on the other hand, it seemed +something of a sacred act to open his house to the "Woman persecuted by +the dragon." However, all this was but as dust in the balance by the side +of the compelling necessity of French dictation, doubly compelling at that +particular period. For Leopold had of late been playing his own little +game. Things had gone against France in the field, and he had put his +money on the other horse. He was always after a fashion a gambling and +speculative ruler, willing to stake almost his very existence on the +<i>roulette</i> of high politics. At that moment he was flattering himself with +hopes that the Congress of Utrecht would do something for him. Both +Austria and England had privately promised—at least some of their +statesmen had—that he was to have a seat at the Congress table. That +would add immensely to his dignity and prestige. Then he was to have a +slice of the Low Countries.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> To ensure this result, he was "casting his +bread upon the waters" with a vengeance—spending money wholesale, bribing +English, and Dutch, and Austrian statesmen with the most profuse +generosity—more particularly Marlborough, in whom he appears to have +retained a belief throughout, who most faithlessly "sold" him, and who +cost him a fortune. At the very time here spoken of our great general had +been favoured with a fresh mark of favour from Leopold—a magnificent +<i>carosse</i>, horsed with six splendid dapple-greys (Leopold was a great +horse-fancier), hung with most costly trappings. All this—which proved in +the event to have been entirely thrown away—very naturally gave umbrage +to France. And Louis XIV. had not missed his opportunity of letting +Leopold know that a score was being marked up against him at Versailles. +France had never stood on much ceremony with Lorraine, from Henry II. +downward. Louis XIV., more particularly, had done his best to equal his +grandfather's notorious and most capricious hostility. In 1702, in the +teeth of international law and of Leopold's protests, as well as Elizabeth +Charlotte's prayers, he had marched his troops into Lorraine. They were +still there, indeed, in larger numbers than before. When 1709 brought its +"<i>grand hiver</i>"—still remembered as a time of grievous tribulation—when +the crops froze in the fields, the vines in the vineyards, the children in +the nursery, the sacramental wine in the chalice, the water by the fire, +when Dearth and Famine once more laid their grim hand upon all +Lorraine—Louis XIV. had given Leopold a little additional cut with his +tyrant's whip, seizing some of the provisions providently laid up for the +relief of his subjects, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> appropriating them to the use of his own +armies, which moreover, he reinforced by a fresh contingent of 20,000 men, +sent with orders to live "<i>à discrétion</i>." Louis was quite ready to do +something of the same sort again. Therefore, when Louis said: Receive +James, Leopold had no choice but to receive him. His letters and +despatches make this perfectly clear. There is a good deal of talk about +the Pretender's "estimable qualities," how the Duke and Duchess admire +him, how happy they are that he has not gone to Aix-la-Chapelle. And no +doubt the two managed to be for a time excellent friends. But every now +and then, through all this polite buncombe, out comes the frank admission +that all is done "to please the king." And we know how promptly and +unhesitatingly Leopold's hospitality was withdrawn, once French pressure +ceased, in 1716. To ourselves, by receiving an exiled Pretender into his +neutral realm, as we have received many such, Leopold never dreamt that he +was giving cause for legitimate umbrage. No one could be more surprised +than he seems to have been when our Parliament took up the matter as a +grievance.</p> + +<p>And, to be fair, he never appears to have afforded to James the slightest +encouragement for a forcible assertion of his claims. His counsel was all +the other way. It was the French, it was the Pretender's own followers at +home, it was Roman Cardinal Gualterio, who countenanced, and occasionally +urged, warlike measures. Cardinal Gualterio, more in particular, prodded +the Catholic prince very vigorously, in the interest of his Church, +arguing that "<i>il falloit hazarder quelque chose et meme affronter le +sort, ce qui ne se fait pas<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> sans risque</i>." Leopold, on the other hand, +was all dissuasion. He wanted James to keep <i>near</i> England, in order to be +handy in the event of his being recalled—which he seems to have thought a +likely contingency. When James began to talk of armaments and invasions, +Leopold dwelt upon the difficulties, the all-but-hopelessness of such a +move. When, in June, 1714, shortly before Queen Anne's death, James wrote +from Plombières, that he <i>must</i> go into England, since he learnt that his +rival, the Electoral Prince of Hanover, had gone there, Leopold, who was +admirably informed from Hanover, through his brother, the +Elector-Archbishop of Trèves, sent a message back post-haste with the +trustworthy tidings that George was neither gone nor going. The reasons +which led George's father to forbid his visit read a little strange at the +present day. In the first place, there was that Hanoverian economy—which, +it is true, was ostensibly disclaimed. In the second, the Prince was not +to be received in England as heir-presumptive—so that he would not really +better his chances by going. Moreover, the Elector, "<i>connoissant l'humeur +brusque et fort emportée de son fils, apprehendoit beaucoup qu'il ne se +rendit odieux aux anglais</i>." Lastly, and mainly, he was afraid of dropping +between two stools, if he were to stake his son's chances too decidedly on +the English succession. It was quite on the cards, he thought, that "<i>par +un effet des resolutions que l'inconstance de la nation y a rendues si +ordinaire</i>," the British nation would <i>chasser</i> its next sovereign as it +had <i>chassé</i> its last-but-one. And then, where would his son be? For if +his son went to England, it was much to be feared that his brother, who +had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> been not quite rightfully excluded from the succession, might make +good his claim to Hanover. And there would George be, out in the cold! So +his father was resolved to play a waiting game.</p> + +<p>The first difficulty which James found himself confronted with, and which +Leopold had to overcome for him—for French good offices were obviously +out of the question—was the procuring of a passport. Such credential was +at the time indispensable, for Europe was swarming with bad characters. +Besides, there was nominally war still; and public roads and even walled +towns were altogether insecure. In the Foreign Office papers we come +across correspondence relating to the robbing of the public coach running +between Strassburg and Paris, at Benameny, in Lorrain territory, by +Palatine soldiers, who had come over from Caub. And even in carefully +locked and watched Bar-le-Duc, Leopold advises King Louis that, with "a +fourth company of his regiment of guards" added to the local force, +besides twenty-five <i>chevaux-legers</i> and twenty-five <i>gardes-du-corps</i> to +act as escort, he can answer for the Pretender's safety only against +attacking parties of not more than fifty or a hundred at the outside, +which, he says, ought to be borne in mind, "<i>si armées se mettoient en +campagne</i>." Queen Mary only expresses what everyone felt when she says +that it is to be apprehended "<i>que quelque méchant en se servissent de +l'occasion pour faire un méchant coup</i>." She accordingly begs the +"<i>commnoté</i>" of Chaillot to pray for "the king's" safety.</p> + +<p>In 1714 the Emperor, who was the principal sovereign to be petitioned, +would not make out a passport for James, to enable him to move into +Germany—though<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> professedly willing to give the Stuart his niece in +marriage, and avowedly not a little put out with England, but yet desirous +of avoiding offence to King George. In 1713 he raised no difficulty. +Indeed, at Leopold's instance he was obliging enough to supplement his +passport with a special letter of commendation very kindly worded. And he +carefully avoided treading on corns either way by not naming James in the +document—for all of which Leopold takes great credit. But it appears that +plenty more potentates besides the Emperor had to be solicited. And the +two Electors, of Hanover and of Brandenburg, were obdurate in their +refusal—in agreement for once. It was a ticklish matter; for without +their safe-conduct James could scarcely be counted secure. On the other +hand, if their safe-conducts were to be waited for, the Emperor would of a +surety take offence, as if his own passport were judged insufficient. +Leopold, being great on etiquette, took the last-named to be the more +serious danger, and advised running the risk—more particularly since he +had been advised by his envoy in London, Baron Förstner, that Queen Anne +had privately granted what amounted to a passport to her brother for going +into Lorraine. That was taken to settle the matter, and James put himself +<i>en route</i>.</p> + +<p>It was on the 22d of February, 1713, that he reached Bar, closely guarded +and travelling <i>incognito</i>, on which account an official reception in Bar +was dispensed with, though the French artillery at Toul had fired a +salute. The council were under strict injunctions to omit nothing which +might conduce to their visitor's safety, or minister to his comfort, or +that was <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>conventionally due to a crowned head. Accordingly, we find them +in their next sitting, on the 25th February, passing a whole string of +votes and resolutions having reference to his arrival and his safety in +the town. The police and <i>chasse-coquins</i> are forthwith put on the alert, +sentries are placed at all corners, and, to accommodate them, a whole +number of new sentry-boxes are put up. The authorities are directed to +question every stranger coming into the town carefully, and, if there +should appear to be anything suspicious about any one, rigorously to +detain him and report the case at once by express courier to Lunéville. +Iron <i>grilles</i> are put up. All the postern-gates are walled up, so is one +of the principal entrances, and so is—in spite of sanitary +considerations—a main sewer passing through the wall. Soldiers were a +good deal less squeamish in those days than they are now, and sewers had +served for many a surprise in the Thirty Years' War. The remaining ten +gates are to be carefully watched, and never opened before 5 <span class="smcaplc">A.M.</span>, nor +left open after 8 <span class="smcaplc">P.M.</span> Billets are issued for the overflow of James's +suite, which appears to have been numerous, and stable-room is bespoken +for his horses. James evidently was an inconvenient visitor to house. For +he would have all his large apparatus of Court and Household close to +him—chamberlains, kitchen, kennel, and all. Mrs Strickland praises his +habitual economy. His doings in Lorraine do not bear out that praise. From +the Nairne MSS. in the British Museum (which give a full list) we know +that in 1709 and 1710 his household comprised above 120 persons, from the +secretaries down to the grooms' helper, drawing salaries of from 12 to 675 +livres <i>per<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> mensem</i>. There was the Comptroller, Mr. Bous, who retailed +the anecdotes of the Court to Lady Middleton; a clerk of the green cloth, +a yeoman baker, a yeoman confectioner, a yeoman of the chaundry, Jeremiah +Browne, "Esq.," master-cook, a water-carrier, and a scourer. There were +yeomen's scullery assistants, confessors and chaplains, a doctor, a +"chyrurgien," and an apothecary, a "rideing purveyor," and a "chaiseman," +"Lady Maclane, laundress," pursuivants, and necessary women—all that +belongs to a royal household. And the whole establishment cost "19,412 +lstrs. <i>per mensem</i>." All these people did not go to Bar, but a good many +did. And there were a crowd more, for whom the town had to provide. For we +read in the Macpherson Papers that all "Peacock's family"—<i>i.e.</i>, all +Protestant refugees who had been at "Stanley," <i>i.e.</i>, at St. +Germains—had followed the Chevalier to Bar. There was not one of them +left. So writes the Queen. And the Duke states, quite independently of +this, that the Pretender is surrounded with Protestant exiles. Altogether +James's Court ran up a goodly bill, which it was disappointing to the town +afterwards to find that, though incurred by express order of the Duke, the +burgesses were expected to meet out of their own funds. To enable them to +do so, Leopold allowed the council to appropriate the <i>deniers</i> of the +<i>octroi</i> to their involuntary hospitality.</p> + +<p>The more or less Protestant colouring given to the refugee establishment +was scarcely palatable to the very orthodox population of Bar. But James +was playing, not to the Bar pit, but to the English gallery. "Downs or +Leslie should at once go there," so we find O'Rourke writing to Middleton +early in 1713. Leslie did go<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> soon after, and the Chevalier, as his +advocates take credit, prevailed upon the Duke to relax his rigid rule in +one instance, and allow Protestant service in an upper room in James's +house. That was in the "Rue Nève." The upper room, which, we read, was +just over James's own apartment, cannot have been large. So it is to be +feared that the service was not over well attended. But it was enough to +save appearances, and to give the Jacobites of England a shadow of reason +for declaring, as they did, that James really was a Protestant. James +himself spoke a very different language. "He would rather abandon all than +act against his conscience and his honour." He protested over and over +again that "all the crowns in the world would not make him change his +religion."</p> + +<p>Thanks to King Louis's perpetual ordering and countermanding, when James +got to Bar, the château was once more as bare and uninhabitable as ever it +had been, and for a few days the Pretender had to be content with the same +rather humble house which he was destined subsequently to occupy for a +considerable time, in the "Rue des Tanneurs"—Number 22, Rue Nève, it is +now—a plain, square, three-storeyed building (counting the upper range of +rooms, which is very low, as a storey). This is described as at the time +"the principal house" in the town, the property of one of the most +distinguished residents, Councillor of State M. Marchal. It has eight +windows frontage, facing severally the Rue Nève and the Rue des Pressoirs, +and abutting width-ways on the very narrow passage Rue St. Antoine. A few +days later, however, we find the Pretender safely established in the +château, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> there on the 9th of March he receives the Duke of Lorraine +and his brother François, Abbé of Stavelot, with an amount of circumstance +and scrupulous weighing of precedences which is described with rather +amusing minuteness in the 'Gazette de France.' Not to hurt James's +feelings—to whom royal honours could not be openly shown, out of +consideration for Queen Anne—Leopold ordered that he himself should not +be received with the usual ceremonial, troops under arms, and councillors +presenting addresses. But the Lorrains were a devotedly loyal population. +They would not be forbidden. The whole population of the town and of all +the surrounding district crowded into the streets, to receive the ruler of +the land with shouts of welcome. James, being the resident, played the +host at Bar. There was, a dinner, a supper, and a long private talk in the +château, with the result, we read, that the two princes at once became +fast friends. James, we know, though wanting in most of the qualities +which are regarded as specifically manly, was a good-looking and agreeable +fellow enough. As for Leopold, with his experience of Courts, and his kind +and considerate disposition, he could not very well prove otherwise than a +pleasant companion and a kind patron. We have plenty of portraits of him +left, limned both with pen and with brush. Short and stumpy, +round-bellied, red-faced, with a free allowance of pimples, and, moreover, +with those abnormally stout legs which remained his most striking outward +characteristic to his dying day, he must have looked a veritable <i>Jacques +Bonhomme</i> put into a full-bottomed wig and court-dress. There is a tale to +those legs. Leopold came into the world about two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> months before his time, +<i>very</i> sickly and <i>very</i> delicate. More particularly his legs were very +spindles. Under a special treatment designed to remedy this defect, they +grew just as much too big as previously they had been too thin. Terrible +stickler for etiquette that Leopold was, and intent upon lavish display, +when occasion seemed to demand it, both himself and his wife were +simplicity itself when such occasion was withdrawn. They could talk to a +peasant in the peasant's brogue about his <i>ouïettes</i> and his hemp. One of +the princesses thought nothing of accepting a lift home in a market-cart, +and, as the driver commendingly related, showed herself "<i>bien sage</i>." +"<i>Cousine</i>," said the Duchess to the Duchess of Elbœuf, "<i>restez chez +nous, nous avons un bon gigot</i>." This simplicity and familiarity with +humble ways as a matter of course made the Duke and Duchess popular. But +what helped them more than anything to gain their people's hearts was +their remarkable readiness to enter into all those local <i>fêtes</i> which +long custom had sanctioned as common to both high and low. The French +occupation had made a long break in the observance of those <i>fêtes</i>. How +should the Lorrains "sing songs" in what had become to them practically "a +strange land?" For something like thirty years their harps remained hung +up upon the willow-trees. Great, however, was the joy when at the first +<i>Fête de la Veille des Rois</i>—kept in commemoration of the brilliant +victory achieved over Charles the Bold in 1476—and at the <i>Brandons</i> or +<i>Faschinottes</i>,<a name='fna_3' id='fna_3' href='#f_3'><small>[3]</small></a><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> following that <i>fête</i>, the Duke and Duchess appeared +in person among the merry-makers, entering most good-humouredly and, +indeed, jovially into all their doings. Of the many local customs which +Lorraine boasts, the <i>Brandons</i> was at that time still the particular +favourite. It had been handed down from hoary antiquity. Every couple +married since the last <i>Brandons</i> was expected to join. The husband had to +provide himself with a faggot or log of wood, and carry it in procession +through the town, accompanied by his wife, along a roundabout route +prescribed by custom, to the Duke's palace, march three times past the +Duke's window, and then deposit the piece of fuel on a huge pyramidal pyre +built up in the ducal courtyard. Some couples went on foot, others rode on +horseback. All were dressed in their best, and the procession must have +looked exceedingly picturesque. Every lady was expected to wear some +little ornament—generally made of silver—specially devised to indicate +either her calling or her station in life: a coronet, or a sickle, or +whatever it might be. The streets were lined with people, who freely +expended their wit—a pretty ready one—in chaff pointed at the new +victims to matrimony, who in their turn were expected to put on a most +dejected look, as if seriously repenting the allegiance rashly entered +into to Hymen. In the evening the pyre was lighted, and round this huge +bonfire people made mildly merry with gambols and dances. Tables were +spread, at the Duke's cost, richly laden with viands and native wine. In +1698, at the first revival of the <i>Brandons</i> after a long pause, the file +of matrimonial victims was, of course, quite exceptionally long. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> was a +delightful surprise to the crowd to see at its head the Duke and Duchess +themselves, newly married as they were—the Duchess, being slightly +<i>enceinte</i> with her first-born, wearing at her girdle a little silver +cradle. That was not all. In the evening Leopold mixed freely with the +revellers, stopped at table after table, drank here and drank there, +proposing a toast or responding to one,—with the result that the people +went half-mad with enthusiasm. Not a tumbler had the Duke drunk out of, +which was not religiously treasured as a relic. And long after the French +had forced their yoke firmly home upon the shrinking neck of unwilling +Lorraine, those tumblers were still shown to growing children as memorials +of the "good old time." At the carnival, which followed the <i>Brandons</i>, +Leopold and Elizabeth Charlotte were again to the fore. They did not mind +figuring in public—even sometimes on an amateur stage. Leopold once +appeared masked as Sultan—his consort, not quite appropriately, as an +Odalisk; but the loyal Lorrains saw nothing incongruous in that dress.</p> + +<p>The striking difference very apparent in the characters severally of host +and guest in our little chapter of history, may have helped to draw them +together all the more closely. James was in his ordinary mood anything but +mirthful. References to him are frequent in the correspondence as being +"terribly sad," or else "very pensive, which is his ordinary humour," +"<i>très sérieux et reservé</i>," so much so that "<i>rien ne l'auoit pû tirer de +la profonde melancolie ou il étoit</i>," and so on. Yet he could be merry, +too, and more in particular he loved a dance. At one ball, given in the +Palace at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> Lunéville, we read that he managed particularly to ingratiate +himself with the ladies who were past their first bloom, by an act of +undoubted chivalry. They wanted badly to dance, but dared not, while the +Duchess was sitting. And the Duchess considered herself too much of a +matron to foot it with the young ones. James, however, made her. He would +take no refusal. The dead room became reanimated once more, and many an +aging heart in its night-thoughts blessed the gallant <i>prétendant</i>. James, +we are told, was a prominent figure in the Nancy <i>Brandons</i> and Carnival, +kept with peculiar <i>éclat</i> in 1715, after a fresh break of thirteen years, +due to French occupation. Court chroniclers seem to consider that the +presence of "<i>Le Roi d'Angleterre</i>" added peculiar lustre to that +performance.</p> + +<p>Reporting himself after his visit to Bar, as in duty bound, to King Louis, +Leopold declares himself "<i>charmé de l'esprit, de la sagesse, de la +douceur et des manières gracieuses de M. le Chevalier de Saint Georges</i>." +The 'Journal de Verdun,' drawing its information, of course, from official +sources, announces that after their first encounter the two princes "<i>se +separèrent extrêmement satisfaits l'un de l'autre</i>" in "<i>parfaite amitié +bien cimentée</i>." Of James it will have it that he is "<i>d'un caractère si +doux, si affable, et si populair, qu'il s'est bientôt acquis, de tous ceux +qui ont eu l'honneur de le voir, le respect et la vénération dûs à sa +vertu et à sa naissance</i>."</p> + +<p>Leopold gone, the time passed, on the whole, quietly at Bar. There were +occasional alarms, when some suspicious stranger had been seized. On one +occasion, again, there is some talk of a "poisoned letter," sent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> in an +ingenious fashion. To Louis, we find, the Duke appeared a little too +forward in warning James of these dangers, as if he wanted to frighten his +guest into quitting Lorraine. To vary the little episodes, there was the +famous <i>coëqure</i>, who so much amused Queen Mary Beatrice's companions with +his odd manners and his "thou"-ing. "The Spirit had moved him," as we +know, to inform James that he was to rule over England, in which country +there were plenty of well-wishers to support him. Were money wanted, he +said that his friends would readily combine to raise some millions. They +did not, welcome as the money would have been to James, whom we find +continually complaining of want of funds. In the cipher despatches the +common burden is, that "Mr. Parton" will not "deliver the goods." There is +another prophetic person to encourage the Pretender, a nun of the +"Monastère de Sainte Marie del Roma," near Montevallo—accredited by her +superior, who writes to the Marquis Spada that her prophecies have never +failed to come true. If he escapes the many traps set for him in 1715, so +the nun says, James will certainly become King of England. Occasionally +also there are little tiffs between English visitors and Barisien +residents. What English, Scotch, and Irish there were there, we do not +know for certain, but there were a goodly number, and not all of the best +manners. Noel, who is a good historian on Lorrain things, but a little at +fault on English, will have it that among these people was "<i>Lord Chatham, +qui devint plus tard si célèbre</i>." Occasionally there was a visitor coming +on the sly with news—such as the Duke of Berwick, whose visits were at +one time frequent—or,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> towards the end of the sojourn, the banished Lord +Bolingbroke, and "Le Comte de Peterborough" travelling under the pseudonym +of "Schmit." Marlborough did not come himself, but he sent an aide-de-camp +on a confidential mission to Lunéville, overflowing with pleasant words, +and through him be begged particularly to be well and promptly advised on +the Chevalier's movements, since "<i>Le salut d'Angleterre</i>" might depend +upon this. The Duke of Lorraine was not particularly impressed with +James's followers, especially after Lord Middleton was gone. "<i>Ce ne sont +que des gens d'un caractère fort médiocre</i>," he writes. They talk about +things which affect their chief with the utmost freedom. In Mr Higgons, +who had succeeded Lord Middleton, he could discern no merit whatever. As +for Lord Middleton, he found him "<i>fort reservé et voulant dominer seul</i>." +He gives him credit for capacity and zeal, but censures him as being +"<i>timide et irresolu</i>." All the rest, he says, are "<i>de jeunes gens qui ne +pouuoint souffrir ce Milord, et qui auoint eu l'imprudence de dire à +Lunéville qu'il etoit si fort hay en Angleterre que les plus zelez +partisans de leur Maitre auoint temoigné qu'ils ne feroint jamais rien +pour ces interests tant qu'il l'auroit au-prez de luy</i>." All these men +evidently have very little knowledge of what is going on at home, he says. +There is no one in whose judgment the Pretender might repose any faith +except it be the Earl of Oxford or Lord Bolingbroke.</p> + +<p>On the whole, the Pretender's life at Bar, though perhaps a little +monotonous, can scarcely have been unpleasant. He made friends with the +local <i>haute volée</i>, asking them to dinner, and being asked back—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +borrowed money from them whenever he could. His especial friends were the +Marquis de Bassompierre, from whom he borrowed 15,000 livres, which the +Duke repaid in 1719, and M. de Rousselle. A good deal of time the +Chevalier spent in his closet, with Nairne, or Higgons, or Middleton, +concocting plans and dictating long memorials to the Pope, or else to +Cardinal Gualterio, advocating the canonisation of Bellarmine, +recommending <i>protégés</i> for places which they never got, and insisting on +his right to nominate bishops to Irish sees, the names of which he could +not spell. At off-times he played <i>reversi</i>, <i>boston</i>, and <i>ombre</i>, and +occasionally <i>petit palet</i>, which is an aristocratic form of +chuck-farthing. Then there was the pleasure of the chase, of which we know +from Father Leslie that James was a tolerably keen votary. In Lorraine the +diversion of <i>vénerie</i> was held in high estimation, though reserved only +for very great magnates, and guarded by a ring-fence of the strictest +enactments against vulgar intrusion. Poaching accordingly came to be a +very common offence. "Ground game," indeed—at any rate rabbits—it was +open to all to shoot. "High game"—<i>i.e.</i>, deer—on the other hand, was +reserved within certain limits exclusively for the Duke. Within about +eight miles of the Duke's palaces, in what were called the ducal +<i>plaisirs</i>, not even nobles of the highest rank were permitted to shoot or +hunt. No dogs belonging to private persons were allowed in the fields near +those <i>plaisirs</i>, on any pretence whatever, be the deer, and boars, and +wolves, ever so troublesome. Even shepherds' dogs and watch-dogs must have +their hamstrings cut, or else a log tied round their necks. And in some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +districts every Parish was required by law to provide a <i>louvière</i> or +wolf's pit, 20 feet deep, 18 feet wide at its bottom, and 12 at its +opening. From "<i>le haut puissant messire</i>" Jean de Ligniville's most +amusing disquisitions on "<i>La Meutte et Venerie</i>" we learn that the +district about Bar was "<i>très boisé</i>" and well stocked with game of every +description, which, local chroniclers tell us, James was frequently +occupied in hunting. Lorrain and English hunting were not then as far +apart in their general features as one might be tempted to assume. English +kings had more than once sent presents of English hounds to Lorrain +dukes—Charles III. received from James I. a present of eighty harriers at +a time. And more than one Lorrain grandee came over to hunt and shoot +here. Ligniville himself, the Duke's <i>Grand Veneur</i> (under Charles IV.), +had frequently hunted in England, and expressed himself especially +delighted with the sport in which he had joined in Yorkshire. On the +whole, he appears to have considered English hounds superior to +French—less eager at first, but with more stay in them—and he was proud +of having received presents of some from the Prince of Wales of his time +(Charles I.), "Milord de Hée," and from "Milord Howard." But a cross +between English and French hounds he seems to have regarded as the <i>ne +plus ultra</i> of excellence. "Puss" was very much persecuted in the valley +of the Meuse, furnishing by its exceptional swiftness and skill in +swimming almost too good sport, "<i>contre montant l'eaüe tellement viste +que les chiens ne les pouuoint pas aborder</i>." James's hunting sometimes +led him into adventures, and on one occasion nearly saddled his host with +a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> diplomatic difficulty. Riding hard, he once got to the little town of +Ligny at nightfall, some eight miles from Bar, in a vassal territory +belonging, under the Duke of Lorraine, to Montmorency, Duke of Luxemburg. +The Duke of Luxemburg, being rather a big vassal, was in consequence also +a very troublesome one, and the Lorrain Court and his officers frequently +found themselves at loggerheads. To James, coming from Bar, with fifty +Lorrain <i>gens d'armes</i>, besides his own suite, the <i>maire</i> resolutely +refused to open the gates and furnish lodgings for the night, grounding +his refusal upon a decision of the Parliament of Paris passed in the year +1661. The Lorrains were quite prepared for a siege and an assault. +However, James deemed it wiser to leave things alone, and so the company +rode half a mile further, to a little village called Velaine, where they +spent a most uncomfortable night. Soon we have Montmorency complaining to +King Louis of the assumed "<i>nouuelles entreprises de M. le Duc de Lorrain +sur mon comté de Ligny</i>." Leopold revenged himself by imprisoning about a +dozen <i>maires</i> of the Ligny county, on the plea of their having failed to +furnish the requisite waggons, and in the end bought Montmorency out with +the sum of 2,600,000 francs.</p> + +<p>All this, however, was not enough excitement for James. In one of his +letters he plaintively calls Bar his "Todis"—by which of course he means +"Tomis." "Tomis," by a natural train of thought suggested—besides the +<i>tristia</i>, of which we have plenty—the <i>ars amatoria</i>. And to it the +Chevalier devoted not a few of his unoccupied hours. If local tradition +speaks true, he differed very materially in his prosecution of this art<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +from his father, of whom Catherine Sedley said that on what principle he +selected the ladies of his heart she could never make out. None of them +were good-looking, and if any of them had wit, he had not the wit to find +it out. And Mary of Modena, his wife, added that, although he was willing +to give up his crown for his faith, he could never muster sufficient +resolution to discard a mistress. His son was in both respects far more of +a man of the world.</p> + +<p>It was in the green bosquets of those Pâquis, his favourite +lounging-place, that James first discovered his human jewel. To house her +suitably, he took—at somebody else's cost—a cottage on the brow of the +hill, where the view is delightful and the air magnificent. You can still +approximately trace the site, high up in the Rue de l'Horloge, above the +Rue St. Jean, a little below the neglected terrace in the Rue +Chavée—which is well worth visiting for its prospect. As the house stood +with its back to the hill and facing only the open space, there must have +been absolute privacy. But, after moving down to the Lower Town, James +found the ascent by those <i>Quatre-vingt Degrés</i>—which Oudinot rode up on +horseback—a trifle laborious. The steps lead almost straight up from his +house to the cottage, describing just enough of an angle to take in the +humble building, now marked by a tablet, in which Marshal Oudinot was +born. A more convenient arrangement could scarcely have been desired. But +the steps were sadly "<i>sales et délabrés</i>." Not to inconvenience James in +his amours, the town council readily voted the requisite sum for putting +them into proper repair.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>When September came on, James found the air on the castle-hill "<i>trop +vif</i>." Although his mother generally reports that "<i>il se porte bien</i>," it +is to be feared that his constitution was none of the strongest. We read +in one of D'Audriffet's despatches, "<i>que sa santé estoit toujours fort +delicate</i>." He has had a "<i>fluxion</i>" in the eye. He has "weak lungs." "He +is evidently very poorly," writes D'Audriffet to Louis. He finds himself +"<i>alteré par l'intemperie du tems</i>." He takes the waters of Plombières +four times "for his health," and wants to take those of Aix-la-Chapelle. +He talks of going to a warmer climate—Spain or Italy, or, more +specifically, Venice. But he can now obtain no fresh passport from the +Emperor. Then he goes to have a look at Saint Mihiel, likewise in the +Barrois, only a few miles from Koeurs, in which another Prince of Wales, +young Edward—the same whom Edward IV. meanly struck with his gauntlet, +and Richard of Gloucester despatched with a stab, to stop his +"sprawling"—spent his young years of exile in company with his mother, +Queen Margaret, from 1464 to 1471. But he does not like the idea of living +in the Benedictine Abbey. So the Duke orders the town council to get ready +once more M. Marchal's convenient house below, to which the Chevalier +insists that a second house adjoining shall be added, belonging to M. de +Romécourt, besides a portion of one belonging to M. Lepaige, with a +kitchen specially built, and a "gardemanger," a new door, and sundry +other conveniences, to say nothing of the hiring of further accommodation +for his horses, his kennel, his <i>gens de vénerie</i>, his guards, some of his +suite—all of whom and all of which he wants very near him, and all of +which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> consequently, costs the town a good deal of money. M. de +Romécourt's house is a complete match to M. Marchal's, but smaller, +bringing up the frontage to thirteen windows.</p> + +<p>However, James was not always at Bar, nor yet always, when away, at +Plombières. Duke Leopold was constantly inviting him to Lunéville, and +sometimes to Nancy, and arranging most magnificent <i>fêtes</i> in his honour. +Leopold could do things handsomely when he chose. Even when James stayed +three whole weeks, there was something new provided every day to amuse +him—"<i>les plaisirs de la Cour étoint entremêlé de repas, de collations, +de bals, de concerts, de Comédie, de promenades, de chasse, de feux +d'artifice, etc., mais chaque jour tout étoit nouveau</i>." Leopold's palace +at Lunéville—the same in allusion to which Louis XV. said to King +Stanislas, "<i>Mon père, vous êtes mieux logé que moi</i>"—was specially laid +out for the gaiety and the varied succession of amusements for which the +Lorrain Court was famous. It was at the Lorrain Court that the <i>cotillon</i>, +that universal favourite on the Continent, was first invented. And in +Leopold's theatre it was that Adrienne Lecouvreur made her first +appearance.</p> + +<p>To give James a right royal reception, Leopold spared neither pains nor +money. He always made a point of going to meet his guest—to Batelemont, +to Houdemont, or to Gondrecourt. To enable the Court to enter with proper +spirit into all the magnificence prepared, we read in the official +despatches, that in April, 1713, on the occasion of James's first visit, +the Duke directed that two quarters' salaries, in arrear since 1711, +should be paid to the officers of his household.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> D'Audriffet makes merry +over this. But in France things were no better. The Court of Versailles, +we know, was always behindhand in its payments to Queen Mary. Mrs +Strickland makes this a matter of reproach to Desmarets, as if purely the +result of his negligence. But the Court had not got the money. In 1715 we +have D'Audriffet himself sending in his little account, which shows five +years' salary to be owing, in addition to 24,800 livres of disbursements, +the whole debt amounting to 84,800 livres.</p> + +<p>Even more brilliant than the <i>fêtes</i> given at Lunéville, were those to +which James was invited at the Château of Commercy, the seat of the Prince +de Vaudémont. Vaudémont was rich and generous. He had occupied high +positions in the army and the administrative services both of Austria and +of Spain. He was a man pre-eminently prudent in council. Our William III. +had discovered that, and had frequently sought his opinion, more +particularly while the Treaty of Ryswick was under consideration. To James +the Prince became a most valuable friend and confidant—more especially at +that critical juncture when the Pretender's great aim was to get away +unobserved form Lorraine. In his splendid castle of Commercy, set off by +magnificent cent gardens and sheets of water throwing Versailles into the +shade, the "Damoiseau" of Commercy gave <i>fêtes</i> the description of which +baffled Court chroniclers of the period, and after which, in the words of +the "Gazette de Hollande," James found himself constrained to go back to +Bar in self-defence, "<i>pour s'y delasser, pour ainsi dire, de la fatigue +des plaisirs continuels</i>." There was such a <i>fête</i> in June, 1713, arranged +on a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> peculiarly lordly scale, in which a chorus of <i>Pèlerins de Saint +Jacques</i> were brought in—appropriately hailing from "L'Isle de Cythère," +and provided with passports from the goddess Venus—whose special object +seems to be to say pretty things to James:—</p> + +<p class="poem">"Vous gagnez tous les cœurs, tout le monde gémit<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">De voir un Roy d'une bonté si rare,</span><br /> +Et brillant de l'éclat de toutes les vertus<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Loin des Etats qui lui sont dûs</span><br /> +Mais nous verrons un jour cette triple couronne<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Qu'ont porté si longtems vos Illustres Ayeux,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sur votre chef tomber des Cieux.</span><br /> +Le mérite, le sang, les Loix, tout vous la donne;<br /> +Laissez le soin de soûtenir ces droits<br /> +Au Dieu qui dans ses mains porte les cœurs des Rois."</p> + +<p>Then a curious supper was given. The twenty-four most illustrious guests +present sat down at two tables, the ladies at one, the gentlemen at the +other. Each person was served with an equal portion, "<i>tous en vaisselle +de fayance, jusqu'aux manches des couteaux</i>."</p> + +<p class="poem">"Et dans ce sobre repas<br /> +Chacun n'eut que vingt-sept plats."</p> + +<p>In all, to these twenty-four people 648 <i>plats</i> were served. The great +joke of the meal was, that strict silence was enjoined. "<i>Mais on avoit +oublié d'en bannir les Ris.</i>" So people soon began to laugh, and then the +men accused the ladies of breaking the rule, and the ladies retorted, and +that put an end to Trappism. On another occasion, in July, 1714, when +James spent a fortnight at Commercy—while his sister was slowly +dying—the Prince, in the course of an even more brilliant <i>fête</i>, +entertained his guests with sham-fights, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> siege of a castle, and other +incidents of military operations, for which the services of a French +army-corps stationed in the neighbourhood, at Troussay, under the command +of M. de Ruffey, were impressed.</p> + +<p>Mary of Modena must have felt the removal of her only son—her only child, +since the Princess Louise, "<i>la Consolatrice</i>," was dead—very keenly. She +declared that she had no one left to open her heart to. This was not to be +understood quite literally, for we find the Queen-Dowager pouring out her +confidences very effusively to her <i>chère mère</i> and the sisters at +Chaillot, whose journals, in fact, supply the main records of Mary's +doings. But, no doubt, she missed James much. Once after his banishment, +in July, 1714—when James rushed secretly to Paris, to consult with the +king about the steps to be taken in view of Queen Anne's impending death, +and was sent away "<i>fort peu satisfait</i>"—she had seen him for an hour or +two in the night. Very naturally, she wished to visit him at Bar, more +particularly as her doctors had advised her to try the waters of +Plombières. It is not altogether impossible, also, although the Queen was +kept in rather tight leading-strings by Dr. Beaulieu, that, plagued as she +was with cancer in the breast, she may have wished to take the advice of a +specialist at Bar with whose fame at the time the world was ringing. +Bar-le-Duc had become strangely identified with cures for cancer. In 1663 +Pierre Alliot first discovered the value of cauterising as a corrective +treatment. And early in 1714 M. le sieur Moat, another Bar doctor, +astonished the world with quite a novel method, which was probably humbug, +since it is said to have effected <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>perfectly incredible recoveries. Some +months later we find Queen Mary preparing to set out for Bar and also for +Plombières. Her bad health and an abnormally wet summer put a stop to the +project. This was just about the time of the death of Queen Anne, when +Leopold felt as if he were politically walking on eggs. He had given so +much umbrage in England already, that every further offence was to be +carefully avoided. If the Queen, as was to be anticipated, in going to +Plombières, were also to visit Lunéville, that must of a certainty give +rise to misunderstandings. So he sends officers and messengers to inquire +and dissuade, as diplomatically as he can. The Queen had been so ill as to +be given up, and he did not wish to pain her. But above all things he had +to think of himself.</p> + +<p>On very different grounds the tidings of the Queen's impending visit also +fluttered the good people of Bar not a little. They had never entertained +a queen. So on the 13th of July we find the heads of the town council +carefully inquiring of the Marquis de Gerbévillers, the governor of the +district, what is the proper ceremonial to be observed. Thereupon a +deputation is named, and a present of 16 lb. of <i>dragées</i> and forty-eight +<i>pots de confitures</i> is voted, besides a <i>feuillade</i> of wine for +distribution, and a special <i>vin d'honneur</i>, to be presented to the royal +visitor by the Marquis de Bassompierre, on behalf of the town. The +Barisiens are very proud both of their <i>confitures</i> and of their wine. +Both may be had now, presumably, in the same quality in which they were +tendered to Queen Mary. The <i>confitures</i> consist of currants, red<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> and +white, preserved whole, in a syrup made sweet to excess. But the flavour +is good. The <i>vins de Bar</i> have long been reckoned a delicacy, more +particularly the <i>clairet</i>—a variety having a colour half-way between red +and white. The wine is highly praised by patriotic writers as being +"<i>excellent, délicat, léger, et bien-faisant</i>," and more than any other +"<i>ami de l'homme</i>." And if you only stick to that wine alone, and take +care not to mix, you can drink, they protest, absolutely whatever quantity +you like, without feeling one whit the worse next day. To an English +palate, I am bound to say, the wine is apt to present itself as +intolerably sour.</p> + +<p>After all, the Queen's visit did not come off till spring, 1715. That was, +again, a most inconvenient time for the Duke of Lorraine, on much the same +grounds as before. He had just made up that nasty tiff with the English +Court, arising out of the publication of the Pretender's manifesto. King +George was at length going to receive his envoy, M. de Lambertye. At such +a juncture the classical "pig among roses" would have been ten times more +welcome to nervous Leopold than Mary of Modena and her son at his Court. +So he writes to Louis, begging him for heaven's sake to stop the Queen +from coming, and despatches Baron Förstner post-haste to Bar to +remonstrate with the Pretender. Neither attempt proved successful—but the +Queen's visit did not do much harm. Her ill-health again came in as a +special providence, detaining her till after Whitsuntide. She set out +incognita with what is represented as a very modest train—namely, four +coaches-and-six, one <i>littière</i>, and <i>quelques chaises</i>. The Duke had the +good grace to receive her with a most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> hearty welcome. He sent the Marquis +de Bassompierre, her son's great friend, to meet her at Châlons. Her son +met her at Moutiers, on the border of the Barrois. For safety the forests +were once more stocked with soldiers. On the 22d of June, Mary made her +entry into Bar, putting up in James's house in the Rue des Tanneurs. The +local grandees and the town council turned out in force to receive her, +the Marquis de Bassompierre presenting the <i>dragées</i> and the <i>vin +d'honneur</i>, while the <i>bailli</i>, M. de Gerbévillers, did the honours on +behalf of the Duke, whose Great Chamberlain he was. On the 25th Mary and +James proceed to Commercy, where everybody expresses himself and herself +delighted with <i>cette sainte Reine</i>. On the 18th of July the Queen arrives +at Nancy, where the Duke and Duchess are staying. James was at that time +in the midst of plotting. "Milord Drummond" had come from England to +confer with him. Ferrari put in one of his suspicious appearances, to the +bewilderment and annoyance of the French envoy. An Irish priest who talked +indiscreetly about a <i>grand coup à faire</i> was seized and kept under +arrest. Couriers were rushing frantically to and fro. Something was "up." +And Lord Stair, at Paris, we find, knew of it. But the Queen did not +seemingly take a very hopeful view of things. She thanked the Duke very +pathetically for his kindness to James. It needed generosity, she avowed, +to interest one's self on behalf of a Prince "forsaken by all the world." +Her gratitude would be "eternal." The Duchess was most attentive. Both +days that the Queen was at Nancy she forestalled her in calling, +surprising her at her toilet. At Lunéville, the Duchess had offered<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> to +make the Chevalier's bed with her own hands. From Nancy Mary Beatrice +proceeded to Plombières <i>viâ</i> Bar, returning to St Germains on the 22d of +August. The waters had not done her much good.</p> + +<p>A brief space is due to those rather curious negotiations which were +carried on while James was at Bar, to find the Pretender a suitable wife. +According to Mrs Strickland this was rather a romantic affair. James was +dying to marry his cousin, the Princess d'Este, while, on the other hand, +the Princess Sobieska and Mademoiselle de Valois were both dying to marry +him. In truth, there was no dying on either side, and the wooing +originated, not in James's feeble affections—which were probably occupied +to the full extent of their capacity with that young lady on the hill—but +in the fertile brain of his scheming and restless host. Mrs Strickland, I +ought to say, rather overrates the position of the Princess Sobieska, who +eventually <i>did</i> marry the Chevalier; and if there was any romance in her +affection, she lived to be cured of it. Being the daughter only of an +elective king, a <i>parvenu</i> among royal personages, she was looked upon as +a princess rather by courtesy than of right. Even to James, down in the +world as he was, Leopold—in a manner her kinsman—did not dare to propose +her except as a <i>pis aller</i>, when all hopes elsewhere were extinguished. +His first proposal was an Austrian archduchess. He evidently thought the +suggestion one which would do him credit. It would be a downright good +"Catholic" match. It was bound to help the Pretender, and it might be +agreeable to the Emperor, and so secure him, Leopold, very much on the +look-out for favours<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> as he was, gratitude in two influential quarters. +The mere moral effect, he says, of an alliance entered into by the premier +dynasty of Europe with the outcast Stuart prince must prove immensely to +James's advantage. But there was money, too—which James particularly +wanted—much money, heaped up in the Hofburg. James assented—though with +nothing seemingly of eagerness; for it took him some months to grasp the +full meaning of the idea. The proposal was made in March, 1714—long +before the Princess Sobieska was thought of; and, as Leopold reports with +unmistakable satisfaction, it was <i>assez gouté</i> at Vienna. Only, the +Princess asked for—the younger daughter of the late Emperor—was very +young, in fact, a child in the nursery, and the marriage could not +possibly take place for some considerable time. So, the Emperor thought, +the matter had best be kept quiet. Nothing daunted, rather encouraged, +Leopold, with James's approval, returned to the charge in June. If the +younger archduchess was too young—very well, let it be the elder, +Elizabeth, who was at that time heir-presumptive to the crown. (For Maria +Theresa, the reigning Emperor's daughter, was not yet born.) Vienna took +time to consider. James's appetite grew keen, and in July we find him +plying the Emperor with two memorials, drawn up with the help of Nairne. +So elated did he grow over his supposed brilliant prospects, that he +returned very cold answers indeed to Cardinal Gualterio's well-meant +representations in favour of a union with another lady—was it the +Princess d'Este, Gualterio's own countrywoman? There was no money in that +quarter. Accordingly James haughtily pronounces the marriage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> "<i>pas +faisable</i>." But he pushes his suit at Vienna. It must be, he urges in his +first memorial, altogether to the Emperor's interest that the Archduchess +Elizabeth should be married to "<i>une personne qui ait assés de naissance +et d'autres bonnes qualités personelles pour estre choisi après lui à +remplir sa place</i>." Such a person James considers himself to be. And he +puts his case in this way. Either the English crown will fall to him or it +will not. If it does, well, then, there he is, a most desirable, wealthy, +and influential nephew-in-law. If it does not, there he is, again, the +fittest person in the world to succeed to the Imperial crown. In the +second memorial, issued shortly after, he presses some further points. +Hanover must not be allowed to grow too powerful. Indeed, as a Protestant +Power, it is too "<i>formidable</i>" already, and the "<i>Duc d'Hannovre</i>" is +"<i>un redoutable Rival</i>." But, "<i>il est certain qu'il (l'empereur) a moins +à apprehender de l'Angleterre sans le Duc d'Hannovre que de le Duc +d'Hannovre sans l'Angleterre</i>." Therefore—the reasoning does not seem +quite clear—James ought to be supported; or else, certainly, the Duc +d'Hannovre should be made to forego one of the two crowns—either Hanover +or England, a proposal which James pronounces perfectly "<i>juste et +nullement impracticable</i>." The proposal does not, however, "fetch" the +Emperor, who goes on procrastinating. But, on the other hand, Louis XIV, +gets wind of it, though he was not meant to, through D'Audriffet, and +grows uneasy, throwing all the cold water that he can upon the scheme. +Meanwhile in England things go against the Pretender. Queen Anne dies, +King George succeeds, and, in spite of James's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> solemn protest, addressed +to the Powers in English, French, and Latin, England seems perfectly +content. After this it is not surprising to find Leopold, when James +returns to the subject of his marriage, shaking his head discouragingly, +and pointing out that the Pretender's matrimonial value has fallen +appreciably in the market. He must no longer look "so high." Besides, the +Emperor will not care to embroil himself by such a marriage with the +Government of King George, with which he has struck up a friendship which, +in Louis XIV.'s words, promises to prove alike "<i>solide et sincère</i>." Now, +there is the Princess Sobieska! Leopold thinks that he could manage that. +Through her mother she is a niece of the Empress Eleanor. Therefore, to a +certain extent, James will still secure the Hapsburg interest. As for +marrying the Archduchess, that is out of the question. James does not see +it. He goes on harping upon the Archduchess Elizabeth, and worrying poor +Leopold to resume negotiations.</p> + +<p>Leopold found worry of a more serious sort besetting him, on account of +James, in a different quarter. To satisfy France was all very well. But +what in this matter satisfied France offended England. Now, England itself +was very little to the Duke of Lorraine. Louis XIV. kept assuring him that +English complaints and remonstrances should have "<i>point de suite</i>," and +that he would see him through the business. He had "nothing to fear." +Accordingly, when the English Houses of Parliament began, very +unreasonably, to memorialise Queen Anne in favour of moving for James's +expulsion from "ungrateful" Lorraine, though the Court of St Germains<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> +showed itself, as we are told, "<i>fort picquée de ses addresses</i>," Leopold +simply smiled, and assured James that he would see that those addresses +remained "<i>inutiles</i>." He did not quite like it when Baron Förstner, his +envoy in London, reported the two parties in England, both "Thoris" and +"Wighs," to be unanimous on the point. James himself, whom he consulted +without any result, confessed himself in an "<i>embarras de prendre le +meilleur party</i>." However, Bolingbroke had advised Förstner that no notice +should be taken; the English nation "<i>se portoit tantot a une chose et +tantot a une autre</i>;" Parliament was about to be dissolved, and in the new +House the whole thing might be forgotten. King Louis explained the +resolution as a Whig dodge, a shibboleth, designed to make it clear who +were the Pretender's supporters. However, the remonstrances went on. Two +bishops made themselves ridiculous by very indiscreet and officious +interference. The Duke judges that this "<i>n'estoit qu'une grimace de la +Cour d'Angleterre</i>." But after a time he grows irritable, and recalls his +envoy—quite as much in disgust as for economy. That does not mend +matters—no more does the Duke's letter, written at the French king's +suggestion for communication to Prior. D'Audriffet's despatch of 3d May, +1714, shows that Leopold at that time quite expected that he might be made +to give effect to the English demand. Meanwhile Queen Anne dies. James +issues his proclamation, at which George and our Parliament take +needlessly great offence, and an icy coldness springs up between the two +Courts—just under circumstances under which coldness is least acceptable +to Leopold. For, however little Queen Anne might have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> had it in her power +to cross him, her successor is Elector of Hanover as well as King of +England, fast friends with the Emperor, and has a great say in the +bestowal of ecclesiastical patronage in Germany, for which Leopold, on +behalf of his "near and dear relations" has an insatiable appetite. +Accordingly he grows uncomfortable. He notices with alarm, so the letters +show, that George takes an unusually long time advising him of the late +Queen's death, and when the advice comes, it says nothing about his own +accession. Anxious to make up the breach, Leopold at once despatches a +special envoy, Lambertye, to present his congratulations. To the Duke's +dismay George will not receive him. Leopold, however, bids him stay where +he is, and addresses to the king his well-known memorial, which must +certainly be pronounced dignified in tone and just in substance. James's +proclamation, Leopold shows, was issued without any knowledge or consent +on his part. Privately, he causes it to be explained that he is simply +obeying dictatorial orders from Versailles. But—"<i>on a beau leur dire</i>," +writes de Bosque, D'Audriffet's substitute, on the 31st of October, "<i>que +la France a vn pouuoir arbitraire sur le Duc de Lorrain et ses Etats, cela +no les contente plus</i>." The poor Duke grows most uncomfortable. However, +in January the matter is made up, and King George consents to receive +Lambertye at last—at the very time when Queen Mary Beatrice threatens +once more to trouble relations just settling down again, with her visit to +Lunéville. In any case Lambertye's mission did not bring Lorraine any +good—except, says Noel, it be the importation of a new variety of potato, +which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> he carried home from England, and which proved much superior to the +old Lorrain sort.</p> + +<p>If our statesmen had little right to call upon Leopold to expel James, +they had of course every reason to be vigilant. And they do not appear to +have failed often in that duty. To be quite fair, James's followers, on +the whole, made the task pretty easy for them. They were always plotting, +but at the same time also always letting out their secret—a tippler +talking in his cups; an officer confiding intelligence to his sweetheart; +a bungling conspirator boasting in very big words. Long before October, +1715, when the great "invasion" at length took place, we have references +to some intended move. All is promptly reported to England, and to Paris, +where, after his arrival at his post, Stair, when not engaged in smuggling +goods for his friends,—"<i>poil de chèvre</i> stockings of different colours +of grey, and long enough of the feet and legs" for the Duke of Argyll, +besides knives, spoons, and forks of the St. Cloud pattern, all with +"chiney" handles to them; a "bodyes," a "monto," and a "peticoate" for +Lady Harriet Godolphin, to oblige the Duchess of Marlborough; moreover, +silk gowns for the Countess of Loudoun—spares neither pains nor money to +obtain the very best and most prompt intelligence. On the whole, he is +admirably served, though occasionally he finds himself on a wrong scent, +and even at the critical time, notwithstanding Mrs. Strickland's statement +as to Mademoiselle du Châtelet's jealous peaching, it seems as if +Bolingbroke were after all right, and our Ambassador had been put upon the +right tack too late.</p> + +<p>At length, after much posting backwards and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>forwards of trusted but +untrustworthy messengers and confidants, after more than one false alarm, +and one very provoking act of treachery (on the part of a bankrupt +banker), after much dissuasion from the Duke of Lorraine, who seems to +have exhausted all his powers of reasonable argument in vain, after +stealthy visits said to have been paid by Bolingbroke and Ormonde to Bar, +and by Mar to Commercy, the great move takes place. To the end Leopold +appears to have considered James's recall by the spontaneous act of the +English nation a probable contingency. Now he warns him that a Hanoverian +king on the English throne will play his game far more effectually than he +himself possibly can by taking up arms—that, in the face of the +unpopularity which the foreign ruler is sure to bring upon himself, if +left alone, James will, by raising the flag of rebellion, only be cutting +his own throat. However, James will pay no heed. Learning prudence, at any +rate, as the time for action draws nearer, both the Chevalier and his +friends grow close and uncommunicative, so as to extract complaints even +from D'Audriffet, who, having been previously let into all the harmless +little secrets of the plot at first hand, now finds himself reduced to +coaxing intelligence out of "<i>une personne attachée au Chevalier de St. +Georges, qui est de mes amies</i>." However, in October, just before the +departure actually takes place, Leopold confides to him that James has +expressed himself resolved to take his fortune into his own hand. He has +been advised from England and Scotland that circumstances will never be +more favourable. If he misses this chance, he will have no other. "<i>C'est +tout gagner ou tout perdre.</i>"</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>At this time it is that James addresses to his friend Cardinal Gualterio +at Rome a curious "<i>Mémoire sur un Lit</i>," which seems worth recording. He +begs Gualterio to purchase, at once, as if for himself, "<i>un grand bois de +lit à la francoise propre à coucher deux personnes, avec un dossier, mais +point des pilliers. Le fond du lit de bon coutil—renforcé avec sangles</i>." +Also, "<i>deux bons mattelas de bonne laine d'Ang<sup>re.</sup> proportionnés à la +grandeur du lit</i>." His Eminence, James adds, will easily guess the purpose +for which the bed is designed—a purpose depending upon "<i>un certain cas +qu'on espere pouuoir arriver bientôt, mais qui doit etre tres secret +jusqu'a ce qu'il soit asseuré</i>." He adds that he wants "<i>ni couuertures, +ni tour de lit, ni ciel de lit, parcequ'on a tout cela ici</i>." The whole +thing reminds one of that famous musical armchair which was ordered on +behalf of Napoleon III., to be delivered at Berlin in 1870.</p> + +<p>The final escape of James was, on the whole, managed with secresy and some +skill, though things went a little untowardly. Stair, who was sparing no +pains to keep the Pretender watched to his every step, was a little +deceived, partly by that false information which Bolingbroke says that he +purposely gave him, partly by the equivocal bearing of the Regent and +Torcy, who were both secretly befriending the Chevalier. Certainly Stair +got his correct intelligence too late to be of much use, and so sent to +Château Thierry to have James seized after the bird had flown. Cadogan in +Brussels was better informed. He had stationed a "gentleman from +Mecklenburgh," M. de Pless, at Nancy, ostensibly to attend the Academy, +really to play the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> spy upon the Pretender. A letter from the Regent to +D'Audriffet shows that the object of his mission was perfectly understood +in the French capital. The news of the Chevalier's departure comes out +through the indiscretion of some one in the secret arriving from +Commercy—and immediately Pless takes formal leave of the Duke, and +hurries without a moment's delay off to Brussels, where Cadogan has a +courier ready, who, but for provokingly prolonged contrary winds, would +have reached England in excellent time.</p> + +<p>Finding the Chevalier's mind made up, Leopold, wishing to be kind to the +last, sends his <i>protégé</i> as a parting gift, along with an affectionate +valedictory letter, the acceptable present of 27,000 louis in gold, which +James at once stows away in his private strong-box. This, we read, he was +in the habit of always carrying about with him, placing it under his bed +at night, and allowing no one to come near it. How he managed to transport +it when riding on horseback from St Malo to Dunkirk, we are not told.</p> + +<p>It is well known that James started from Commercy on the 28th of October, +1715, in disguise. But the precise manner of his escape is not generally +quite correctly related. It explains why, for a full fortnight after +James's disappearance, newspapers still go on reporting his supposed +doings in Lorraine. The escape was of course abetted by the Prince de +Vaudémont, who, to make it possible, invited a large company to Commercy +for the day appointed, to hunt in his forests. James went out to hunt, and +James apparently came back in the evening. But the James who returned was +not the James who had gone out with the Pretender, but a follower of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> his, +who bore a striking resemblance to his master, and had more than once been +mistaken for him. Who this gentleman was I have not been able to trace. +With this man James had exchanged clothes, unseen by any one, out in the +forest. And so, as the Duc de Villeroy writes to Madame de Maintenon (the +letter is in the Paris MSS), "<i>Il partit misterieusement de Commerci en +chaise roulante, vestu du violet en Ecclesiastique, avec un petit colet, +malgré la vigilance des Espions, sans qu'ils ayent pû auoir ni vent ni +nouvelles de son depart, que deux ou trois jours après sa sortie</i>." The +Pretender pursued his journey, carefully avoiding highroads, reaching +Peterhead safely in the end, though only after much travelling backwards +and forwards, taking pains to elude Stair's spies, who were placed at all +important points. At Nonancourt he narrowly missed being caught, as we +know, by Captain Douglas and two other emissaries, evidently what Bunyan +calls "ill-favoured ones." For the impression became general in +France—over which the editor of 'The Annals of the Earls of Stair,' Mr +Murray Graham, grows exceedingly indignant—that these men were assassins +retained to destroy the Pretender by Lord Stair, whose passports they +carried, and who promptly came to their rescue when they were brought +before the Grand Prévôt de la Haute Normandie. Very probably they looked +cut-throats. One of them was armed. And as cut-throats, not spies, the +<i>maîtresse de la poste</i> cautioned James against them, helping him off, to +save his life, in a disguise and with a guide provided by herself. As +supposed cut-throats they were seized by the police, and as cut-throats +they were brought before the judge.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> Stair's interference probably it was +that saved their lives. But all his explanations and all his protestations +could not for a long time remove from the mind of the French people the +impression that the men were assassins. The Regent, we hear, released them +without inquiry, simply to avoid scandal.</p> + +<p>How the Pretender's enterprise ended we all know. He does not appear to +have been particularly attentive to his late host, the Duke of Lorraine. +On the 24th of October he sent him a formal farewell; but on the 7th +November we have the Duke stating as a grievance that he is without news. +During November we find people in Paris growing remarkably confident. On +the 2d of December Lord Stair complains that "<i>les plus sages à la Cour</i>" +are just again beginning to treat the Chevalier as Pretender. Until two +days before he was "King of England" to every one in Paris, "<i>et tout le +monde avoit levé le masque</i>." There was not a single Frenchman, having any +connection with the Court, who so much as set foot in Stair's house. +Everybody thought that the Stuart cause was about to triumph. But the 11th +of January, 1716, saw James back at Gravelines, "<i>d'où il repassa en +Lorraine</i>," say the MSS. in the <i>Archives Nationales</i>. Mrs Strickland will +have it that he went to Paris, where Bollingbroke advised him to go +straight into Lorraine, without first asking leave of the Duke—which +advice he did not follow. Independent Lorrain sources state that he passed +through Lorraine, "<i>courant la poste a 9 chevaux</i>." As he had left all his +goods and chattels at Bar-le-Duc, that seems the more likely version. +Before his departure Duke Leopold had assured the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> Pretender that his +dominions would always be open to him, and that he "<i>pourroit compter sur +luy en tout ce qui en pourroit dependre</i>." In March, however, under +altered circumstances, we find him advising Queen Mary Beatrice "for the +second time," that he cannot again receive her son into his duchy. The +Pretender himself seems to have taken the first warning. For we read in +the 'Gazette de Hollande' that his <i>Domestiques et Equipages</i> were removed +from Bar to Paris in February. According to M. Konarski (I have not +verified the entry in the archives, but it is doubtless correct) James +left Bar on the 9th of February, "<i>sans adresser ses remerciments et ses +adieux au duc Leopold</i>," says Noel; "<i>comme un escroc vulgaire</i>," says M. +Konarski. "<i>Ne se contentant pas de largent que Léopold lui donnait il +emprunta des sommes assez fortes aux seigneurs et partit sans les +rembourser.</i>" The sum of 15,000 francs paid to his friend M. de +Bassompierre, which appears in the official accounts, is only one such +debt. "<i>Cette ingratitude de la part du Chevalier de Saint Georges</i>," adds +Noel, "<i>indignait toute la Cour</i>." People spoke to Leopold about it. +"Gentlemen," said the Duke, "you forget that this Prince is in misfortune, +and that he was a king." On another occasion he remarked to M. +Bardin:—"He has done me justice; he has thought that I have simply +performed my duty in assisting an unfortunate."</p> + +<p>If the direct benefits which the hospitality extended to James brought to +Lorraine were less than nil, the indirect were scarcely more valuable. No +doubt, the Pretender having set the example, not a few Roman Catholics +from the United Kingdom, so Noel relates,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> sought the same hospitable +refuge. Others came—among them both Noel and Marchal name the elder +Pitt—to take advantage of the new Academy opened by Leopold, and rapidly +blossoming into greatness under such distinguished masters as Duval and +Vayringe. Some of these men brought plenty of money with them, and their +liberal fees went to swell acceptably the new professors' receipts. But +the number of impecunious persons, more particularly Irish, who flowed to +the Lorrain Court to prey upon Leopold's generosity, seems to have been +even larger. "<i>Nous regorgeons d'Irlandais</i>," writes the Duke's friend +Bardin in 1719—<i>Irlandais</i> who evidently boasted but little money and +less gratitude. Bardin complains of an exceptionally bad case of the +latter sort. Leopold mildly replies. "I helped him, not for his sake, but +for my own."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>In 1749, when the Duc fainéant, Stanislas Leszinski, "<i>simple gentilhomme +lithuanien</i>," was holding his gay little Court at Lunéville, with Voltaire +and Madame du Châtelet to lend brilliancy to it, and Madame de Boufflers +to preside as elderly Venus, we read that the whole company were deeply +touched when the great French writer, as was his wont, read out aloud his +just completed chapter on the Stuarts, in the 'Siècle de Louis XV.' +Everybody had a regret for the hardly used dynasty. Scarcely had Voltaire +closed his book, when in rushed a messenger, bringing the tidings that +James's son, Charles Edward, doubly an exile after the failure of his +rebellion of 1745, had, on the demand of the English Government, been +seized at Paris on leaving the Opera. "Oh heaven!" exclaimed Voltaire,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> +"is it possible that the king can suffer such an indignity, and that his +glory can have been tarnished by a stain which all the water of the Seine +will not wash away!" The whole company was moved. Voltaire retired +gloomily into his own room, threw down his MS. into a corner, and did not +take the work up again till he found himself amid the more prosaic +surroundings of Berlin. Very shortly after Charles Edward himself knocked +at Stanislas' door. What he did during the nearly three years that he was +a refugee at Lunéville, it seems impossible to ascertain. The French State +Papers are silent—at Lunéville not a tradition has survived. His doings +evidently were not considered worth recording. The drama of Stuart +kingship was played out. The dream had come to an end. And so Courts grew +cold.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;" /> + +<p>A fate not so very dissimilar—except for one brilliant saving +incident—awaited those very Dukes who had shown hospitality so freely to +the Stuarts. The Stuart Pretendership and the Lorrain Dukedom came to an +end at pretty nearly the same time. Hanover elbowed out the one, France +the other. The Stuarts went down for good. The Lorrains found themselves +transplanted to Vienna, and crowned with the Imperial diadem. They brought +their new country good qualities and manners insuring popularity. But they +brought it no luck. For once the old Austrian distich spoke wrong:—</p> + +<p class="poem">"Bella gerunt alii, tu, felix Austria, nube!<br /> +Nam quae Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus."</p> + +<p>Under the Lorrain Emperors came the Seven Years' War, which lost Austria +Silesia; the Napoleonic wars,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> which lost much territory in the west; +1859, which lost part of her Italian possessions; 1866, which tore away +the rest, and, moreover, turned Austria out of Germany. But the Lorrain +Emperors have not forgotten their old virtue of hospitality. It may seem a +strange whim of fate that at the present time the principal among those +dispossessed sovereigns and unrecognised Pretenders who have flocked for +protection under the hospitable "Double Cross," now carried back almost to +its Eastern birthplace, should be the direct descendant and +representative, six generations down, of the relentless and troublesome +rival of that same Stuart James, whom, with not a little risk and cost to +himself, the last really Lorrain Duke generously sheltered in the years +from 1713 to 1716.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> +<h2>II.—RICHARD DE LA POLE, "WHITE ROSE."<a name='fna_4' id='fna_4' href='#f_4'><small>[4]</small></a></h2> + + +<p>English visitors at Metz—there ought to be more, for there is not a +little that is interesting to be seen in and around the old imperial +city—are likely to have pointed out to them some venerable house or +other, which, their guides will tell them, was nearly four hundred years +ago the residence of a great English noble, a pretender to the crown, and +the terror of Henry VIII.—the "Duke of Suffolk." Some guides may even +style him "The King of England," since their distinguished townsman, +Philippe de Vigneulles, gives him that title. In all probability the house +shown will be the wrong one. For there is a great deal of loose and +inaccurate archæology prevalent in these parts, and one old house is very +apt to be confounded with another. I myself have had a leading French +archæologist in Metz indicating to me an old Merovingian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> palace—highly +interesting, to be sure—as the "Duc de Sciffort's" quarters. Once the +building was plainly ancient, the trifling difference of eight hundred or +a thousand years in the several dates made no odds to him. With the kind +assistance, however, of the present archivist, Dr. Wolfram, my friend M. +des Robert and the help of some old documents preserved in the local +library—which in spite of repeated pilferings for the enrichment of +Paris, still contains many valuable old manuscripts, I have been able +pretty clearly to trace the movements in Metz of our distinguished +countryman—who was indeed a claimant to the English crown, and over whose +death in the battle of Pavia, in 1525, Henry VIII. exulted with such +exuberance of gratitude to Providence, that he ordered a second public +thanksgiving to be held "with great joy" on the 16th of March, the triumph +proper for the victory of Pavia having—somewhat rashly, as it afterwards +turned out—been celebrated on the 9th day of that month.</p> + +<p>The story of this Englishman's exploits abroad affords some features of +interest. It is a rather curious tale of adventure, love and war, strange +escapades, intrigues, and ambition. And it may be worth telling, because I +find that in English historical writings there is a gaping hiatus on the +subject—which is not a little remarkable. For, considering what an +ever-present weight Richard evidently was on the minds of the two last +Henrys, to what all but incredible lengths those kings carried their +unscrupulous persecution of him—how they offered bribes to kings to +deliver him up, and to meaner men to assassinate him—how not a treaty was +proposed to foreign potentates but contained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> a special clause forbidding +the harbouring of this dangerous character—one might have supposed that +our chroniclers of the time would have deemed it expedient to tell +posterity something about him. Their silence is explained by a strange +want of materials. So little turns out to have been known in this country +about the great marpeace, that Mr. Burton, in his 'History of Scotland,' +actually assigns to him the wrong christian name, calling him "Reginald." +Mr Gairdner in his interesting preface to one of the volumes of +'Chronicles and Memorials' goes at some length into the history of +Richard's brother Edmund. What became of Richard himself—except that he +fell at Pavia—he confesses that he "cannot trace at all accurately." +Napier in his 'Notices of Swyncombe and Ewelme' supplies fuller +information than any other English writer. But he, too, is evidently at +fault for materials. It is practically only foreign sources, very little +studied in this country, to which we have to look for information on the +subject of how "White Rose" employed the time of his exile, be it +self-imposed or involuntary, which made up the main portion of his life.</p> + +<p>The chief of such writers is Philippe de Vigneulles, a contemporary of +Richard's, and a citizen of Metz, who has left rather curious and pretty +full memoirs written in that strange-sounding, uncouth Lorrain French, +which was at his time spoken at Metz. The original manuscript, formerly in +the possession of Count Emmery, was some time ago purchased at a sale by +M. Prost, the well-known Lorrain archæologist. From it M. des Robert, +another well-known writer, specifically connected with the ancient city of +Metz—which only patriotic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> considerations have led him to desert—has +drawn the information which some years ago he incorporated in a little +monograph. Even this monograph leaves some gaps. And the author falls into +one or two odd mistakes—which are no doubt excusable in a foreigner. For +instance, he confounds the "rebel and traitor" Richard de la Pole with one +of the most faithful followers of the Tudor kings, Sir Richard Pole, of +Lordington, in ascribing to his hero, first, the office of Chamberlain to +Prince Arthur, and later on the fatherhood of Reginald Pole the cardinal. +But his pamphlet is decidedly useful, as supplying clues, which I have +been able to follow up successfully on the spot.</p> + +<p>Richard de la Pole was the last member of a family which, within the space +of about a century of strange vicissitudes, ran through all the stages of +rapid rise, almost to the height of the throne, and no less sudden, +humiliating descent, to attainder, execution, confiscation, and dishonour. +I cannot stop here to tell their history at length. Genealogists have been +careful to point out that the French prefix <i>de la</i> proves no Norman +descent. There is no "de la Pole," nor any name resembling it, to be met +with in the Battle Roll. The De la Poles' origin was, in fact, so humble, +that their first distinguished member, Michael, the prosperous +merchant—to whom his native town, Hull, raised a monument in +1871—afterwards Lord Chancellor of England and Knight of the Garter, is +described in Camden as "basely born." His "base birth," it is true, has +been disproved. But that only makes a difference of two or three +generations. When Richard and his brothers came into the world, the family +had had five generations of titled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> distinction and notoriety—partly of +honour and partly of disgrace. Only one Suffolk of this +creation—Richard's father—seems to have died at home and in his bed. And +even his death was caused by "grief for the ruin of his family." The Lord +Chancellor expired almost exactly a century before of "a broken heart" in +exile. His son fell a victim to "dissentery" before Harfleur. The next +Earl was honourably killed at Agincourt. His son, again, the "Duke of +Suffolk" denounced in early ballads, lived to disgrace that dukedom which +he had first obtained, and to die by lynch law under the form of a trial, +for having had a hand in the murder of Humphrey, the "good" Duke of +Gloucester, and in the surrender of Normandy and Aquitaine to France. This +"bad" Duke's son rose once more to high distinction. King Edward IV. +actually conferred upon him the hand of his sister Elizabeth; and Richard +III., on the death of his own only son, appointed his eldest son +John—created Earl of Lincoln—next heir to the throne. That appointment +proved in after-time a rather questionable boon to the family. For it +involved both John and his brothers in perils, and intrigues, and +persecution. The Earl of Lincoln fell in the battle of Stoke, fighting for +Simnel, the pretending Earl of Warwick, and by his treason and disgrace +caused the death of his father. Of course his estates and titles were held +to be forfeited. That forfeiture notwithstanding, the Earl of Lincoln's +next brother was admitted to some part of the succession, both of estate +and of title, by amicable arrangement with King Henry VII. These peerage +cases were dealt with in those days in a very different manner from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> what +they are now, as appears from the fact, that only some eight years +previously, in Edward IV.'s reign, the De la Poles' rather distant cousin, +the then Duke of Bedford—a Neville, not a Russell—had been deprived of +his peerage by Act of Parliament on the score of poverty.</p> + +<p>Edmund de la Pole bargained with Henry VII., and recovered part of his +brother's possessions and also the humbler of his titles in the peerage, +by sacrificing the higher. He was admitted to the peerage as "Earl of +Suffolk." Notwithstanding his renunciation, he, later on, when in exile, +again claimed the dukedom. Edmund had in his youth been reported by the +University of Oxford in a letter addressed to his uncle, King Edward IV., +"a penetrating, eloquent, and brilliant genius"—anything but which he +proved himself to be. His letters read like the writing of a man of very +poor education, even judged by the standard of those unlettered days. And +at Court he played his cards so unskilfully, that he soon became, from a +rather petted hanger-on, a declared "rebel and traitor," persecuted with +all the unrelenting meanness and malice that the two first Tudor +kings—the first, at any rate, not feeling very secure on his throne—were +masters of. That almost necessarily involved his younger brother Richard +in a like fate—which Richard did nothing to evade. Edmund, we read, had +the misfortune to kill a "mean" person, whom he presumed to chastise for +insulting him. For this he was brought before the King's Bench and +adjudged guilty. The king readily granted a pardon. But the Earl took the +indignity of his mere trial so much to heart, that he very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> unwisely fled +die country. People said that he had taken refuge at the Court of his aunt +Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, which was then notoriously the +gathering-place of malcontent Yorkists. This turned out incorrect. But the +rumour may have helped to prejudice Henry against him. Edmund returned +home for Prince Arthur's wedding in 1501, and appears to have been at +pains to make his loyalty know, and to have been outwardly well received. +But almost immediately afterwards he ran away a second time. And as he +forthwith proclaimed himself a pretender to the throne, and obtained from +the Emperor Maximilian a promise of material help—the loan of 4000 of his +troops, wherewith to make good his pretention—it is not surprising that +Henry should have set all his ample apparatus of crafty persecution at +work against a man become so dangerous a foe. But it is surprising to find +him stooping so very low in his recourse to dirty expedients. The State +Papers show that bribes were offered all round—to the Emperor, to the +King of France, Louis XII., to Philip of Castile and Burgundy—as much as +twelve thousand crowns in gold—for Edmund's surrender or despatch. At +length, in 1506, Fortune put Philip into Henry's power—a storm driving +him on our coast. And Henry meanly took advantage of that opportunity to +extort from the Spaniard an undertaking to surrender Edmund—then detained +at Namur—agreeing, in return, to Philip's stipulation, that the +prisoner's life should be spared. That promise he kept to the letter. +Edmund was detained in the Tower until Henry's death—and then executed on +Tower Hill by Henry VIII., in obedience to a direction<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> set down with +incredible rancour in his father's will. Dugdale suggests that, Edmund +being so popular as a pretender, Henry VIII. did not like to leave the +kingdom for a war projected in France, with his rival remaining in England +alive. Another report says, that he was beheaded on the ground of +correspondence proved to have taken place between himself and his brother, +then a general in the French army.</p> + +<p>Richard had taken service under the King of France as early as 1492. +Charles VIII. detecting in him even then that brilliant capacity which +made him in after-life one of the foremost generals of his day, intrusted +to him the command of 6000 <i>lansquenets</i>, at whose head he mastered the +difficult but valuable art of maintaining discipline among a most unruly, +but at the same time most serviceable host, and qualified himself for that +peculiar kind of warfare in which he subsequently gathered splendid +laurels. By this early favour Charles linked to his Court an officer who, +as Gaillard says, became one of "<i>cette pleiade de grands Capitaines qui +illustrèrent les règnes de Louis XII. et François I., et portèrent si haut +l'honneur de nos armes—Bayard, la Palisse, la Trémouille, duc de +Gueldres, Robert de la Marck</i> [better known as Fleurange, "Le Jeune +Aventureux"], <i>et la famille de Rohan</i>." Of all these famous +captains—and, moreover, of Francis of Angoulême himself—Richard was a +comrade-in-arms and familiar friend. And nobody seemed to be able to +manage the wild and "<i>indociles</i>" mercenaries, who were ready to place +themselves at the service of any sovereign who would pay them, like +himself. Dreaded foes—and to the people scarcely less dreaded +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>allies—were those "bandes noires" of Northern Germany, who, like the +modern Prussians, bore on their banner the colours of black and white. +Before Pampeluna—of gloomy memory—they mutinied even against Bayard, +"striking"—according to the most approved notions of nineteenth-century +trades-unionism—at the most critical juncture for the concession of +double pay. Bayard and Suffolk between them, however, soon reduced them to +obedience. Brantôme relates that it was said of the <i>lansquenets</i> that +after St. Peter had refused them entrance into heaven, their troubled +souls could not even obtain admission into hell. The very devils were +afraid of this wild company. With these rough warriors did Richard fight +his battles, and fought them so well, that there was not one of the three +French kings whom he served, who did not feel moved to reward his services +with a substantial pension, in addition to his open thanks. Ever foremost +in battle, Richard's company "receveyd," as John Stile reports to Henry +VIII., "most hurte and los of men then any other of that party." And on +that fateful day which cost Richard his life, and Francis I. "<i>tout fors +l'honneur</i>," the king declared that, if all his troops had but done their +duty like Richard's <i>lansquenets</i>, the victory would have been his. +Francis was especially beholden to these rough soldiers, because, by +winning for him the battle of Marignano, when his crown was still young +and unsettled upon his head, they raised him to high prestige, and +completely altered his position in Europe. "<i>Ce gros garçon gâtera tout</i>," +Louis XII. had said—leaving 1800 livres of debts for the "<i>gros garçon</i>" +to pay. The prediction proved wrong.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>When Richard de la Pole took service under Charles VIII., his father was +recently dead "of grief," and his family were under a cloud, owing to +Lincoln's rising in 1487. The "affable" king was much pleased with his +captain, and after the siege of Boulogne assigned to him a pension of 7000 +<i>écus</i>. At the conclusion of the treaty of Etaples, Henry VII. began his +shabby course of persecution against Richard, from which he and his son +never desisted while Richard was alive, demanding from Charles the +surrender of his foe. Charles, however, flatly refused the demand. King +Charles's pension, it is sadly to be feared, lapsed with his life in 1498; +for in 1505, and thereabouts, we find Richard in absolute +destitution—left, indeed, in pawn by his brother Edmund for that +brother's debts with the citizens of Aix-la-Chapelle. (Sir Henry Ellis, +with a little too much knowledge of German geography, places Richard at +"Aken on the Elbe." It is, however, perfectly clear that the place of his +detention was Aachen—that is, what we generally call Aix-la-Chapelle, but +for which both Edmund and Richard adopted various fancy spellings, as, +indeed, they did for most of their words, from the simple article upward.)</p> + +<p>As Richard's fate is so closely bound up with Edmund's, it may be +convenient to review at one rapid glance the fortunes of that poor +nobleman after his flight in 1501. He first repaired to Imst, in the +Tyrol, to seek help from the Emperor Maximilian. The Emperor Maximilian +gave him ample encouragement, drew up an agreement, kept his confidential +agent as representative at his own Court, and sent him with letters of +recommendation to Aix-la-Chapelle, where, hoping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> to obtain further +succour, Edmund managed to outrun the constable, and was fain to leave his +brother as pledge. In spring 1502 it was proposed that Edmund, to make +good his claim, should land in England from Denmark. In that same year, +however, Henry talked over the Emperor, and concluded a treaty with him, +by which Maximilian bound himself not to allow any English rebels to +reside in his dominions, "even though they be of the rank of dukes." That +was, there can be no doubt, specially aimed at Edmund and Richard. Edmund +now despaired of help in the quarter appealed to, and transferred his +attentions to the Court of the Count Palatine. In 1504 he entered +Guelders, with a view to proceeding to Frisia and obtaining pecuniary +assistance—so he writes to his pawned brother at Aachen—from Duke George +of Saxony. The Duke of Guelders, greedy to secure—as Archduke Philip, his +cousin, writes to Henry—the reward which he is likely to receive from +Henry, plays the traitor and enters into an intrigue with Philip of +Burgundy—it is always the same Philip—who eventually "interns" Edmund at +Namur.</p> + +<p>Poor Richard was in sore straits all the time. "Here I ly," he writes to +his brother in very curious English, "in gret peyne and pouerte for your +Grace, and no manner of comffort I have of your Grace.... Sir, be my +trothe ye dele ffery hardly with me." "Sir," he writes again another time, +"I beseche your Grace, send me some what to help me with all." He reports +that—while Edmund was at Namur—the indignant "bourgoys of Aix" have sent +a deputation to Philip to see what redress they could obtain. And coming<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> +back empty-handed they had denounced Edmund to Richard as "<i>le pluis false +homme que oncques fuyt de sa parole</i>," and threatened to expose him at all +the courts of Europe. At the same time Richard is made uncomfortable by +the fact that he knows that Henry has offered the burgesses of Aix +bribes—as much as 5000 crowns in gold—if they will deliver him "three +lieuwes out of the town of Aix"—"and he will pay them," he significantly +adds.</p> + +<p>From Namur, Edmund, with a mixture of rather too ingenuous prudence and +folly, as a last shift, offers a reconciliation to Henry, but fixes his +own terms exorbitantly high. This offer, as has been already related, +sealed his doom. He died by the executioner in 1513.</p> + +<p>His death left Richard the more or less recognised "White Rose" claimant +to the throne of England. (What became of his two elder brothers, Humphrey +and Edward—both of whom took orders, and one of whom was Archdeacon of +Richmond—we are not told.) Somehow or other he had managed to get away +from Aix in 1506. For in that year we find the Emperor reporting to Henry +that he had seized the French "orators," who had proceeded to Hungary by +way of Venice. He had looked out, as desired, for Richard, but had not +been able to find him among the company. In April, 1507, however, Richard +writes, dating his letter "Budae," to the Bishop of Liége—one of the De +la Marcks with whom at Metz he was to become intimate—in Latin, which is +very much better than his English, though that is not saying much.</p> + +<p>King Henry having, in 1509, given proofs of his peculiar goodwill towards +the De la Poles, by excepting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> them in distinct terms from a general +pardon, we cannot be surprised to learn that Richard—"Blanche Rose" they +called him in France—had grown busy scheming against his sovereign. Louis +XII. was then at war with Henry, and it served Louis's purpose to turn to +account the "<i>instrument de trouble que le roi dans l'occassion pouvait +faire agir en Angleterre—une étincelle qui pouvait y rallumer les +anciennes incendies</i>." In 1512 we have John Stile reporting to Henry, that +"your sayd rebel was mayde a Capytan of the Almaynys that went you to +Navar, where many of the Almaynys now of late be slayne." "The Almaynys" +were Richard's <i>lansquenets</i>, who indeed suffered great "hurte and los" in +that ill-starred campaign. Richard fought there side by side with Bayard, +and half starved with him on bread made of millet; and though their defeat +meant disaster to the King of Navarre, the army were not altogether sorry +to be called back to Artois, invaded by the English. Richard's command of +the "French fleet for a rising in England," recorded by Peter Martyr, was +probably only of brief duration. For we find him again at the head of his +6000 <i>lansquenets</i> at Therouenne, besieged by the English, and taking part +in the inglorious "battle of the Spurs"—so named because the French, +taken by surprise while riding, not their war-horses, but their +"hackneys," trusted more to their spurs than to their swords. That day of +Guinegate helped to bring peace to England and France—and to send Richard +to Metz. The Duc de Longueville, taken prisoner on that day, turned his +captivity to account for negotiating a treaty of peace—one condition of +which was that the Princess<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> Mary, Henry VIII.'s sister, should be married +to the all but dying Louis XII.—as the clerics of the Basoche said, "<i>Une +hacquenée pour le porter bientost et plus doucement en enfer ou en +paradis</i>." Another condition was, that Richard should be given up. To this +Louis would not agree, but answered in almost the same terms which his +cousin had used, "<i>Qu'il aimait mieux perdre tout ce qu'il possédait que +de le conserver en violant l'hospitalité</i>." Some people say that this was +mere bounce. But it had its effect.</p> + +<p>A compromise was arranged, in pursuance of which Richard was banished to +Metz. That was rather a cool proceeding on the part of the two monarchs, +considering that Metz was then a city of the Empire, in no sort of +dependence upon either Henry or Louis. The thirteen Jurats of Metz were +accordingly a little taken aback when they received Louis's letter to +"<i>mes bons amis</i>," begging that his <i>protégé</i> might be "<i>bien reçu et bien +advenu</i>"—as well they might, in view of the treaty concluded between +England and their master, the Emperor, in 1502, with special reference to +this self-styled "duke." However, they got over the difficulty by granting +Richard a <i>laissezpasser</i> for eight days, to be indefinitely renewed, +while that should prove practicable. So De la Pole went to Metz, England +and France got their peace for a time, and Mary—"<i>bien polie, mignoinne, +gente et belle</i>" as she was—married Louis, "<i>fort gouteux vies et +caducque</i>," as a brief prelude to her clandestine marriage with the new +Duke of Suffolk, Brandon.</p> + +<p>On the 2d of September, 1514, one Saturday, we read in Vigneulles, +"Blanche Rose" entered Metz,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> escorted by sixty "<i>chevaliers</i>," several +French "<i>gentilhommes</i>," and a guard of honour furnished by the Duke of +Lorraine, René II. That was making his entry in good style; and such +style, on the whole, he managed to maintain whilst in Metz. It is true +that at times he was very short of money, and paid his servants, dressed +"in grey and blue," their wages most irregularly; and that even his +chaplain could wring his "wages" from him only "a crown at a time." But +that was because, what with keeping open house, and entertaining the +<i>honoratiores</i> of Metz, betting, gambling, and making love to other men's +wives, "the Duke" spent his money faster than he got it. King Louis had +allowed him a pension of 6000 <i>écus</i> per annum. King Francis made very +much of him, and from time to time "augmented his stipend." The Messins, +always inclined to hospitality, took delight in honouring their guest, +whose chivalrous manners and easy amiability made him popular. And they +never ceased to look upon him as "<i>le vray héritier d'Angleterre qui +devoit mieulx estre roy que celui qui l'estoit</i>."</p> + +<p>Metz was then in a semi-independent state, which, in the present day, it +is interesting to study. Its nationality was German, its language was a +curious sort of early French. Its sympathies were French, too. Its +seigneurs served in the French army; and at the famous "sacres" of French +kings, representatives of the leading families of Metz—the Serrières, the +Gournays, the De Heus, the Baudoches, &c.—attended, and considered it an +honour to be dubbed knights. To complete the mixture of nationalities, the +city was surrounded by Lorraine, then an independent dukedom. The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>government of the city was in principle the same as that of other great +German free towns—Strassburg, Bâle, Cologne, Mayence, &c. There was +nothing at all similar in France. It was divided into six (originally only +five) "paraiges." Its head was a <i>maître échevin</i>, at that time appointed +afresh every year. It was administered by a council of thirteen Jurats, +representing, for the most part, the patrician families. From the judgment +of the Thirteen there was no appeal. The larger Council consisted of the +Thirteen, with the addition of an indefinite number of "prudhommes" or +"wardours"; and for purposes of taxation and similar business, the whole +mass of citizens were called together. There were, moreover, standing +committees of seven each, appointed to deal severally with matters of war, +gates and walls, the collection of taxes, the treasury, and paving. There +were also three mayors under the <i>maître échevin</i> and a number of "amans" +or amanuenses, answering to modern notaries. The whole city was a +thoroughly self-contained little republic.</p> + +<p>Among these people Richard de la Pole had come to take up his abode. As a +welcome, the Thirteen presented him with two demi-cuves of wine, one red +the other "clairet," and, moreover, with twenty-five quarters of oats for +his horses. The question of housing so distinguished a guest presented +some difficulties. On the advice of Michel Chaverson, the <i>maître échevin</i> +for the year, the Thirteen committed Richard to the care of Vigneulles, +the writer of the Memoirs, then already a citizen of note and substance. +For the first three nights he put Richard up at "la Court St Mairtin," +which was presumably near the Church of St<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> Martin still existing. The +Duke of Lorraine's Guard were quartered in what was then the leading +hotel, "à l'Ange," which has now disappeared. Nothing suitable offering +for a longer residence, Vigneulles prevailed upon his fellow-citizen, +Chevalier Claude Baudoche, one of the foremost men in the place, and +"Seigneur of Moulins"—the prettily situated village or almost suburb +which you pass on your way to the battle-fields of 1870—to lend him for +an indefinite period his magnificent mansion called "Paisse Temps," +situated on the bank of one arm of the Moselle. The site may still easily +be traced. It adjoined the Abbey of St Vincent, of which the church still +stands—a beautiful church inside, though insignificant without. Its +architectural lines are perfect, and there is some fine stained glass from +the famous works of Champigneulles, of Metz, which were in 1875 removed to +Bar-le-Duc. The Baudoches were at that time a wealthy and highly +influential family in Metz. To-day, such is the instability of things +terrestrial, the city knows them no more. About fifty years ago, their +last remaining representative was a small watchmaker plying his trade in +an insignificant shop in the Rue Fournirue. Of the suitableness of the +house secured there could be no question; for in it Pierre Baudoche, +Claude's father, had entertained several crowned heads, including the +Emperor Maximilian. Here Richard found a lordly home, which he maintained +in a lordly style, receiving in turn all the leading personages of Metz +and dispensing a princely hospitality.</p> + +<p>On New Year's Day, 1515, precisely at midnight, Louis XII. died, not +twelve weeks after his marriage with Mary, who—rather uncomfortable under +the attentions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> paid her by Francis, French historians say—very soon left +the Court, to marry the new Duke of Suffolk. The "gros garçon" could not +keep quiet long. With an army including no less than 26,000 <i>lansquenets</i> +he marched into Italy, to claim his succession to the Milanais, and won +the battle of Marignano. In this campaign Richard appears to have found no +employment, though his old corps, the <i>lansquenets</i>, covered themselves +with glory. The treaty with England, forbidding his employment in France, +was still too recent for him to be allowed to lend the aid of his sword. +Truth to tell, Henry gained mighty little by Richard's ostensible +inaction. Being at Metz, plotting and scheming, he made the king far more +uncomfortable than he could possibly have done had he been fighting at +Marignano. He was reported to be planning all sorts of enterprises. +Evidently he was much feared at home. Wolsey complains that malcontents +and men out of work threaten that they will join De la Pole and take part +in the impending invasion. On Henry's side it is all treachery and +scheming. Richard is to be waylaid, to be murdered, and so on. Lord +Worcester writes that he "knows of a gentleman who will take that matter +in hand." He is to be seized "when he goes into the field either to course +the hares or to see his horses" (<i>i.e.</i>, to take exercise). The Emperor, +on the other hand, had grown so careless in the observance of his treaty +with England, that the Messins had plucked up courage formally to present +Richard with the freedom of their city. And a "paper of intelligence" to +the English Court describes him as "in his glory."</p> + +<p>In 1516 "Blanche Rose" could remain quiet no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> longer. He must see Francis, +and ask for military employment. So on the 22d February, without telling +any one a word, we find him mounting horse, taking with him only his cook +and a page, and trotting off to Paris, covering a hundred miles in +twenty-four hours. But there was no employment for him yet. He returned on +the 3rd of April. On Christmas Eve he repeats his ride, again secretly, +accompanied by the Duke of Guelders, who had come to Metz in disguise. He +returned, as he had come, in strict privacy, on the 17th February. After +his return Claude Baudoche found that he could no longer spare "Paisse +Temps," and politely turned out his guest. But he placed another house at +his disposal, which may still be seen, at the crossing of the Rue de +l'Esplanade and the Rue des Prisons Militaires (I give the French names, +having forgotten the German). In the old chronicles the house, previously +occupied by Jean or Jehan de Vy, is described as "<i>après le grant maison +de coste de St Esprit</i>." Just opposite it is the Church of St Martin, a +rather interesting building, exhibiting a curious medley of architectural +styles. A rather remarkable feature in the church is a row of curious +sculptures. "Blanche Rose's" house, dwindled terribly in size, and shorn +of its ancient splendour, though still exhibiting some small remnants of +former grandeur, such as zigzag mouldings and Gothic labels, directly +faces this church on one side, and on the other side a public building, +which is, if I recollect right, the military prison, and in front of which +a Prussian sentry paces solemnly up and down.</p> + +<p>At this house it was that Richard conceived the curious idea of treating +his fellow-burgesses to what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> must have infallibly endeared him to English +neighbours—namely, the spectacle of a horse-race. Such a thing as that +was, it appears, previously quite unknown in Metz. And accordingly it +occasioned not a little stir. Richard and "<i>aultres seigneurs</i>," we read, +were much given to exciting pastimes, including gambling and betting. And +Richard, being the owner of a horse of which—like other owners of +horses—he had an exceedingly high opinion, was rash enough one day to +offer a bet against any one who might maintain that within ten "<i>lues</i>" +round there was another horse running equally well. Nicolle Dex (whose +name was pronounced Desh) readily took the bet, offering, to run his own +horse against Richard's. All the particulars of the arrangements for the +race are minutely recorded by Vigneulles. The two men were to ride their +own horses. The course was to be from the Orme at Aubigny (a village five +miles from Metz) to the gate of the Abbey of St. Clement (which abbey was +destroyed in 1552, when the Duc de Guise held Metz against Charles V.). +The bet was for eighty "<i>escus d'or au solleil</i>," which was to be paid +beforehand to a stakeholder. The race came off on the appointed day, +Saturday the 2nd of May—the day on which "<i>l'awaine et le bacon</i>" were, +by regulation of the authorities, first sold. That would enable the +competitors to get easily out of the gate of St. Thibault—which was +conveniently near Richard's house, but which had to be opened on purpose. +The Chevalier Dex, with an amount of cunning of which Vigneulles does not +altogether approve, had for some days before subjected both himself and +his horse to preparatory treatment—"<i>dieu scet comment</i>."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> "<i>Comme il me +fut dit et certifié</i>," that treatment consisted in his drinking nothing +but white wine—which is the more sour of the two, and therefore is +supposed rather strongly to contract the human frame—and giving his horse +no hay whatever. Moreover, he had his horse shod with very light steel +shoes. And himself he made as light as possible, riding "<i>tout en +pourpoint, avec un petit bonnet en sa teste</i>," without shoes and without a +saddle, having merely a light saddle-cloth laid over the horse's back. +"Blanche Rose," however, rode in a saddle, and booted and spurred as for +ordinary exercise. When the signal was given, Vigneulles says, the +horsemen started with such terrible impetuosity that the bystanders +thought the earth was going to open under them. "Blanche Rose" kept the +lead most part of the way. But when the two reached St. Laidre—a +<i>léproserie</i> near Montigny (the name of which still survives in a hamlet +situated between Montigny and Aubigny) famed for its asparagus and +fruit—Dex's artifices began to tell. Richard's horse was found to puff +and to pant, and could not keep pace with its rival. Nicolle outstripped +him. And though Richard spurred his horse till "<i>le cler sanc en sailloit +de tout cousté</i>," it availed him nothing. Nicolle, having husbanded his +horse's powers, came in first at the post. Richard was terribly annoyed, +but he "<i>ne dédaignait de risquer un peu de honte contre beaucoup de +plaisir</i>," like a good many other people. Very naturally, however, he +would have his revenge. So the next St. Clement's Day saw the two horses +running against one another once more; but it seems that their masters did +not this time act as their own jockeys. Ill luck<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> would have it that +"Blanche Rose's" jockey, one of his pages, was thrown whilst riding, by +which mishap his master lost his bet a second time. After that he did not +tempt fortune again on the turf.</p> + +<p>A month after the first race, Richard made a second attempt to obtain a +command under Francis. Accompanied by several "<i>de nos jonnes seigneurs</i>," +he proceeded to Milan and other places in Italy. "<i>Dieu les conduie</i>," +piously ejaculates Vigneulles. They arrived, as it turned out, a day after +the fair. Peace had been concluded, and the <i>seigneurs</i> returned to Metz +without having had occasion to draw their swords.</p> + +<p>In this year, Henry, through one of his emissaries, tempted Richard with a +proposal that he should endeavour to make his peace with the king, and +write him a letter in that sense. The king, explained Alamire, the +emissary in question, "had the character of being most clement." "So I +have heard," replied Richard, scenting the mischief; "and how well I +should stand with my present protector, the King of France, if King Henry +were to show him my letter!"</p> + +<p>In the following year Richard once more rode to Paris, seeking employment. +This time he was rewarded with a secret mission, on which he was sent into +Normandy. It was about this time that Giustiniani learnt from the legate, +Campeggio, that Francis favoured "Blanche Rose" more than ever, and Henry +and his ministers again began to feel acutely uncomfortable. They had +heard, so the State Papers show, that Francis and Richard were plotting +mischief: Francis was favouring the Duke of Albany and trying to stir up +disturbances in Scotland. There was a scheme on foot,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> Sir Richard +Jernegan reports, according to which the Duke of Albany was to sail from +Brittany to Scotland, "there to make business against the king," while +"Blanche Rose" was to invade England from Denmark, abetted by the king of +that country, and accompanied by that king's uncle, the Duke of Ulske; and +Monsieur de Bourbon and the Duke of Vendôme were at the same time to +besiege Tournay, which, in the peace of 1514, England had managed to +retain. We cannot be altogether surprised, knowing in what systematic +manner the Henrys persecuted the De la Poles, to learn that a man was said +to have been taken in Champagne, paid by Henry to kill Richard. Indeed the +thought of getting rid of Richard by assassination appears to have been +habitually uppermost in Henry's mind.</p> + +<p>However, the threatened invasion did not take place yet. Francis had other +work to turn his thoughts to. On the 12th of January, 1519, Emperor +Maximilian of Germany died, and the question arose, who was to be the next +Emperor. Charles, the youthful King of Spain, was a candidate, and Francis +of France resolved to enter the lists against him. He considered himself +to have a fair chance. He seems to have counted even on Henry's support; +but Henry, it turned out, cherished ill-founded hopes of being himself +elected, and fought in a half-hearted way for his own hand. Francis, +however, spared no pains in his canvass. He bribed and coaxed and promised +all round, and indeed only very narrowly missed the election. At the last +moment the Elector of Saxony left him in the lurch, just as, nearly three +centuries after, that Elector's successor failed Napoleon at Leipzig, +going over<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> to the other side. But for that defection Francis would of a +surety have been elected Emperor. One of the promises which Francis had +rashly made, was this: "<i>Si je suis élu, trois ans après l'élection, je +jure que je serai à Constantinople ou je serai mort</i>." At the very last +stage of the proceedings he despatched Richard de la Pole as a +confidential envoy to Prague, where the Electoral College was sitting, to +further his candidature. In the National Library at Paris a manuscript +letter is still preserved containing the king's instructions. However, +Richard arrived too late.</p> + +<p>In the same year—1519—"Blanche Rose" found himself compelled to change +his quarters a second time. Claude Baudoche "<i>vouloit r'avoir ses +maisons</i>." The dean and chapter of Metz signalised their goodwill towards +the guest of their city by making over to him for life, at a nominal rent +of 10 <i>sols messins</i> per annum, their old mansion, called "la Haulte +Pierre," occupying the commanding site on which now stands the Palais de +Justice. In all probability, the handsome esplanade now leading up to that +building did not at that time exist, nor yet perhaps the splendid terrace +facing the Moselle and St. Quentin. But at all times the situation must +have been unique. The reason why the house was let so cheap was, that it +was then in an utterly dilapidated condition, and the tenant undertook +thoroughly to repair it. He did better, as the chapter remembered to his +credit after his death. At a heavy cost—he spent 2000 gold florins upon +it in one year—he rebuilt it from top to bottom in magnificent style. +That mansion does not now survive. It was pulled down in 1776 to make +room<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> for the present structure, more useful though less showy, in which +are housed the provincial law-courts.</p> + +<p>While still in "la Rue de la Grande Maison"—the Rue de +l'Esplanade—Richard de la Pole got entangled in a little love intrigue, +which caused a tremendous commotion in the town, and led him into serious +trouble. Metz was rather famed in those days for its goldsmiths. The Rue +Fournirue—still interesting—was full of them. One of these artisans, +named Nicolas Sébille, had a young wife, whom Vigneulles describes as +"<i>une des belles jonnes femmes, qui fut point en la cité de Metz, haulte, +droite et élancée et blanche comme la neige</i>." To this beautiful young +woman's heart Richard successfully laid siege. She came to see him at his +house, which was conveniently near. The conquest does not appear to have +cost him much persuasion. Evidently Madame Sébille was as hotly smitten +with him as he was with her. To be able to carry on his little amour with +the greater freedom, he gave the unsuspecting husband an order for some +very costly and elaborate goldsmith's work, necessitating one or two +journeys to Paris, the expense of which Richard was quite content to pay. +While the husband was away "<i>celle belle Sébille</i>" went "<i>aulcunes fois +bancqueter et faire la bonne chière en l'ostel du dit duc</i>," so much so +that the city began to talk. The duke, for the safety of his lady-love, +employed a certain hosier named Mangenat to escort her and watch the +streets. Mangenat was in one sense admirably fitted for this office—for +he was a stalwart bully, who soon became the terror of all the +neighbourhood. Like the German and French police in these days, he +suspected a spy or an enemy in every person<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> he met, and struck and mauled +a good many harmless creatures. That caused additional scandal; and as +there was no police to maintain peace and order, the neighbours, after +complaining a good deal, took the law into their own hand, and one fine +night, early in September, turned out in force to lynch Mangenat. Richard +had by that time removed to "Haulte Pierre," and there was therefore a +considerable distance to cover between his house and the Rue Fournirue. +The neighbours were firmly resolved to turn Mangenat into a "<i>corps sans +âme</i>." Mangenat, however, managed to elude them. The neighbours then laid +their plaint before the Thirteen. Madame Sébille, fearing her husband's +wrath, resolutely packed up her clothes and jewels and other belongings, +and with them also her husband's money, and transferred herself with these +possessions to the "Haulte Pierre." This made matters still worse, +especially when Nicolas returned home and set a-clamouring for his money +and his wife. Watching for "Blanche Rose," he caught him one day in the +Rue Fournirue, and very nearly did for him. On Sunday, the 16th of +September, he demonstratively took up his position, fully armed with sword +and hallebarde, at the cathedral door, intending to knock Richard's life +out of him in the sacred place. Richard was warned, and wisely kept out of +the way. However, as Nicolas tried to raise a popular tumult, on the +ground that an outraged plebeian could obtain no legal redress from the +patrician court—"<i>l'aristocratie</i>," says M. des Robert, "<i>fut tout +puissante</i>"—the Thirteen could ignore the case no longer. With some +difficulty they persuaded "the duke" to let Madame Sébille go. He agreed +to this only on the distinct <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>understanding that Nicolas "<i>ne lui</i> [that +is, his wife] <i>ne reprochait en rien sa conduite, ni ne la baittroit, ni +ne lui diroit parole qui l'en puist desplaire, si non que leur débast ou +huttin vint pour aultre chose</i>." This undertaking having been given—by +the Thirteen—Madame Sébille was brought before the court under protection +of a strong armed escort, consisting of notable chevaliers. Of course +Nicolas would in no wise agree to the terms proposed. And so the +Thirteen—it is interesting to learn how these cases were dealt with in +those early days—kept his wife in their own charge, lodging her very +fitly in the council-room of the "Seven of War," and supplying her with +good food and drink at the expense of the town. Thereupon Nicolas, as he +could not obtain redress as a citizen of Metz, migrated to Thionville, +became a burgess of that town and then—as he was entitled to do in those +days—levied war in person on the man who had wronged him. He bribed "<i>Des +Allemans</i>" to waylay and kidnap or kill Richard, just as the two English +Henrys had done. Richard, being a little bit frightened, sought refuge in +the chateau of Ennery, belonging to Signor Nicolle de Heu. (This fact was +promptly reported to Henry.) Here, Vigneulles says, Richard meant to +"<i>passer mélancolie et passer son dueil</i>." However, Sébille's "<i>Allemans</i>" +found him out, and one day very nearly captured him. So "Blanche Rose" +thought it prudent to seek safer quarters. He found them at Toul. Nicolas +does not appear to have followed him so far, nor to have troubled himself +much further about his faithless wife. This put the Thirteen in a fix. +They had the lady on their hands, and were sorely puzzled what to do with +her. Nicolas would not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> have her on any account, and could not at +Thionville be made to take her; and restore her to Richard they in +propriety could not. After much deliberation, having detained her a full +fortnight at public expense, they cut the knot to their own satisfaction +by handing Madame Sébille over to her brother, one Gaudin, a butcher, who +was to take care of her. Gaudin gave her in charge to an old woman selling +wax candles. Madame Sébille was under strict injunction not to leave the +city. But who could expect her to observe that command? Anyhow, one fire +morning, pretending that she had a pilgrimage to perform to "St. Trottin," +she made her way outside the city gates disguised as a <i>vendangeresse</i>, +with a basket by her side and a sickle in her hand. Outside the walls she +was met by friends who at once put her into a page's clothes, in which, of +course, she marched as straight as she could to Toul, and joined "Blanche +Rose," to her swain's delight as well as her own. Richard had once more +"<i>ne dédaigné de risquer un peu de honte contre beaucoup de plaisir</i>." He +and his lady-love were now outside the jurisdiction of the Thirteen, and +might therefore consider themselves safe. But upon the abettors of the +lady's flight the magistrates visited their share in the offence with all +the greater rigour. Notwithstanding Richard's earnest interposition, they +heavily fined and banished them. Thus ends the story of Richard's amour; +for what became of Madame Sébille afterwards, neither history nor +tradition records. She was not allowed to enjoy the company of her knight +long; for stirring events were in train, which required his presence +elsewhere.</p> + +<p>In 1521 a powerful alliance of European States was formed against Francis +I., designed to humble the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>victor of Marignano. It comprised the Emperor, +the Pope, the King of England, Florence, Venice, and Genoa. In 1522 +England invaded Picardy and Flanders. That put an end to the treaty +engagements of 1514, and made Richard's services allowable as well as +needful to the French king. Indeed "Blanche Rose" did not wait to be +summoned. The State papers and other official publications of that period +relate how busy he was plotting against England and Scotland. King Francis +took a delight in parading his partiality for the Duke of Albany and the +"Duke of Suffolk." He rode in public with one of them on one side and one +on the other. He slapped Richard on the back and said in the hearing of +the Court: "My Lord of Suffolk, I will set you in England with 40,000 men +within few days." He proposed a marriage for Richard with the daughter of +the Duke of Holstein, and planned sundry invasions of England which, +happily, did not come off. But Richard joined the French army under Guise +and Vendôme, and fought against his countrymen in Picardy. There he raised +a corps of 2,000 men on his own authority, and led this welcome +reinforcement to Francis at St. Jean de Moustiers. In 1524 he accompanied +Albany into Scotland, without, however, doing much hurt. But he greatly +frightened Henry's officers. We find Fitzwilliam writing to Wolsey, urging +him, in face of "his wretched traitor" being in the field, to "hasten over +some men to give courage to the Flemings."</p> + +<p>Then came the campaign which led to the catastrophe of Pavia. Richard +joined the French army at Marseilles, and was, in company with Francis of +Lorraine, placed at the head of his old corps the German <i>lansquenets</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> +who were delighted to fight under so practised and trusted a leader. They +were 6,000 at the beginning of the campaign, pitted against a larger +number of their own brethren under Frundsberg, in the Emperor's service. +On St. Matthias Day, in 1525, the battle of Pavia was fought, which lost +Francis his liberty. Francis, as usual, showed no want of dash, but a +lamentable lack of prudence. Mistaking the enemy's retreat, under the fire +of his guns, for a settled defeat, he sent his infantry after them, +placing the bulk of his army between the foe and his own artillery. The +allies were not slow to turn this false move to account. Charging back +upon their foes, they overwhelmed them with superior numbers. That lost +the French the day. Richard's <i>lansquenets</i> did their best to retrieve the +error. Having knelt down, as their manner was, and thrown dust behind +them, they rushed, singing their familiar war-songs, into the fray with an +impetus which promised to break the hostile ranks. "Had but the Switzers +fought like the <i>lansquenets</i>," Francis said after the battle, "the day +would have been ours." But the odds were too many against them. They were +met by their own fellow-<i>lansquenets</i>—each side being furious with the +other. The German men were wroth at seeing their comrades on the other +side, fighting against their own country—the French at seeing their +brother-soldiers desert so faithful an employer as Francis. So no quarter +was given on either side. And the French <i>lansquenets</i>—they had lost +one-fourth of their number before the charge began—being wedged in +between a superior force of Germans closing in on either side, were simply +crushed as between two millstones. The list of killed was long—and +brilliant.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> Among the slain were the two captains of the <i>lansquenets</i>, +Francis of Lorraine and Richard de la Pole. The latter had—as a painting +preserved in the Ashmolean Museum indicates—died protecting Francis with +his sword. He was found buried under "<i>un monceau</i>" of dead enemies +against whom he had fought. There was loud rejoicing in the camp of the +allies. It was given out that "three kings" had been taken or +killed—Francis, the unfortunate King of Navarre, and, "to make up the +trinity of kings," says a despatch addressed to Wolsey, "La Rose Blanche, +whom they call the King of Scots." Appended to the curious despatch which +Frundsberg forwarded to the Emperor, giving a report of the battle—the +oldest record extant—is a drawing, showing three crowned knights, fancy +portraits of the "kings."</p> + +<p>One is prepared to find Henry VIII. ordering a triumph, and congratulating +himself upon his happy riddance from a rival who had been more of a thorn +in his side than the present generation is probably aware. But it does +seem small to read, in the State Papers, of one of Henry's tools begging +from Wolsey the king's authority for seizing "some goods of no great +amount" that Richard had left at Metz.</p> + +<p>The French were far more chivalrous in their treatment of the dead +warrior. We read in Camden that "for his singular valour" his very enemy, +the Duke of Bourbon, "honoured his remains with splendid obsequies, and +attended in person as one of the chief mourners." Francis expressed his +attachment to the fallen, and his indebtedness to him for brilliant +services. "<i>La France</i>," says Gaillard, "<i>perdit en lui un allié utile, +qui la servit efficacement et sans rien exiger d'elle</i>." Considering that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> +he was an English subject, that may sound questionable praise. But though +he may have shown too great willingness to avail himself of the excuse, it +should be borne in mind that it was England's kings who first drove him +into treason.</p> + +<p>The chapter of Metz, grateful for Richard's liberality, passed the +following "resolution"—as we should say—founding a mass for the repose +of their benefactor's soul: "Aprilis anno Domini 1525 in conflictu apud +Paviensem civitatem quo tunc Franciscus Gallorum rex per exercitum +Romanorum imperatoris captus et Hispaniam captivus ductus extituit, +habito, obiit quondam illuster Richardus dux de Suffolk qui domum nostram +dictam à la Haute Pierre sibi ante per nos ad vitam locatam obtinens valde +somptuose restauravit, unde statuimus nunc anniversarium quotannum +Ecclesiâ nostrâ pro salute animæ suæ perpetuo celebrari."</p> + +<p>That mass ought, of course, to be read still. However, deans and chapters +have as little respect for "pious founders"—though these be their own +predecessors—as British Parliaments in democratic days. Consequently, the +ecclesiastical function has long since been discontinued.</p> + +<p>Apart from Richard's death, Henry did not find himself much of a gainer by +the victory of Pavia. He had contributed nothing directly to the battle, +and Charles V. accordingly would concede him none of the spoils. On the +contrary, grasping monarch that he was, under cover of a marriage-portion +to be given to Henry's daughter, he asked for a subsidy of 600,000 ducats. +We need not be surprised to find Henry shortly after concluding a treaty +with France, which secured him two millions of crowns.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>One more notice we have of Richard de la Pole, the last of his race. +Describing Pavia, as he found it in 1594, Fynes Moryson says: "Neere that +(the castle) is the Church of St. Austine; there I did reade this +inscription, written in Latin upon another sepulchre:—The French King +Francis I. being taken by Cæsar's army neere Pavia, the 24th of February, +in the yeere 1525, among other lords, these were slaine: Francis Duke of +Lorayne, Richard de la Pole, Englishman and Duke of Suffolk, banished by +his tyrant King Henry VIII. At last Charles Parker of Morley, kinseman of +the said Richard, banished out of England for the Catholike faith by +Queene Elizabeth, and made Bishop here by the bounty of Philip, King of +Spain, did out of his small means erect this monument to him."</p> + +<p>This is the last memorial of a life which created not a little stir in its +day, and might under more favourable circumstances have been made signally +serviceable to Richard's own country. Even that last memorial has probably +now disappeared. But still "White Rose" may fairly claim a place at any +rate in the lighter records of English history.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> +<h2>III.—THE EARLY ANCESTORS OF OUR QUEEN.<a name='fna_5' id='fna_5' href='#f_5'><small>[5]</small></a></h2> + + +<p>Thanks to Cook, thanks to our all-reporting newspaper-press, and thanks, +not least, to our truly Athenian craving continually for "some new thing," +Ammergau has become almost a household word among us. Everybody has heard +of its "Passion Play." Every tenth year sees Britons rushing in shoals to +the picturesque banks of the Ammer, to witness there, while it may be +witnessed, the last surviving specimen of that popular religious drama +which in bygone times helped the Church so materially, and over so wide an +area, to impress her truths upon men's minds. But I question, if among all +those thousands of sight-seeing Britons, who gather as interested +spectators, there are many who realize in what very close relation that +same little valley stands to the early fortunes of the ancient House whose +Head now occupies our Throne. How many, indeed, among<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> us can be said to +know very much at all about that family? And yet the history of that race +ought to be of some interest to us. In these latter days it has become +intertwined with the history of our own nation. It is marked by striking +contrasts of ups and downs, at one time leading the Guelphs on a rapid +triumphal progress up to the very steps of the Imperial Throne, then again +dropping them down to the obscure level of paltry insignificance. It tells +of a race endowed with a strong individuality—manly, chivalrous, +generous; but generally also headstrong and reckless. It is interwoven +with pathetic legend. Its early beginnings are lost in the dim haze of a +prehistoric age. Its latter end has not yet come. There is no dynasty now +surviving equally ancient—there is but one which can join in the boast +which up to a few decades ago the Guelphs could make:—that on the throne +on which it was planted centuries ago it has retained its hold to the +present generation. That other dynasty is the family, Slav by descent, of +the Obotrite Grand Dukes of Mecklenburg—the same race whom our Alfred the +Great speaks of as "Apdrede." The present grand dukes are the direct +descendants of that terrible Prince Niklot, of the twelfth century, whom +among German princes only the Guelph, Henry the Lion, was found strong +enough to subdue. But before Bodrician Niklot had mounted his barbarian +throne, Henry the Generous had already been installed as chief over +Lüneburg—the principality over which his family continued to rule down to +1866, when the cruel Fortune of War decided against its last Guelph chief. +In the adjoining Duchy of Brunswick, over which, as forming part of +ancient Saxony, the Guelphs were set as heads<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> in 1127, the family +continued to hold sway till 1884, when Death removed the last scion of +their older line, in the person of the late Duke of Brunswick. The Guelph +pedigree, however, goes very much farther back than the time of Henry. +Long even before Guelph Odoacer, at the head of his Teuton hordes, +dethroned that caricature of an Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, there were +Guelph "Agilolfings" leading to battle, as trusted chiefs, their own +Scyrian tribes. What the later history of the family might have been, if +to its constitutional valour and generosity had been joined the less +showy, but far more useful, qualities of prudence and judgment, we may +now, by the light of past events, readily conjecture. The Guelphs were in +Henry's day by far the strongest dynasty in Germany—at a period when for +the Imperial throne above all things a strong dynasty was needed. Had +Germany elected Henry the Generous as Emperor, as everybody expected that +she would, the Guelphs might still be wearing the crown of Charlemagne, +and Germany might have a different tale to tell, both of her past +experiences and of her present position. For it deserves to be noticed +that all the troubles which came upon the Empire, by minute subdivision of +its territory, and by the setting up of "opposition emperors," sprang +directly and demonstrably from contests provoked with the Guelphs. It was +Henry IV.'s resistance to Welf IV. that led to the multiplication of +vassal crowns, which subsequently became a curse to Germany. It was the +Powers pledged to the support of the Guelphs—most notably the Popes and +our Cœur-de-Lion—who put forward those troublesome "opposition +emperors," the forerunners and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>direct cause of the ruinous +Interregnum—"die kaiserlose, die schreckliche Zeit"—and by such means of +the political prostration of the country enduring through centuries.</p> + +<p>But our interest, in England, lies more with the Guelphs than with +Germany. One cannot help sympathizing with a race which, being evidently +designed for greatness, advanced towards it with giant strides, only to +find the prize at which it ambitiously grasped snatched from its hand in +the very moment of seeming attainment.</p> + +<p>Of the very early history of the Guelphs we have fairly definite, but only +very fragmentary, information. They were leaders of the Scyri, we learn—a +Teuton race of the Semnone family, mentioned by Pliny, by Zosimus, and by +Jornandes—who poured over Germany, in the days of Valentinian, along with +hosts of other German tribes, and who, having been all but exterminated by +the Goths, united with some other septs of the same family, the Rugii, the +Heruli, the Turcilingi, to form a composite nation which, for convenience, +adopted the common name of Bajuvarii. Bavarians accordingly the Guelphs +originally were, as the historian Theganus is careful to point out—not +Swabians, as German historians have often named them; Bavarians, as seems +to be evidenced, among other things, by the dark features and black hair +which for a long time distinguished them—more especially from their +opponents of a full century, the fair-haired and light-complexioned +Hohenstaufens. Of the confederate Bajuvarii, the Agilolfings or Guelphs +still continued chiefs. Under a Guelph, Eticho—whom Priscus Rhetor +praises as a man of exceptional capacity and high character—we find the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +nation attaching themselves as auxiliaries to the host of Attila, and +rendering the Hunnish king signal service. Eticho was by no means a mere +rough warrior. He fully appreciated Roman culture and civilization—which +led the eunuch, Chrysaphas, to propose to him the murder of his chief. The +honest Guelph rejected such suggestion with scorn. From the midst of the +Bajuvarii went forth the Guelph Odoacer on his march to Rome. The +Bajuvarii were then settled on the banks of the Danube—roughly speaking +in what is now Austria, <i>plus</i> Bavaria and the Tyrol. Hence we find the +earliest known seats of the Guelphs in the Bavarian Highlands. Ammergau +was theirs, and Hohenschwangau was one of their earliest castles, founded, +indeed, by a Guelph. When, after a revolt of the Rugii—which was +successfully suppressed by Odoacer—some of the allied tribes dispersed, +to seek new homes in the tempting districts on the banks of the Ens and +around the lake of Constance—both at the time sorely devastated and +depopulated by the Goths—the Guelphs, without giving up their old seats, +accompanied their men. And thus it came about that the earliest castle +which we hear of as having been built by the Guelphs is supposed to have +stood in Thurgau, of which country the Guelphs subsequently became Counts. +This is all mere inference; but as such it seems legitimate. For the +monastery of Rheinau is known to have been founded by a Guelph. And such +monasteries were never built far away from the founder's stronghold. Hence +the Guelphs' connection with the Black Forest, of which the Guelph St. +Conrad is the venerated patron saint; and hence their connection with +Alsace, of which they were long Counts—such powerful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> Counts that Pepin +the Short judged it advisable to reduce them to the position of removable +governors—<i>missi cameræ</i>. [S. Odilia, the patron saint of Alsace, whose +name is a household word among her own countrymen, and about whom Goethe +grew enthusiastic, was an undoubted Guelph.] Hence, also, their connection +with the whilom country of the Burgundians, among the nobles of which land +we find a Guelph chief, in 605, standing up manfully against the +aggressive usurpations of Protadius, a Frankish major-domo, and acting as +spokesman.</p> + +<p>As <i>missi cameræ</i> the Guelphs had a serious brush with the Church—the +only tiff, practically speaking, which ever occurred between them and +Rome. Of this quarrel, in which the Guelphs were probably in the right, we +find a tradition kept up for some centuries. The Abbot of St. Gall figured +in those days in Germany as the exact counterpart to the rich and grasping +"Abbot of Canterbury" of our ballad. For some pilfering of crown lands the +Guelph Warin, as a conscientious <i>missus cameræ</i>, had Abbot Othmar +imprisoned, which brought about the Abbot's death. Rome at once canonized +her "martyr," and exacted heavy retribution from his "persecutors," not +merely in the shape of severe penances and the foundation of masses, but +by the more substantial satisfaction of large transfers of landed estates +to the injured abbey—Affeltangen and Wiesendangen, and I know not how +many properties more, till even to the pious Guelphs the demands appeared +to grow beyond all measure of reason. It is true, they recouped themselves +elsewhere—<i>quod si cui minus credibile videatur</i>, say the monkish +chroniclers—"which, if to any it appear a little incredible, let him read +the ancient histories,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> and he will find nearly all their territories to +have been violently taken and held by them of others."</p> + +<p>It is with Warin's son Isembart, living in the time of Charlemagne, that +the better known history of the Guelphs begins. He was the hero of that +ridiculous fable about the "pups," which has been invented to explain +their adoption of their peculiar name. Isembart's wife Irmentrude, it is +said, having uncharitably reproached a poor beggarwoman for having borne +triplets—which she held to be a proof of unfaithful conduct towards her +husband—was punished for her gratuitous accusation by being herself made +to bear at one birth, not three sons, but twelve. To screen herself from +the same reproach which she had unkindly fastened upon the beggar, she hit +upon the rather inept device of having eleven of those newly-born sons +drowned as supposed "whelps." The twelfth she kept—and he is said to have +become "Welf," the founder of the race. The other eleven were happily +rescued by their father, who came up just in time to save them. Ten of +them lived to become founders of princely houses. The eleventh became a +bishop. One of them is said to have been Thassilo, the reputed ancestor of +the Hohenzollerns. The real meaning of all this legend obviously is that, +by survival and intermarriage with other illustrious families of Europe, +the Guelphs have in course of time become, in a sense, the parent of most +reigning lines—Zähringens, Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns, Capets, Bourbons, +and the rest of them.</p> + +<p>The fable of children being sent to be drowned as "whelps"—and in every +instance happily rescued—is, as it happens, by no means peculiar to the +Guelphs. It occurs in the Black Forest, in connection with a family +bearing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> the name of "Hund." It occurs in Lower Lorraine in that pretty +<i>trouvère</i> legend recording the doings of "Helias," the "Chevalier au +Cygne," whom we moderns know as "Lohengrin." It is interesting to note +that, along with that fable, Guelph tradition in Bavaria shares with the +tradition of Lorraine the far more attractive and poetical myth of an +enchanted swan—the swan, in fact, of "Lohengrin"—a bird specifically +emblematizing purity—whence the extinct "Order of the Swan" of the +Margraves of Brandenburg. That order was an aristocratic "Social Purity +League," which Frederick William IV. would gladly have revived, could he +but have found sufficient candidates for it among his nobility. But his +proposal met with very scanty support. Hence, also, the equally ancient +"Order of the Swan" of Cleves, having a like object.</p> + +<p>As regards the "whelps" of the Guelphs, the existence of very different +and contradictory versions helps to show what a made-up story the whole +legend is. The only authority for it is the monk Bucelinus, who himself +quotes no more ancient source. And he is said to have invented it for the +mere purpose of showing off his monkish Latin, in order to deduce from the +Latin word for "whelp"—<i>catulus</i>—an imaginary descent, supposed to be +complimentary, from a fabulous Roman senator "Catilina," and through him +from the ancient Trojan kings. In opposition to this, it is a fact that +there were "Welfs" long before Isembart. The name Guelph, therefore, could +not have been first suggested by Irmentrude's unsuccessful stratagem. +Isembart lived in the ninth century. But, as early as the fifth, Odoacer +had a brother named "Welf." "Welf" and "Eticho" were,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> in fact, the two +traditional names of the family, from prehistoric days downward. Sir +Andrew Halliday's suggestion, that the name may have been first taken from +an ensign which the Guelphs are supposed to have borne in battle, is +equally wide of the mark. For that ensign, we know, from the Agilolfings +down to the Hanovers, never was a "whelp" at all, but a "lion." In truth +the name "Welf" has nothing whatever to do with "whelp," but is derived +from "hwelpe," "huelfe"—help. As Eticho means "hero," so Welf means +"helper"—<i>auxiliator</i>. The popular Latin rendering for it in olden days +was "Bonifacius." "Salvator" would be a more exact rendering, but would +obviously be liable to misinterpretation. In confirmation of this theory, +we find that, migrating into Italy about Charlemagne's time, a Guelph, on +becoming Count of Lucca, as a matter of course assumes the name of +"Bonifacius." And in his line, for further confirmation, we observe the +same peculiarity which marks the Guelphs, that is, the naming of all sons +of the family, without distinction, by the style of "Count"—a practice +altogether unknown in those days among other families.</p> + +<p>So much for the name and origin of the Guelphs. Now I must ask the reader +to return with me to Ammergau, which is peculiarly sacred to the memory of +Eticho, styled the Second, who was probably the son of Isembart. Eticho +lived in the days of Emperor Lewis the Pious, who in second nuptials +married the Guelph's sister Judith. The birth, by Judith, of little +Charles—who became "Charles the Bald"—gave rise to that unnatural war +between Lewis and his three elder sons, in the course of which alike +Judith and two of her brothers were imprisoned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> in Tortona, from which +place of confinement Bonifacius II. of Lucca, marching to their relief, +avowedly as a kinsman, loyally rescued them. Eticho's daughter, Lucardis, +again married an emperor, Arnulf of Carinthia—of whom Carlyle need not +have spoken quite so unkindly, as of a "Carolingian Bastard," seeing that +he made a far better ruler than any of his legitimate kinsmen of his own +time. Thanks to Lucardis it was that Eticho was driven to seek a refuge, +as a hermit, in the wild seclusion of Ammergau. He went there to mourn, +with twelve chosen companions, the loss of Guelph independence, which his +son Henry, so he thought, had at the instigation of his sister +ingloriously bartered away for a "mess of pottage"—a pretty substantial +one, it must be owned. In truth, Henry did exceedingly well for his house. +This is how the Saxon Annalist relates the story:—Henry, ambitious for +wealth and power, agreed to swear fealty to the Emperor, if in return, in +addition to his own lands, he were given in fee as much territory as he +could drive around with a car, or else with a plough—on that point the +versions differ—in the time between sunrise and the conclusion of the +Emperor's afternoon nap. Arnulf thought the bargain a cheap one for +himself. However, Henry had stationed relays of the swiftest horses that +he could procure at various points, and with their help he raced round the +coveted territory with such marvellous speed that—having started from the +Lech—by the time when the Emperor awoke he had actually reached the Isar. +The Emperor was just beginning to move restlessly in his chair and to show +signs of returning consciousness, when Henry arrived at the foot of a +mountain which he had designed as the extreme limit of his new +possessions. If his mare<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> would but last out the journey, one brisk gallop +would carry him to the appointed goal. Unfortunately, the mare refused—in +consequence of which, for many centuries the Guelphs would not mount a +mare. The hill which Henry thus narrowly failed to obtain still goes by +the name of Mährenberg, the "Mare's mountain." Arnulf considered that he +had been "done." But, having pledged his word, he held himself bound. +Eticho, grieved, mourned out his life in his hermit's cell in Ammergau. +Henry—who was after his adventure named <i>Heinricus cum aureo curru</i>—does +not appear to have made any particular effort to propitiate his father. +But when the old man was dead, he carried his remains with great pomp and +show to the monastery of Altomünster, very near his own new seat of +Altorf, where he raised a gorgeous tomb to Eticho's memory, at which +Guelph chiefs made it a practice to kneel for generations after, thus +evidencing their respect for an ancestor who came to be looked upon as +specifically the champion of independence. The homage paid became a cult; +and in Ammergau shortly after rose up, where Eticho's cell had stood, a +wooden memorial church, to be replaced, in 1350, by a much larger +monastery, built at the expense of Emperor Lewis the Bavarian, a +descendant of Eticho. The monastery is still known as "Ettal"—that is, +"Eticho's Thal," "Etichonis vallis."</p> + +<p>Altomünster, I may mention in passing, was the "Minster" supposed to have +been founded by S. Alto, a Scottish saint, the companion and disciple of +S. Boniface, who managed, like Moses, to make a hard rock give forth a +spring of rushing water by striking it with his staff. The spring still +flows; and, as it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> specially blessed by S. Boniface, its water is no +doubt entitled to the peculiar veneration in which it is held to the +present day.</p> + +<p>From their new seat at Altorf, up to the death of Welf III., the Guelphs +continued to take their name. They were specifically "the Guelphs of +Altorf." While there, they managed to better their fortune not a little. +It was a rough neighbourhood then, with nothing but forest all round, +forest spreading out for miles, stocked with wolves, and bears, and all +manner of game. To the present day some thirteen thousand acres remain +under timber. There are plenty of dales, and caves, and peaks, and the +like, in the district, which have given rise to an innumerable host of +legends. One of Henry's sons was that excellent Bishop Conrad, who became +the family saint <i>par excellence</i>, and who first inaugurated the +traditional friendship with Rome. Welf II., feeling his power growing, +ventured to break a lance with the Emperor, in support of his friend +Ernest of Swabia, whose Burgundian possessions—very large ones—the +Emperor had wrongfully seized. It did no good to Ernest. But it taught the +Emperor that the Guelphs had become a power to be reckoned with—a power +with whom it was advisable to stand well. And accordingly we find the next +Emperor, Henry III., with a view to propitiating the succeeding Guelph, +Welf III., preferring him to the dukedom of Carinthia, which was a very +important office in those days—Carinthia being a frontier march, and +embracing Verona and part of Venetia. So great was the importance attached +to this position that for seven years Henry had, for want of a +sufficiently strong candidate, advisedly kept it open.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> Welf took the +Duchy—and then pursued his own course, defying the Emperor at Roncaglia, +and refusing to render him service—which was politic and, according to +the notions of his day, not dishonest.</p> + +<p>Welf III. was the last Guelph of the male line. After him we find the +Guelphs of the female branch succeeding to the family honours—the +"Guelphs of Ravensburg," as they were fond of styling themselves. These +are the Guelphs from whom our Queen is descended. To what extent the +family had added to their estate while settled at Altorf came to be seen +when, in 1055, Welf III. died. The possessions which he left embraced a +good bit of Alemannia, the greater half of Bavaria (which then included +the present Austria), the larger part of the Tyrol, and a tidy slice of +Northern Italy. It is no wonder that "Mother Church," always alive to +temporal opportunities, cast her eyes a little longingly on so fair an +estate, and, in default of a male heir, demanded it for herself. But there +was a Guelph beforehand with her—Welf IV., the son of Chuniza, the sister +of Welf III., by her marriage with Azzo (a direct descendant of the Guelph +Bonifacius). Welf IV. proved himself a particularly strong and able +ruler—<i>vir armis strenuus, concilio providus, sapientia tam forensi quam +civili præditus</i>, the monkish chroniclers style him. Hence his surname, +which he well deserved—"the Strong." By his accession he added to the +family territories those valuable estates in Italy which for a long period +made his family one of the most wealthy in Europe. For Azzo was reputed +the richest and one of the most powerful <i>marchiones</i> of Italy. Welf's +younger brother was Hugo, the first of the family to take the name of +Este,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> who became the founder of a race which has been held particularly +noble. Welf IV. secured his family other gains. Man of war that he was, +the Emperor Henry IV. was thankful to have him for a supporter in his +struggles with the rebellious Saxons, before whom the Swabian companies +had recoiled. At the battle of the Unstrut Welf completely shattered their +power, and thereby secured to Henry for a time the peaceful possession of +his purple—and for himself, as a reward, the Dukedom of Bavaria. That +office was worth even more than the Dukedom of Carinthia. For at that time +Germany owned but four regular dukes, representing severally the four +principal tribes which made up the nation. And with those four dukes, +under the Emperor, rested, in the main, the power in the Empire.</p> + +<p>Following in the footsteps of his uncle, we find Welf IV. drawing closer +the links which connected him with Swabia, while correspondingly loosening +his proprietary relations with Bavaria, and in token of such policy fixing +his residence in pretty Ravensburg. The reason evidently was, that the +laws of Swabia conceded to vassal lords more extensive rights than did the +laws of Bavaria. Accordingly, we find Henry the Generous, when +dispossessed of his duchy by Conrad III., appealing specifically to the +laws of Swabia against the Emperor's monstrously unfair judgment. But, +apart from that political reason, Ravensburg was also no doubt more +attractive on the score of its pleasant situation and its delightful +surroundings. You may identify both sites, when sailing down the lake of +Constance, among that picturesquely outlined cluster of hills, on which +your eye is sure to rest instinctively—the hills rising<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> on the northern +bank, in the very face of the tall Alps of Appenzell, among which the +lopsided Säntis is particularly conspicuous. From Ravensburg both the lake +and the Alps are clearly visible, and, moreover, a charming landscape +nearer than either, with that pretty Schussenthal right in front, and a +multitude of rocky peaks dotted about the forest, alternating with shady +dales, smiling fields, and lush meadows. Of the castle there is now but a +crumbling weather-worn old gateway left. The town still exists, and +flourishes after a fashion—consisting of a group of quaint, picturesque, +out-of-date houses, looking for all the world like a piece of grey +antiquity recalled to life. At Ravensburg used to be stored the Archives +of the Guelph family. A valuable and interesting collection they must have +been. What has become of them nobody knows. They may have been destroyed +by fire. They may, with heaps of other precious material for history, have +been carried to greedy Vienna, to be there preserved as so much lumber.</p> + +<p>During Welf IV.'s reign happened that historic conflict between Church and +State, Pope Hildebrand and Henry IV. of Germany, for his share in which +Henry has been censured a good deal more than in justice he deserves. +Really, in going to Canossa, the Emperor did—so far as his intention was +concerned—a very prudent thing. The German princes had bluntly informed +him that while he remained at feud with the Pope, he would look for their +obedience in vain. With the Pope, accordingly, Henry strove to set himself +right. Could he certainly foresee that, urged on by the malignant Countess +Matilda, Gregory would take advantage of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> his duress, while he was +literally hemmed in between two outer walls of the castle, to force upon +him so bitter a cup of humiliation? Matilda was a Guelph—destined to play +a very important part in Guelph history. Welf IV. was her near kinsman, +and had, moreover, become a zealous supporter of the Pope. Therefore we +can scarcely wonder at finding him with Hildebrand and Matilda at Canossa, +witnessing his chief's degradation. We can not wonder, either, at finding +Welf, when Henry had once more fallen out with the Pope, commanding the +rebel forces raised to support the "opposition Emperor," Rudolph of +Swabia. And, being a Guelph, it is no wonder that he should have taken +advantage of the opportunity of his victory, to extort from the Emperor +terms materially benefiting his own house—namely, the recognition of his +private property in Swabia as held directly from the Emperor, and—which +was more important—the recognition of his Bavarian dukedom as hereditary +in his family. How great was the power wielded at that period in Germany +by this early Guelph prince, is evident from the fact that after his +conclusion of a separate peace with the Emperor the opposition practically +collapsed, and Hermann, the new "opposition emperor," found himself almost +without support. Welf IV., I ought to mention, was the first Guelph to +connect his family in a manner with our island. He married Judith, the +daughter of Count Baldwin of Flanders, and the widow of Tostig, King of +Northumberland, the son of Earl Godwine, of Kent, and brother of the +unfortunate King Harold. Leaving Judith at home with the two sons whom she +had borne him, Welf and Henry, Welf IV. started in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> 1098, at an advanced +age, on a crusade to the Holy Land, which he successfully accomplished. +But on his return home he was struck down by a fatal illness, which +overtook him in the island of Cyprus.</p> + +<p>This brings us down to the time of a tragic little incident which has +furnished the subject for the favourite family legend of the Guelphs. At +the time of their father's death both Welf and Henry were mere boys, left +in charge of a good monk, Kuno, a Benedictine of Weingarten. Considering +how important a part Weingarten has played in Guelph history—that its +monks have become the carefully minute but provokingly inaccurate +chroniclers of the Guelph family—and that, thanks to the pious liberality +of the late King of Hanover, in the Abbey church of Weingarten the +gathered bones of most of the early Guelph lords have found an honoured +resting-place, perhaps I ought to say just a word about that monastery. It +was Welf the Third's foundation, set up at a short distance only from +Ravensburg, on a site commanding a magnificent view of the country all +around, and was intended to provide accommodation for those pious monks, +originally of Altomünster, who had been twice, at very short intervals, +burnt out of Altorf. It still stands; its three towers form a conspicuous +landmark in the Schussengau; and to its shrine still are undertaken +pilgrimages from a wide circuit—a survival that from a worship of olden +days which was one of the great spectacles of the mediæval Church. Before +setting out for the Holy Land, Welf IV. entrusted to the monks of +Weingarten for safe keeping, a relic which was at the time held in far +more than ordinary esteem. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> consisted of some drops of the Saviour's +blood, believed to be thoroughly genuine, and preserved, enclosed in a +costly vessel made of pure gold of Arabia and valued at three thousand +florins. There was a history to those drops. Pious inquirers have +ascertained that the name of the centurion who was present at the +Saviour's crucifixion, as the Gospel relates, was Longinus, and that he +was a native of Mantua. Seeing the precious drops trickling down, it is +said, he caught them up in a vessel, and, becoming converted by what he +witnessed, returned home to Mantua, still reverently carrying them with +him. He was in due time baptized, and became a missionary and a martyr. +For something like eight hundred years the Holy Blood remained buried in +his garden at Mantua. Then it was discovered by accident, only to be once +more concealed somewhere or other. But in 1049, when Pope Leo IX. happened +to be at Mantua, once more it came to light, to be instantly claimed by +the Pope on behalf of the Supreme See. The Mantuans objected; but in the +end Leo obtained, at any rate, part of the precious treasure. Of his share +he kept half. The other half he gave away to his friend the Emperor Henry +III., who, on his death, bequeathed it to Baldwin of Flanders, from whom, +in her turn, Judith got it—carrying it with her to Northumberland, and +then on to Ravensburg, where she dutifully made it over to her husband. +And when Welf started on his crusade, he, as observed, entrusted the relic +to the monastery of Weingarten. The monks knew well how to turn so +valuable a possession to account. The Good Friday ceremony of "Worshipping +the Sacred Blood" became one of the most frequented, most <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>impressive, and +most honoured ceremonies of the Church. As many as thirty thousand people +have been known to flock to the place from all quarters, turning the +hillside into a huge pilgrim's camp, and contributing not a little to the +prosperity of the religious house. Under the circumstances, the monks +decided to restrict the attendance at the procession—which was the main +part of the ceremony—to horsemen only, whence the whole function came to +be popularly named "Der Blutritt." As many as fifteen thousand horsemen +are known to have joined in the monster cavalcade. At the head rode the +<i>Custos</i> of the relic, a monk, holding up the Blood for adoration. He was +followed by a horseman doing duty for Longinus, clad as a Roman warrior, +bearing in his hand the supposed "sacred spear." After him marched a small +squad of other horsemen, representing Roman legionaries. Next followed a +goodly muster of Princes and Counts and Lords. And the rear was brought up +by a long file of mounted soldiers, contributed by the surrounding dozen +or so of petty principalities, all gay in their best uniforms, reflecting +in the variety of their dress the unhappy division of the Empire, and +joining lustily in the sacred song <i>Salvator Mundi</i>.</p> + +<p>But we must now return to Ravensburg and young Welf. Not far off from +Ravensburg still stands, conspicuous upon its lofty hill, the old castle +of Waldburg, the cradle of the noble race of the Truchsesses of Waldburg, +who were at times rather a rough set. There is a story of one particularly +brusque Count who, having rallied the Abbot of Weingarten upon his +sumptuous living and soft raiment, and having been told in reply that such +things were far more creditable than riding about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> country robbing and +stealing, promptly retorted with a vigorous box on the Abbot's ear—at the +Abbot's own table. The Count thereupon withdrew, but shortly after paid +the monastery an even more hostile visit, setting fire to the village and +burning it down to the ground. In punishment he was sentenced by the +Emperor to abstain for life from wearing a helmet. Hence the bare head and +flowing locks of the Knight of Waldburg, always to be seen in the thick of +the fray, which became a valued feature in the family escutcheon. But at +the time of which I am speaking the Waldburgs were thoroughly peaceable +folk. The particular knight of Welf's day had, as it happened, a lovely +daughter, just about two years younger than young Welf, who, of course, +fell desperately in love with Bertha, as in return Bertha did with him. +Hundreds of innocent little amatory interviews took place between the two, +either at Waldburg or else in the forest, with the full acquiescence of +Kuno, who saw nothing to object to in the proposed match. However, Kuno +died, and was in his guardianship replaced by a monk of a very different +character—Anthony, a schemer and intriguer—who would without doubt have +been a Jesuit, if the Order had been then established. To Welf's utter +dismay, this Anthony, one fine morning, informed his young charge that in +the interest alike of the Guelph family and of the Church he, a youth of +eighteen, must forthwith marry Gregory VIIth's friend, Matilda of Canossa, +Spoleto, &c., the persecutress of Henry IV., a Guelph herself, the widow +of Godfrey the Hunchback of Lorraine, very rich and very +powerful—<i>nobilissimi ac ditissimi marchionis Bonifacii filia</i>—but +mannish—<i>femina virilis animi</i>—accustomed to leading her own men in +battle,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> scheming, ugly, ill-tempered, and forty-three to boot. Hers were +splendid possessions—Parma, and Mantua, and Ferrara, and Spoleto, and +Reggio, and Lucca, and Tuscany. But all these riches were as nothing in +the eyes of Welf, who had made up his mind that he must marry Bertha, aged +sixteen, or no one. A little plot was quickly concocted, and one fine +night Welf, in disguise, might be seen slyly escorting Bertha, likewise in +disguise, and accompanied only by her private maid, Francisca, through the +forest down to Lindau, on the border of the lake, where a boat was in +readiness to bear the fugitives across to Constance. From that place, Welf +said—probably thinking of his mother's connections with our country—"we +will make our way straight to England, where a Guelph's arm and sword are +sure to be welcome and to find employment." The lake was reached, and the +oars splashed briskly over the smooth surface—when all of a sudden, at +half-way, over goes the boat, capsizing, and Bertha sinks down to the +bottom, to be seen no more. Diving, and swimming, and calling proved all +in vain. Thoroughly unhappy, indifferent to anything that might happen, +Welf consents to wed the elderly Matilda, with whom he settles down to +live at Spoleto, sullenly resigning himself to his fate. One day a nun +begs to be allowed to see him. She turns out to be Francisca, the maid, +driven by qualms of conscience to make a frank confession of a horrid +crime committed. Bribed by Monk Anthony, she said, she had on that +disastrous night drugged poor Bertha with a handkerchief—then, when she +was thoroughly drowsy, on the sly tied a stone to her feet—whereupon +Anthony, disguised as a boatman, had overturned the boat. Anthony had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +told her that there was no sin in all this, it was an act <i>ad majorem Dei +gloriam</i>; but her conscience would leave her no peace. Next day, at her +own wish, Francisca was executed as a murderess, and Welf left his +wife—who turned out to have been a party to the conspiracy—in anger and +disgust, vowing to see her no more, and formally repudiating her before +long—<i>nescio quo interveniente divorcio</i>, says the monkish chronicler.</p> + +<p>We have now reached the very eve of that brilliant period when the Guelphs +appeared to have risen, rapidly, high above other dynasties—only to sink +even more suddenly to a humble level of prosaic obscurity, on which they +were destined to continue for centuries. The records of that brief spell +of meteoric greatness read like a romance. The Guelphs were giants, +visibly overtopping all their contemporaries. Henry "the Great," Henry +"the Generous," Henry "the Lion"—their very names tell of vigour and +influence, of strength of character and striking individuality. Their +domains came to stretch from sea to sea, from the Northern Ocean, which we +call the German, to the Mediterranean—and breadthways across the whole +Continent of Germany, eastward into those still only half-explored Slav +regions in which dwelt the uncultured Bodricians and Luticzians, backed by +the Russians and the Poles. Even Denmark was in a state of dependence upon +them. And the Guelph Duchies represented a power almost superior to that +of the Empire. Had not Frederick Barbarossa been so very great a ruler, it +is said, Henry the Lion's realm would infallibly have either swallowed up +the rest of Germany or else have constituted itself a separate Empire. +Under Henry the Generous the Imperial Crown seemed to lie actually<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> at the +feet of the Guelph dynasty. They need but have stooped a little to pick it +up. But stooping was the one thing which they could not bring themselves +to do. As a result they were jockeyed out of this prize just as their late +successor was the other day jockeyed out of his kingdom of Hanover. +Germany, it is to be feared, lost more by that shabby trick than did the +Guelphs. Under a race of heroes like those Henrys, with plenty of power of +their own at their back to support them against rivals and malcontents, it +did not seem too much to expect that something like the halcyon days of +the Saxon emperors might have been brought back. All ended in smoke. There +was that family quarrel between Guelphs and Ghibellines, which ruined both +houses—unfortunately, the Guelphs first. It seems a strange coincidence +that the two rival cousins, Frederick Barbarossa and Henry the Lion, +should both have been born at Ravensburg. It seems odd, also, that after +being long the warmest of friends, the two houses should have become such +implacable foes. The Hohenstaufens had no one but Welf IV. to thank for +the Swabian crown. It was he who had extorted it from Henry IV. And it +seems more than strange, it seems hard, cruel, and unjust, that not only +should the Guelphs a second time have been punished in their private +capacity for what they had done in the service of the Empire, but that, +moreover, the Emperor's persecution, which led to their fall, should have +been, as I shall show, the direct consequence of loyal service rendered to +the Imperial Crown.</p> + +<p>Welf the Fifth's was a brief reign—and about the only pacific one in that +early period. A staunch friend to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> Pope, but at the same time strictly +loyal to the Emperor, he managed to overcome resistance, say the monks of +Weingarten, "by liberality and graciousness rather than by cruelty and +force." His brother, Henry, surnamed variously "the Black," and "the +Great," was a man of entirely different mould. He it was who about 1100 +first acquired by marriage with Wulfhilde, the daughter of Magnus, Duke of +Saxony, the valuable "allodium" of Lüneburg, which up to 1866 formed the +nucleus of Guelph possessions in Northern Germany. Henry's son, Henry the +Generous, bettered that example by obtaining the Saxon Dukedom. He was a +staunch friend to Lothair of Saxony, the Emperor of his time—married his +daughter Gertrude—and in his support made war upon the Hohenstaufens, who +had seized, without claim or title, Imperial territory, more especially +the city of Nuremberg. In 1126 his troops carried Nuremberg by storm, and +as a reward Lothair conferred the Dukedom of Saxony upon his son-in-law, +who thereby came to hold two dukedoms at the same time. The victory over +the Hohenstaufens was completed a few years later by Henry's capture (on +behalf of the Empire) of Ulm. Clearly Henry was altogether in the right. +But the Hohenstaufens, smarting under deserved defeat, seized the +opportunity of his absence—in Italy, where he was, to attend the +Emperor's coronation—to ravage his lands in revenge. Of course, he +retaliated. And thus was begun that memorable great feud which rent +Germany in two and brought it down to the very brink of ruin and +disintegration. The sad result might still have been averted if the +general expectation had been fulfilled, and Henry the Generous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> had been +elected to the Imperial throne. So confident was Lothair of his succession +that at his death he entrusted the Imperial insignia—those precious +<i>clenodia</i> of Trifels—to him for keeping. But the Hohenstaufens baulked +him by a clever election trick. Summoning the Electing Princes—a very +indeterminate body at that time—with the exception only of the Bavarians +and the Saxons, privately to Coblenz—not by any means a proper place for +the purpose—they easily secured the choice of Conrad, in which the Saxons +weakly acquiesced—being then still new to the rule of their Duke—and +which the Pope, just as weakly, confirmed. Little he knew what a scourge +he was binding for the punishment of his successors. Those two +confirmations practically decided the issue. Nevertheless, so little +assured did Conrad feel of his position that he fled from Augsburg by +night, fearing an attack from the Guelphists. Arrived at Würzburg, +contrary to all law and justice, he condemned Henry unheard, proclaimed +against him the sentence of proscription (<i>reichsacht</i>), and declared him +to have forfeited both his Duchies. A furious contest ensued, Welf VI. +fighting in Bavaria, Henry in Saxony. In Germany the two factions are +commonly spoken of as "Welf" and "Waiblingen." But it is by no means +certain that the latter name is correct. It is quite as possible that +"Ghibelline" may be intended to stand for "Giebelingen," the name of the +castle in which Frederick Barbarossa was brought up, and near which the +Hohenstaufens gained one of their first decisive victories over the +Guelphs. In the south things went for the most part against the latter. +Welf VI. had been <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>christened "the German Achilles." He tried to justify +that name—being seconded, rather feebly, by the Kings of Hungary and of +Sicily. But in spite of all his fighting, as the Bavarians showed +themselves lukewarm, his efforts fell short of adequate success. In the +north things went better. The Saxons, holding strong views in favour of +what we should term State rights, manfully stood by their Duke, who +pressed the Hohenstaufen Emperor so hard, that before long Conrad was +almost compelled to ask for an armistice. The armistice was granted; and +before it came to an end Henry died at Quedlinburg—it is said by poison. +That left the Guelphs at a serious disadvantage. For Welf VI. had quite as +much to do as he could manage, to maintain himself as a belligerent in the +south. And in the north, besides the Duchess Gertrude and her mother, the +Empress Richenza, there was only Henry the Lion, a boy of ten, to head the +rebel tribe. Conrad skilfully disarmed Gertrude by persuading her, still +quite a young woman, to marry Leopold of Austria, the new Duke of Bavaria, +and to assent, as a condition of that marriage, to her son's waiver of his +rights in the south. In the north we find Berlin stretching out its hands +eagerly for the Guelph Duchy—just as in 1866—but without success. The +covetous Margrave of Brandenburg, I ought to explain, was not a +Hohenzollern, but Albert the Bear. The Hohenzollerns were at that time +still very small folk—so small that some years later, when Welf VI., +disgusted with affairs of state, and grieving over the loss of his son, +gave himself up to a life of reckless pleasure, and held a private court +at Zurich, in ostentatious magnificence, we find the Count<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> of Zollern of +those days in attendance upon him, as a sort of noble retainer. Once Henry +attained his majority, he quickly made his power felt. He must have been a +character whom one could not help admiring. Brave, chivalrous, frank, +generous to a fault, and zealously solicitous for the welfare of his +subjects, for the extension of commerce, the improvement of agriculture, +the development of self-government, a friend and supporter to every kind +of progress—but, at the same time, headstrong, rash, impetuous—he seemed +the very beau-ideal of knighthood, a man morally as well as physically of +the colossal stature that the sculptor has attributed to him at +Brunswick—a fit companion for his brother-in-law and staunch ally, +Richard Cœur-de-Lion. For a time fortune favoured Henry. The Wends were +constantly making incursions into German territory, keeping the border +provinces in a state of perpetual disturbance. The Emperor alone was no +match for them. Henry was sent for; and, like a German Charles Martel, he +struck down Prince Niklot and his host with crushing blows. The result was +a short-lived reconciliation with the Emperor, and Henry's reinstatement, +for a brief period, in both his Duchies—Bavaria having, however, +previously been reduced in size by the cutting off of what is now Austria. +Had Henry but had the prudence to use his opportunities, all might still +have been well. For Welf VI. made him an offer of his Italian +possessions—Spoleto, Tuscany and Sardinia—a valuable <i>point d'appui</i>, +which must have helped Henry to maintain his balance in Germany, or at the +very least to save more than he did out of the subsequent wreck. In the +course of a life of lavish <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>prodigality, Welf had come to an end of his +available resources. He wanted money. Now, would Henry buy those Italian +possessions of him? Henry declined, calculating a little too securely upon +an unbought inheritance at Welf's death. In that calculation he made a +great mistake. Welf, angry at his refusal, repeated the offer to his other +nephew, Frederick Barbarossa, who as a matter of course jumped at it. And +so the opportunity was lost. Fresh contests ensued, fresh proscriptions, +banishments, outlawry. As an exile Henry was driven to seek the protection +of his ally Richard, taking refuge repeatedly in Normandy and in England. +Then he managed to renew the fight—and at last, by the Emperor's grace, +he received back, of all his vast dominions, those little principalities +of Brunswick and Lüneburg, which to almost the present day have remained +specifically identified with Guelph rule, and in which the Guelph Counts +and Dukes—subsequently Electors and Kings—managed to live on in their +prosaic, humdrum, humble way, powerless and uninteresting princelets of +the great German family of little sovereigns—till an accident, lucky for +them, called them across to England.</p> + +<p>One brief flickering-up there was, before their candle finally went out on +the larger scene of continental politics. But it was a very poor +flickering indeed, and no credit to any one concerned. A Guelph became +Emperor at last. But no thanks to his own prowess or his own merit, or to +a <i>bonâ-fide</i> popular choice. It was our Cœur-de-Lion who, at the +Pope's partisan instigation, to avenge his own humiliation at +Hagenau—with the help of his "<i>multa pecunia</i>," as chroniclers +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>relate—forced his nephew, Otto IV., on the throne which, according to +strict law, had already young Frederick II. for an occupant. It was a +poor, weak travesty of a reign. Had not Philip of Swabia opportunely died, +it would have been no reign at all.</p> + +<p>For many a century the star of the Guelphs seemed set. The "viri nobiles, +egregiæ libertatis" of ancient times counted for little in the game of +European politics. Early in the present century the elder line, that of +Wolfenbüttel, brought forth one more hero of the old Guelph type—that +brave Brunswicker who, in the great war of German liberation, by his +brilliant gallantry quickened all Young Germany to a more fiery +patriotism. The younger line, that of Lüneburg, found a new sphere of +action opened to it in this country, and now lives to perpetuate, on a +Throne even greater than that which "the Generous" and "the Lion" had +filled, that</p> + +<p class="poem">"Dynastia Guelphicorum<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Inter Flores lilium,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Inter Illustres Illustrissimus</span><br /> +Eorum memoria in Benedictione."</p> + +<p>Under the new aspect of things, if, fortunately, Henry the Lion's bold +bent for war be wanting, his characteristic care for the welfare of his +subjects has been retained; and it is a satisfaction to know, in a reign +that has happily outlived its Jubilee, that there is no longer occasion +for that sorrowful plaint to which, in the warlike days of the race, +Countess Itha gave expression—the wife of the great-grandson of Eticho +II., of Ammergau—that "No Guelph was ever known to live to a great age."</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p> +<h2>IV.—ABOUT A PORTRAIT AT WINDSOR.<a name='fna_6' id='fna_6' href='#f_6'><small>[6]</small></a></h2> + + +<p>In Windsor Castle, in the Vandyke Room, there is a portrait which has +puzzled a good many visitors. It is an undoubted Vandyke; it shows a +pretty face—a trifle sensual, perhaps—but who the lady may have been +whose features it immortalises, nobody seems to be able to tell. +"Somebody"—"Somebody connected with Charles II."—"Some French lady"—are +guesses rather than information offered. "Murray" used to call the lady by +her right name. But lately, for some reason or other, she has in his +description become transformed into "Madame de St. Croix," which probably +sounds "safer." Formerly she figured as "Beatrix de Cusance, Princesse de +Cantecroix," which was correct—unless the more illustrious title be given +her which for a few brief hours she legitimately bore, though never +actually crowned, that of "Duchess of Lorraine."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>There is a good deal of history graven in those smiling features—curious, +changeful history of their bearer's own life—and history, more important, +of nations, on which she exercised a decisive influence. It was thinking +of her, not least, that Richelieu penned those truthfully reproachful +words:—"Les plus grandes et les plus importantes menées qui se fassent en +ce royaume sont ordinairement commencées et conduites par des femmes." +Without her and Madame de Chevreuse—perhaps, it would be too much to say +that France might still be without that Lorraine of which she felt it so +great a hardship to lose a portion in 1871; but certainly the tide of +events during the past three centuries would have taken a very different +course from that which it actually did—different, probably, for the +better.</p> + +<p>Beatrix was "somebody connected with our Charles II."—it is quite true. +Without that link with our own Court her portrait would scarcely have +found a place in Windsor Castle, and the sorry poet Flecknoe—Dryden's +"MacFlecknoe"—would certainly not have rhymed upon her beauty and +"vertue" in most halting and unmelodious lines, now long forgotten even by +students of literature. But her connection with our "gay monarch" was of +the briefest, a mere sly nibbling at forbidden fruit while the real +good-man was away, closely watched by Spanish guards in the dark tower of +Toledo—that same martial and romantic duke, to whom our Charles I. +addressed urgent prayers to become his saviour, and on whom he conferred +the proud title of "Protector of Ireland." It seems odd now—to us, with +our modern notions of Lorraine, as a small<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> and very helpless province of +France—to think, that on the wayward ruler of that petty duchy, himself +at the time an exile, should our Charles have built up hopes of his own +preservation in the storms of the Great Rebellion. There can, however, be +no doubt about the fact. In June, 1651,<a name='fna_7' id='fna_7' href='#f_7'><small>[7]</small></a> Viscount Taaffe, Sir Nicholas +Plunket, and Geffrey Browne, by order of the Marquis of Clanricarde, King +Charles's deputy, formally waited upon Duke Charles IV. of Lorraine at +Brussels, "to solicit his aid in favour of the unhappy kingdom of +Ireland." The mission was considered of such pressing importance that Lord +Taaffe, in order not to delay it, put off the call which in duty he owed +to the Duke of York, then residing at Antwerp. Charles IV. rather rashly +undertook the office pressed upon him, formally accepted the style and +title of "Protector of Ireland," fitted out—though not owning an inch of +seaboard—a man-of-war, which he christened "Espérance de Lorraine"—and +there the matter ended.</p> + +<p>With this adventurous Charles IV. was the life of the beautiful Beatrix +bound up from girlhood to death. It was a romantic affair—in some of its +episodes a little sadly comical—and, since we have constituted ourselves +guardians of her effigy, her story may be worth telling.</p> + +<p>The Cusances were an old, distinguished, and very wealthy family in the +Franche Comté, when the Comté was still a province, not of France, but of +the Empire. At the present time the "Almanach de Gotha" knows them no +more, nor any French or German "Peerage." But in their own day they ranked +among the best of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> bloods; the strains of the Hapsburghs and the +Granvelles mingled in their veins. "Gentillesse de Cusance" had in whilom +Burgundy become a proverbial saying. The family owned a wide tract of +territory in the mountainous country through which flows the Doubs, and +among those hills, forming part of the Jura, stood, twenty miles from +Besançon, their Castle Belvoir. Of this proud family Beatrix was, with two +sisters—one of whom became a nun, while the other married a cousin on the +mother's side, a Count de Berghes, of the Low Countries—left the last +offspring. There was no male to perpetuate the name. At twenty she was +known as "la personne la plus belle et la plus accomplie de la province." +People raved about her. Abbé Hugo, the Lorrain Duke's father-confessor, in +his MS. History (which has never been published, for fear of giving +offence to the French), describes her as "of a little more than middle +height, and exquisitely proportioned." "She possessed," he said, "just +sufficient <i>embonpoint</i> to impart to her <i>une mine haute et un port +majestueux</i>." Her face, something between oval and round, was marked by a +particularly clear complexion and an animated expression. Her eyes were +blue and well-placed; her hair was of a light ash colour; her mouth was +small, and of a brilliant red; her teeth were of pearly whiteness, and +well-ranged; neck, arms, hands were all "beautifully delicate, white, and +admirably shaped"; in fact, you could not desire a more perfect specimen +of feminine humanity.</p> + +<p>With this beauty it was the happy, or unhappy, lot of the no less engaging +Charles IV. to become acquainted at the impressionable age of thirty, when +to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> eye, at any rate, he represented all that was manly and +chivalrous. He was then the beau-ideal of the sex, unequalled in all +accomplishments peculiar to the privileged Man of the tip-top strata, a +brilliant horseman, fencer, tilter, and love-maker in the bargain—a +veritable "Don Juan, alike in love and in politics," as his own historian, +M. des Robert, has aptly styled him.</p> + +<p>The two were for the first time brought into contact in 1634. Charles was +then for the moment—a pretty protracted moment—a lackland prince. +Counting a little too confidingly upon the help of that "Empire" which was +always ready to claim and never ready to protect, and moreover upon +equally treacherous Spain, he had defied France—with the result of being +turned out of his dominions by her. But if Charles was driven from his +duchy, he had carried his brilliant little army with him—there was no +better in Europe. He had gained a high reputation already as a dashing +general and a tactician of ready resource. The French feared him, in spite +of their superior numbers. The Austrians and Spaniards were eager for his +alliance, and willing to pay him his own price. He was stationed, in +command of his own troops and some Spaniards, at Besançon, where life was +then made gay indeed to the military visitors. Very butterfly that he +was—forgetting altogether his homely Duchess Nicole, who was far +away—Charles fluttered about merrily from flower to flower, almost +thankful to Providence for having by her otherwise harsh judgment driven +him to such captivating pastures new for the cult of Cupid. He was told, +of course, of the bewitching beauty sojourning in the same city. Sated +already with objects of admiration, he, however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> at first scarcely paid +heed to the praises of her charms. But once he met her, the hearts of both +were in a twinkling set aflame.</p> + +<p>Charles did not at the time enjoy the best of reputations among +respectable folk. He had dabbled a little too freely in illicit loves. +Accordingly, old Madame de Cusance observed the young people's mutual +passion with very reasonable alarm—and, to prevent its being carried to +dangerous lengths, she packed Beatrix off in hot haste to lonely Belvoir. +To a lover of Charles's mettle, however, twenty miles was a stimulus +rather than an obstacle to love-making. Every day saw him galloping out to +pursue his courting. There were French spies and scouts stationed all +round, watching for the cavalier, eager to carry him off, as their +comrades had not long before carried off our ambassador, Montagu, to +Coiffy. By narrow breakneck paths, which are shown to the present day, +Charles threaded his way adventurously through the forest, where it seems +a marvel that he did not again and again come to grief. No feat, however, +was too hazardous, no risk too great for him to encounter in the pursuit +of his romantic passion. Accordingly, the old lady, like a prudent, +motherly Dutch matron that she was, saw nothing for it but to carry her +daughter very much further away still, to Brussels, where she had her +family mansion, the Hotel Berghes. There Charles could not at once follow +her, for he had his army to look after; and, moreover, the French stood in +the way like a massive wall. No sooner, however, had he gathered his fresh +bays on the field of Nördlingen, and brought the campaign of 1635 to a +more or less satisfactory close, than, still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> homeless and landless, he +hurried likewise to Brussels, which was then the recognised +gathering-place of all the poor victims of Richelieu's grasping policy. +However, in one way he had been forestalled. In the interval the old +countess, thinking in her innocence that nothing could so effectually put +a stop to undesirable love-making as an actual marriage, had compelled her +beautiful daughter to marry Leopold D'Oiselet, Prince de Cantecroix, a +great personage both in the Franche Comté and in Germany. That ought to +have made all things sure. In truth, it did nothing of the kind. Beatrix +and Charles remained as infatuatedly in love as before, and pursued their +amour seemingly with all the greater zest and determination, because there +was now a legal hindrance. The husband, as it happened, was not the only +difficulty in the way. All the Lorrain princes and princesses—expelled, +like Charles, from their own country, and assembled in the capital of the +Austrian Netherlands—set their faces dead against the lady, and +positively refused to have anything to do with her. Beatrix did not care. +She could afford to snap her fingers at Nicole, Nicolas-Francois, Claude, +Henriette, and the rest of them, so long as Charles remained true to her; +and soon we find her, the lawful wife of Prince Cantecroix, openly avowing +herself "the fiancée" of the Lorrain Duke, who was himself lawfully +married.</p> + +<p>The old lady, foiled once more in her precautions, once more packed her +daughter off out of harm's way—this time back to Besançon. As a matter +quite of course Charles hereupon proposed to the crowned heads with whom +he was in league, that the next campaign<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> must necessarily be carried on +in the Franche Comté, where, indeed, the French had somewhat alarmingly +gained the upper hand, and were at that time rather embarrassingly (for +the Spaniards) investing Dôle. As if to support him in his pleading, a +deputation of Comtois magnates arrived at Brussels, headed, for irony, by +the Prince de Cantecroix himself, petitioning the victor of Nördlingen, +with all the urgency of which they were masters, to come to their rescue. +Charles did not keep them waiting long. He promptly led his army back to +their old quarters at Besançon, where he scarcely repaid Cantecroix in a +Christian spirit. For his father-confessor informs us that, being a devout +"Catholic," and believing implicity in the efficacy of masses, he caused +no less than three thousand such to be said, to obtain from Heaven his +rival's death. He drove the French away from Dôle, but after that he would +not stir another finger. Fighting was all very well, but there was metal +more attractive at Besançon. The old countess, had submitted at last to +the inexorable ruling of fate. It was of no use transporting Beatrix +backwards and forwards, while Charles followed so persistently after, and +her own husband was so blind, or else so helpless. Things must be allowed +to take their course.</p> + +<p>Charles's masses had the desired effect. In February, 1637 the Prince de +Cantecroix died. In his testament he provided liberally for "ma bien aimée +femme"—which <i>femme</i> loyally lost no time in transferring herself from +his house to one belonging to the duke.</p> + +<p>M. de Cantecroix being out of the way, the next thing to be done was to +remove the no less inconvenient Duchess Nicole. From her right to the +throne Charles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> had already ousted her by a really grotesque farce enacted +in concert with his father. Charles does not appear to have had masses +said for Nicole's death, but he very assiduously consulted the learned of +Church and State concerning the possibility of obtaining a legal +declaration of nullity of marriage. This was an easier matter in those +days than it is now; because, for want of any other plea, there was always +the charge of witchcraft to fall back upon—a charge much in favour with +"the Church." Charles decided to play this trump card. There was a priest, +Melchior de la Vallée, a chosen protégé of the late duke, who had baptized +Nicole. He was now alleged to have been a sorcerer before he performed the +rite of baptism. <i>Ergo</i>, he was incompetent lawfully to baptize; <i>ergo</i>, +Nicole was not properly baptized; <i>ergo</i>, she was not a Christian; <i>ergo</i>: +the whole marriage must be void. Witnesses were, of course, produced to +prove the case, and poor Melchior, having been duly condemned, was +orthodoxly burnt at Custines—the place in which Mary Queen of Scots had +spent her youth. His property was declared forfeited to the Crown—to be +eventually employed by Charles, in a fit of remorse, to endow, by way of +pious compensation, the great Chartreuse of Bosserville near Nancy.</p> + +<p>That part of the business had been easily accomplished. It remained, on +the ground of this condemnation, to upset the obnoxious marriage. The +Duke's Chancellor, Le Moleur, was easily persuaded to pronounce an +"opinion" to the effect desired, and, armed with this, he was promptly +sent to Rome, accompanied by the Duke's father-confessor, Cheminot, to +obtain a Papal judgment in accordance with it. The whole thing looked so +plausible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> as readily to silence the last remaining doubts of Beatrix; and +just nine days after Cantecroix's death the two lovers put their +signatures to the marriage contract which was to make them man and wife. +Less than five weeks later the marriage was formally celebrated in a +characteristic hole-and-corner fashion. On the evening of April 2, 1637, +the duke's physician, Forget, brought the <i>vicaire</i> (curate) of the parish +of S. Pierre in Besançon a written authority from his <i>curé</i> (rector) to +celebrate Sacraments wherever he might be called upon to do so. That done, +the <i>vicaire</i> is led by Forget on a roundabout way into Charles's house, +where he finds a sumptuous supper awaiting him. The food and liquor +despatched, the unsuspecting curate is, in a temper which disposes him to +comply with almost any demand, taken into Charles's own chamber, where the +duke bluntly informs him: "Tu es ici pour bénir notre mariage." Even in +spite of the supper, the curate hesitates. But the duke will stand no +parleying. The ceremony is gone through. The young couple, to place +themselves entirely in order, comply with the custom of the diocese to the +very tittle: embrace, break a loaf of bread between them, drink out of the +same glass, and the thing is done. The curate receives twenty doubloons +for his pains, and is, like everybody else present, pledged to silence.</p> + +<p>Secrecy was, however, under the circumstances, absolutely out of the +question, probably not even seriously desired. Soon after we find the duke +publicly owning Beatrix as his wife, and giving orders that she shall be +treated as duchess and styled "Altesse." She lives with Charles, rides +with him, shows herself by his side to his soldiers, who conceive a +violent fancy for her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> Nicole and the Lorrain princes and princesses +protest. But they are far away, and can do no hurt. The old countess is +brought to acquiesce in the marriage, and all seems to go as merrily as +could be wished. Beatrix's sister, the nun of Gray, confesses to pious +scruples, and implores her sister not to do what is wicked, but is +silenced with a simple "Vous n'êtes qu'une enfant." To make all things +sure, Mazarin, anxious to obtain from Charles an advantageous peace, +promises his all-powerful interest with the Curia. The peace duly signed, +Beatrix and her husband religiously undertake, side by side, a pilgrimage +to Bonsecours, where they pray for Heaven's blessing upon their union, and +afterwards hold their formal entry into Nancy, to the bewilderment of her +husband's loyal subjects, who, not knowing what to make of the double +wedlock, cry out lustily: "Que Dieu protège et bénisse le bon Duc Charles +et ses deux femmes!"</p> + +<p>But there was mischief brewing. Nicole and her belongings would have been +less than human if they had not set heaven and earth in motion to upset +the new irregular union. When Cheminot and Le Moleur arrived at Rome to +bespeak the Pope's approval, they found the Prince Nicolas-François +already there, actively counterworking their game, on which even without +such opposing influence the Vatican could scarcely have been expected to +smile. In the place of approval, they received nothing but black looks, +coupled with a strict injunction to the Lady Beatrix not on any account to +pretend to the title of "Duchess."</p> + +<p>Of course Charles's "Petite Paix" lasted only a few weeks. Instead of +leading his troops into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> French camp as supports, as he had agreed, he +took them straight to the Spanish headquarters, with the inevitable result +of being once more turned out of his country, and finding himself an exile +at large. These misfortunes, however, sat lightly upon the gay-hearted +monarch, while he had the lovely Beatrix by his side, starring it with her +at the Courts of Worms, Luxemburg, and Brussels, and insisting everywhere +upon Beatrix being treated as duchess. He had given her her own +body-guard, her own establishment of maids of honour, allowed her to hold +her courts and drawing-rooms, just like a reigning princess.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, concurrently with the Pope's judgment, another matter was +slowly ripening. All this marrying and re-marrying had, as a matter of +course, led to litigation. Prince Cantecroix had left a goodly fortune, +for the possession of which his mother, the Marquise d'Autriche, and his +cousin, M. de Saint Amour, were then fighting fiercely.</p> + +<p>While Charles and Beatrix were attending at Malines, as important +witnesses in this case, what should unexpectedly arrive but a brief from +the Pope, directing the archbishop to proclaim the judgment pronounced on +that half-forgotten application of Le Moleur's and Cheminot's! It had +taken His Holiness some years to come to a decision even on the +preliminary point, that of the marriage with Beatrix; on the main +question, the validity of Charles's marriage with Nicole, the judgment was +still silent. But Charles's marriage with Beatrix the document declared +entirely illegal and invalid, formally threatening both parties concerned +with major excommunication if they did not at once separate and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> +thereafter continue apart, and, moreover, within a given time, purge +themselves by a public and humiliating penance. To Beatrix this judgment +came as a crushing blow. However, she yielded prompt obedience, removing +at once to the distant Hombourg Haut, near Saint-Avold.</p> + +<p>Charles evidently cared very much less about the separation, however +little he might relish the idea of a penance. It looks very much as if he +had already grown a little tired of the lovely Beatrix. She was still very +beautiful, and had any amount of love-making left in her. Her little amour +with Charles II. was still to come; and that portrait to be seen at +Windsor, which so much enamoured Flecknoe, actually shows her as she was a +little later. However, the <i>toujours perdrix</i> of one particular beauty had +evidently begun to pall upon Charles's exacting taste. He managed very +soon to find some cheering consolation for his loss, to the infinite +entertainment of the gay Court of Brussels—which delighted in scandal, +and was constantly on the look out for some fresh amusement. Charles +provided such, very opportunely, by a quite unexpected new amour, which +was certainly not wanting in originality. Charles suddenly fell over head +and ears in love with the very <i>bourgeoise</i> daughter of the Burgomaster of +Brussels. He pressed his heart and hand upon her again and again. No +effort was too great for him to make in prosecution of his suit, no +expense too lavish. The girl found herself serenaded, <i>fêted</i>, asked to +all sorts of festivities—tournaments, concerts, balls—all arranged +specifically in her honour. She found jewellery showered upon her. And, to +secure her good will, the proud Carlovingian Duke even condescended to +compete<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> with the humble burghers at the popular <i>kermesse</i>, in the +cross-bow shooting at the "papegay," which, crack marksman that he was, he +brought down in brilliant style, thereby constituting himself +"papegay-king" for the year. That dignity imposed upon him the obligation +of treating all the burghers and their young women to a flow of +liquor—which liquor he did not stint—and, moreover, of holding a +triumphal progress through the town—which he magnified into a sort of +Lord Mayor's procession, himself appearing in the character of his own +ancestor, Godfrey de Bouillon, encased in costly armour, with all his rich +jewellery hung upon his person, and seated, high and lofty, upon a +magnificent car. The buxom Flamande found all this mightily pretty, but +scarcely knew what to make of it so long as her mother strictly forbade +her to give the devoted Charles any encouragement, nor dare so much as to +meet him in private. Once only was the mother prevailed upon to permit a +<i>tête-à-tête</i> for just as long as Charles could manage to hold a live coal +in his palm. To extend the time, Charles extinguished the fire by +heroically crushing the coal with his fingers. All this tomfoolery amused +the Court intensely. But people were just a little astounded when Charles +carried his devotion so far as to refuse to treat with the Spanish +plenipotentiaries for a renewal of his treaty, unless their Excellencies +would first secure the approval and advocacy of his Flemish Dulcinea. The +Spaniards needed the Lorrain troops badly, and so submitted for the +time—but they had their revenge.</p> + +<p>Of course the news of all this love-making brought Beatrix back pretty +promptly to the Low Countries. As an excuse she alleged a burning desire +to be reconciled to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> Church, whose censure her sensitive conscience +could no longer endure. Charles was by no means equally impatient. +However, late in 1645, he too at length consented, and, accordingly, the +two attended together to hear the Church's commination, prostrate +themselves at full length before the altar, play the abject penitents +throughout, confess their guilt, and receive episcopal absolution—all in +the presence of a very large assemblage, which made the proceeding none +the more pleasant for the principal actors.</p> + +<p>That done, Beatrix settled down again, perhaps all the better pleased at +finding that by his new treaty obligations Charles had bound himself to +proceed immediately to the battle-fields in France. Whether she had a +right to be severe upon Charles's little amatory escapades may appear a +trifle doubtful by the light of her own conduct now that he was away. At +Ghent she took a leaf out of his own book. The duke soon heard of her +being in a close <i>liaison</i> with a Polish magnate, Prince Radzivill, <i>jeune +et bien fait, poli et galant</i>. And not long after arrived the further +intelligence that one of her most conspicuous and most successful admirers +was our own "gay monarch," Charles Stuart, subsequently Charles II., who +was then a refugee in the Netherlands. There is no reason to believe that +these misfeasances were in any way belittled to Charles's ear, seeing that +it was Princess Marguerite, the Duchess of Orleans, his sister, who played +the principal tale-bearer, a lady who, like all the Lorrain princesses, +had a direct interest in bringing Charles's connection with Beatrix to a +close. Charles took the bait. He was furious with the Princess de +Cantecroix. He would repudiate her for good. He would be reconciled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> on +the spot with Nicole. All seemed to herald a happy and creditable ending +to the misunderstanding of years, when, all of a sudden, Beatrix announced +herself <i>enceinte</i>, and by that announcement upset the whole carefully +reared-up house of cards. Nicole had borne the duke no son. Here was the +prospect of one. Throwing the Pope's warning to the winds, forgetting and +forgiving all about Beatrix's wrong-doings, Charles rushed to join her, +and was overjoyed to be able to be present at the birth of what was +destined to be his only son, Charles, subsequently the gifted and +distinguished Prince de Vaudémont, our William III.'s confidant and +adviser, and the elder Pretender's potent patron and ally. The Papal +Nuncio and the Archbishop of Malines were horrorstruck at this barefaced +breaking of a solemn oath. But no serious harm came of it after all. Only, +it was a little provoking to find that when the confinement was over, and +Charles's back was once more turned, Beatrix calmly resumed her illicit +flirtations, of which the Lorrain princesses, more particularly the +Princess Marguerite, were not slow to advise the duke.</p> + +<p>Charles's patience was now completely worn out. As soon as he could manage +it, he posted back to the Low Countries, resolved, as he declared, to +"mettre deux folles à la raison." One <i>folle</i>, of course, was +Beatrix—whom Charles protested that nothing would induce him ever to take +into favour again; and the other was his sister Henriette, who had +distinguished herself by a very unconventional match indeed, her third, +between herself, aged fifty, and the youthful Italian banker, Grimaldi, +aged twenty-seven. There<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> were some utilitarian arguments to plead in +excuse of the marriage. Henriette had spent her last <i>écu</i>, had sold every +bit of property of hers that was at all saleable, and was deep in debt to +boot; and Grimaldi had money. But nothing would justify the extraordinary +proceeding which these two lovers, driven into a corner, resorted to, of, +so to speak, "springing themselves" upon the unsuspecting Archbishop of +Malines, and simultaneously declaring their intention to be man and wife, +before he could so much as utter a word of protest. That constituted, the +archbishop had himself previously explained, a legal marriage according to +canon law.</p> + +<p>Charles found Beatrix at Antwerp. He at once seized her house in all legal +form, fretting and fuming with rage, and refusing to listen to a word +which she might say in explanation. He had everything put under lock and +key, sentries placed before the door, and, overhauling all the furniture +with his own hands, he claimed back all the property which the lady held +from him; above all, that very valuable collection of jewellery for which +the Lorrain Court was noted. To his dismay he found that a portion of it +was gone. That made matters ten times worse. The missing pieces must +necessarily have been given to Beatrix's <i>galants</i>.</p> + +<p>The Lorrain princes and princesses were delighted to observe a fresh +rupture, and spared no pains to fan the flame. As it happened, at this +very time, in 1654, the Papal Tribunal of the "Rota" had at last made up +its mind how to adjudicate upon that old plea first raised in 1637, and +formally laid before the Pope in 1642—the question of the validity of +Charles's marriage with Nicole. The "Rota" ruled the whole suit to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> +frivolous. The marriage had been "freely contracted," was therefore +binding, and, not to be troubled again with anything of the sort, the +Court imposed upon Beatrix "perpetual silence." Charles accepted the +judgment readily; indeed, he was so earnestly bent upon reconciliation +with Nicole, that he seriously talked of having her excommunicated, should +she withhold her consent. All seemed once more coming right, in spite of +itself, when Europe was surprised by a gross outrage against law and good +faith, namely, the high-handed seizure by the Spanish governor, +Fuensaldana, of the Duke of Lorraine, and his removal, as a prisoner, to +the distant Castle of Toledo. Six long years was the duke destined to pine +in that unwholesome, dark, barred tower, a prey to vermin and to all +discomforts, and a victim to ever freshly-raised, ever sorely-disappointed +hopes. The very Spaniards around him pitied him. The ladies of Toledo +conspired to liberate the interesting captive, who, in spite of his fifty +years, was still handsome, nimble, full of courtesy and full of life. His +own subjects braved tortures, galleys, death—everything, to effect his +rescue. Never was ruler more beloved; rarely did he less deserve it. +Nicole loyally forgot all past grievances, appealed to Mazarin, appealed +to King Louis, appealed to the Pope. Beatrix likewise did her best—more +especially after Nicole's death, in 1657—though roughly rated all the +time by her wrathful and impatient late lover, who never for a day +together knew his own mind. At one time he asked indignantly: Why did she +not come to share his prison? At another he bade her stay where she was, +since there she could be of greater use. A third time he would have +nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> whatever to say to her. When she sent her <i>intendant</i>, +Pelletier, to Spain, to exert himself in the cause of the duke's +liberation, Charles brought up the old charges of infidelity and +misappropriation of his jewellery. But he was delighted to receive at +Pelletier's hands the newly-painted portraits of his two children, Anne +and Charles, to whom, as a partially redeeming feature in his character, +he continued devoted to his dying day.</p> + +<p>In 1660 Spain found that she could carry on war no longer. The result was +the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which was rather dictated by Mazarin than +negotiated between France and Spain, and which, among other things, +provided that Charles should be set free. Purchasing the glory of a +princely escort from the needy noblemen of Spain by a distribution of the +full sum of compensation just received at Madrid, the duke hurried to +Saint Jean de Luz in state, and there, with his habitual impetuosity, +nearly got himself back into prison. The Spanish Ambassador, Don Louis de +Haro, badgered beyond endurance by Charles, full of his complaints, +seriously threatened to have the duke carried back to Toledo. This brought +our rather romantic Stuart exile to the front, whom nobody then supposed +to be so near becoming Charles II. of England. Indeed, Mazarin held him in +such small estimation, that he would not even admit him to his presence. +But on Don Louis, if he ever seriously intended fresh violence, this bold +manœuvre had the desired effect. He promptly desisted from further +threats. The Lorrain Charles, touched by the chivalrous conduct of his +namesake, in a burst of gratitude generously offered the latter the free +use of his purse—an offer which must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> have been peculiarly welcome to the +ever-impecunious Stuart—and frankly forgave him his rivalry in the matter +of Beatrix, which looks, indeed, as if between him and her he now intended +all to be over.</p> + +<p>In truth, he did not leave the lady very long in doubt upon that point; +for, finding her at Bar-le-Duc, when, on his way home from Paris, he +passed through that town, he flatly declined to see her. She was staying +with her daughter, whom in Paris Charles had got married to the Prince de +Lillebonne, the governor of the Barrois. He was quite willing that Beatrix +should be treated <i>en duchesse</i>, but at this time of day it surely was not +to be expected that he would once more embroil himself with the Pope by +breaking his oath! Just only for a few minutes did he at length consent to +meet her, at the urgent supplication of both his children—outside Bar, in +a little village; and then he was chillingly cold.</p> + +<p>Otherwise, he had still fire enough left in him, when occasion +required—as he showed not long after, when at Paris, while engaged on +that hare-brained errand of concluding the "Treaty of Montmartre," he +became madly enamoured of Marianne Pajot, the daughter of his +brother-in-law's (the Duke of Orleans') apothecary. The marriage very +nearly became a fact. Everything was ready, in spite of protests from all +sides. The priest was waiting, the wedding-guests were in attendance, +actually eating the wedding supper, and drinking the young couple's +health—for precisely at midnight the ceremony was to be performed—when +Du Tellier marched into the room with a guard, and at Louis XIV.'s order +carried off Marianne to the convent of Ville l'Evêque.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> "You would have +had to take a syringe for your armorial device if you had married her," +said Louis XIV. mockingly. "Yes," replied Charles, alluding to the treaty +just concluded, "with the royal <i>fleur-de-lys</i> at the nozzle."</p> + +<p>This was by no means Charles's last amour. Indeed, after various wildish +escapades nearly leading to matrimony he, four years later, when arrived +at the ripe age of sixty, actually took to wife a girl of thirteen, and +settled down a tolerably staid and respectable husband at last. But this +adventure with Marianne Pajot warned Beatrix, whose health was beginning +seriously to fail, that if she wanted to become Charles's wife at all, she +must be quick about it. Accordingly, when the two once more found +themselves in close proximity, unwilling neighbours at Bar-le-Duc—she up +in the castle, he in the lower town, to be out of her way—she took the +liberty of reminding him of his repeated promises to obtain a dispensation +from the Pope and get the marriage renewed. Charles was not at all +prepared for such an appeal, which accordingly made him not a little +cross. "Not yet," he pleaded, "il n'est pas encore temps de songer à notre +mariage"—not when he was fifty-six and she nearly forty-six! Would he not +consent at any rate to see her? God forbid; how could he, a devout +"Catholic," presume to infringe the Pope's explicit command? Indeed, these +repeated appearances of Beatrix, when she was not wanted, were becoming +wearisome to him. She must keep out of the way. Let her go back to +Besançon! He was duke and could command. But Beatrix, loth to fly from +that which alone could cure her heartache, pleaded, like Lot, for a +shorter journey. Might she not stay at Remiremont?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> Charles acquiesced. In +small Lorrain towns she spent the next year or so. Life was getting hard +for her, in view of progressively failing health—harder under the painful +sense of injustice and unfaithfulness. She gave herself up to religious +devotions. At Mattaincourt it was, while she was burning candles and +offering prayers to the Lorrain saint, P. Fourier, that the startling news +reached her of a fresh amour into which Charles had thrown himself with +all the ardour of a young man of twenty, an amour with the beautiful +Isabelle de Ludres ("Matame te Lutre," as Madame de Sévigné called her, +ridiculing the rough Lorrain accent), a most delicately-formed, +symmetrically-shaped <i>brunette</i>, a very tit-bit of womanhood, destined to +shine in after-time for a brief period in the changing firmament of <i>Le +Roi Soleil</i> at Versailles, as an ephemeral favourite star. She was a +canoness of Poussay—<i>Lavandières</i> they were called in the popular +slang—looking probably all the prettier in her semi-religious garb, +because its wear involved no religious obligations of any kind. The abbess +had obligingly allowed Charles free access to the "nun," and there they +were, acknowledged <i>fiancé</i> and <i>fiancée</i>, talking of the time when the +marriage was to take place. To be near Isabella, Charles had moved his +court to Mirecourt, which is just about halfway between Poussay and +Mattaincourt, utterly unconscious probably of the proximity of Beatrix. +There were daily <i>fêtes</i>, dances, tourneys, the whole bit of country +seemed transformed into a "Garden of Love." It was like a ghost rising +from the earth when Beatrix—pale, worn, haggard, but still erect and +dignified in bearing—appeared on the scene, her marriage contract in her +hand, to bid the young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> canoness beware, and remind her lover of his +promises and broken vows. What right had she to be there? asked Charles in +a pet. Had he not bidden her go back to Besançon? Let her be off at once +and not trouble him any more! Alas! in her state of health, travelling to +Besançon was out of the question. She got as far as Mattaincourt, sending +fresh precatory letters to faithless Charles. He would give them no heed. +But she left him no peace. By a severe effort she got to Besançon at last. +"She may disinherit your children," urged Charles's lawyers. "She may stop +your marriage," chimed in the Churchmen. "Remember, she has but at longest +a few weeks to live," added the doctors. "Really?" asked Charles with +visible relief. "She cannot possibly live longer." Not a moment did he +cease from his amatory merry-making preparatory to a contemplated new +marriage. But, as there was time for celebrating a preliminary one in the +interval, for his children's sake he consented to despatch a messenger to +the Pope to demand a dispensation, which arrived just in time for the +marriage with Beatrix to be solemnised while there was still breath in +her. "Me voilà, bien honoré," whispered the dying woman, "à la fin de mes +jours!" Scarcely had the priest left her bedside, when he was called in +once more to celebrate another sacrament. "Ah! quelle union," gasped +Beatrix, "du sacrement de mariage et de l'extrême onction!"</p> + +<p>Thus ended, on June 5, 1663, the changeful life of that "excellents peace +as Nature ever made," as wrote Richard Flecknoe in contemplation of her +portrait at Windsor, full of "colour" and "freshness," and with eyes whose +very lids were "than other eyes more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> admirably fair," the lady who on the +canvas in our royal castle looks so happy and serene, but who in real life +tasted far more of the bitterness than of the sweet of man's fleeting +love—not, certainly, without much fault on her own part, yet, in respect +of her relations with Charles, surely more sinned against than sinning.</p> + +<p>The news of her death found the feasting at Mirecourt at its merriest. +Trumpets were sounding, flags were flying, drums were beating, all the +jingle of the masquerade of court life was at its noisiest. The widower +scarcely stopped in his amusements to order a brief formal mourning, which +altered but the hue, not the spirit of the feast. For all that his labour +was thrown away. Beatrix had, in self-defence, despatched a protest +against the marriage to the Vicar-general of Toul, who, as a French +bishop, stood in no sort of dependence upon the Duke of Lorraine—rather +delighted in crossing him. Besides, Isabelle's mother, shocked at what she +saw and heard, peremptorily forbade the marriage, and packed her daughter +off in haste to the solitude of Richardménil.</p> + +<p>When Beatrix's will was opened, it was found that she had not forgotten +"her very dear husband." "As a token of respect and submission," she had +"taken the liberty" of bequeathing to him—that very diamond ring with +which he had wedded her, then the worship of all, twenty-six years before, +when his own affection was still fresh and young, and his whole being +seemed bound up in the life and possession of the fervently-loved young +widow. At her death, certainly, she had this to boast of, that of all the +beauties who had riveted Charles's affection, none had for so long a time<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> +and with equal power held sway over his fickle heart. If she was +neglected, it is some satisfaction to think that her children were +honoured and cherished. On the Prince de Vaudémont Charles heaped what +benefits he had to bestow. But the stain of his birth clung to him to his +death. At one time Charles had hoped to seat him on the proud throne of +the Carlovingians. When in 1723 he died, the Lorrain Courts found that no +princely honours could be paid to his body. Quietly, without pomp and +show, were his bones laid beside the bones of his father, in the +Chartreuse of Bosserville, sad memorial that it remains of the duke's +faithlessness to his first wife. Neither of Charles nor of Beatrix has any +offspring survived. Of Charles even later Dukes of Lorraine have scarcely +ever spoken without a protest. Beatrix lies buried at Besançon, and, after +all, considering what evil she unwittingly brought upon her adopted +country, the portrait which alone remains to recall what she was finds, +perhaps, a more fitting place on the walls of Royal Windsor than could +have been given to it in the historic hall of the more than half-destroyed +palace of Nancy, or among the Lorrain portraits preserved, as a memorial +of Lorrain-Hapsburg rule, in the museum of Florence.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> +<h2>V.—THE REMNANT OF A GREAT RACE.<a name='fna_8' id='fna_8' href='#f_8'><small>[8]</small></a></h2> + + +<p>Modern History is, in its rapid march onward, making sad havoc of old +races. New nations are rising up; but only like new banks and headlands on +our coast, by the accumulation of drifted shingle, which the very same +tide is washing away from wasting older rocks. A generation or two hence, +in the making of a new German people, the last remnant will have finally +disappeared of an interesting race, which historians and archæologists +alike, to whom it is known, will be loth to miss.</p> + +<p>There are probably few Englishmen who have any very clear idea as to what +and who the "Wends" or "Sorbs" are. Early in the last century, we read—I +think it was in the year 1702—our Ambassador at Vienna, one Hales, +travelling home by way of Bautzen, to his utter surprise found himself in +that city in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> midst of a crowd of people, strange of form, strange of +speech, strange of garb—but unquestionably picturesque—such as he had +never before seen or heard of. They are there still, wearing the same +dress, using the same speech, looking as odd and outlandish as ever. We +need not go back to the records of Alfred the Great, of Wulfstan and +Other, to learn what a powerful nation the Wends, one of the principal +branches of the great Slav family, were in times gone by. In the days when +Wendish warriors, like King Niklot, were feared in battle, their ships +went forth across the sea, side by side with those of the Vikings, +planting colonies on the Danish Isles, in Holland, in Spain—aye, very +ambitious Slav historians will even have it that our own <i>Sorbiodunum</i> +(Salisbury) is "the town of the Sorbs," founded by Sorb settlers in 449, +and that to the same settlers—also styled <i>Weleti</i> (Alfred the Great +calls them <i>Vylte</i>)—do our "Wilton" and "Wiltshire" owe their names. On +the Continent they once overspread nearly all Germany. Hanover has its +"Wendland," Brunswick its "Wendish Gate." Franconia, when ruinously +devastated by intestinal wars of German races, was, at Boniface's +instance, recultivated by immigrant Wends, famous in his days, and after, +for their husbandry. The entire North German population, from the Elbe +eastward, and north of the Bavarian and Bohemian mountains, is in descent +far more Wendish than German. Wendish names, Wendish customs, Wendish +fragments of speech, bits of Wendish institutions, survive everywhere, to +tell of past Slav occupation. Altenburg is Wendish to a man, the +Mecklenburgs are to the present day ruled even by Wendish grand dukes. +Berlin, Potsdam, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>Dresden, Lübeck, Leipzig, Schwerin, and many more +German towns, still bear Wendish names.</p> + +<p>There are now but a poor 150,000 or 160,000 left of this once powerful +people. And that handful is dwindling fast. Every year sees the tide of +spreading Germanism making further inroad on the minute domain which the +Germanised Wends have left to their parent race in that much disputed +territory, the Lusatias. Prussian administration, Prussian education, +Prussian pedantic suppression of everything which is not neo-German, are +rapidly quenching the still smoking flax. It boots little that the Saxon +Government, kinder in its own smaller country, has, very late in the day, +changed its policy, and is now striving to preserve what is, at its lowest +valuation, a most interesting little piece of ethnographic archæology. It +is much too late now to stop the march of Germanisation, which has pushed +on so rapidly that even in the same family you may at the present day find +parents still thoroughly Wendish, and <i>priding</i> themselves on their +Wendish patronymics, and children wholly German, styling themselves by +newly coined German names. Evidently the race is dying fast.</p> + +<p>Its death was in truth prepared a long time ago. Once the Saxons had +obtained the mastery, the poor Slavs were oppressed and persecuted in +every way. They were forbidden to wear their own peculiar dress. They were +forbidden to trade. The gates of their own towns were closed against them, +or else opened only to admit them into a despised "ghetto." No man of +culture dared to own himself a Wend. Accordingly, though they possess a +language unique for its plasticity and pliancy, up to the time of the +Reformation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> written literature they had none. For centuries their race +has been identified with the lowest walks in life. They must have their +own parsons, of course; but that was all. Otherwise, hewers of wood and +drawers of water, toiling cultivators of the soil, they were doomed to +remain—very "serfs," lending, as we know, in the north, a peculiar name +to that servile station ("serfs," from "serbs"), just as in the south +"Slav" became the distinctive term for "slave."</p> + +<p>To the eye of the archæologist, all this hardship has secured one +compensating advantage. It has left the Wends—in dress, in customs, in +habits of mind, in songs and traditions—most interestingly primitive. +Everything specifically Wendish bears the unmistakable stamp of national +childhood, early thought, old-world life. There has been no development +within the race, as among other Slavs. There have been modern overlayings, +no doubt; but they are all foreign additions. The Wendish kernel has +remained untouched, displaying with remarkable distinctness that +peculiarly characteristic feature which runs through all the Slav kindred, +at once uniting and separating various tribes, combining a curious unity +of substructure with a striking variety of surface. Among the "Serbs," +or—"Sorbs"—really "Srbs"—of Germany, occur names which reveal a close +kinship with Russians, Bohemians, and Croats. By the strange +survival—among two tribes alone in all the world—of a complete dual, and +the retention of a distinct preterite tense (without the use of an +auxiliary verb) their language links them plainly with the Old Bulgarians. +Their national melodies exhibit a marked resemblance to those melancholy +airs which charm English visitors in Russia. Yet a Pole,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> one of their +nearest neighbours, is totally at sea among the Wends. His language is to +them almost as unintelligible as that of their "dumb" neighbours on the +opposite side, the <i>Njemski</i>—that is, the Germans. Even among themselves +the Lusatians are divided in speech. In Lower Lusatia, for instance, where +the population are descended from the ancient Lusitschani, if you want to +ask a girl for a kiss, you must say: <i>gulitza, daj mi murki</i>. In Upper +Lusatia, where dwell the Miltschani, the same request takes the shape of: +<i>holitza, daj mi hupkuh</i>. My German friends would have it that to their +ears Wendish sounded very like English—which simply meant, that they +understood neither the one nor the other. In truth, there is no +resemblance whatever between the two tongues, except it be this, that like +some of our own people, the Wends are incorrigibly given to putting their +H's in the wrong place. The explanation, in respect of the Wends, is, that +in their language no word is known to begin with a vowel. Hence, to make +German at all pronounceable to their lips, they often have to add an H as +initial letter, the impropriety of which addition they happen generally to +remember at the wrong time. It will terrify linguists among ourselves to +be told that this Slav language—which the Germans despise as barbarous, +which has scarcely any literature, and which is spoken by very few men of +high education—possesses, in addition to our ordinary verbs, also verbs +"neutropassive," "inchoative," "durative," "momentaneous," and +"iterative"; an aorist, like Greek, and a preterite aorist of its own; a +subjunctive pluperfect, and in declension seven cases, including a +"sociative" case, and a "locative." The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> most remarkable characteristics +of the language, however, are the richness of its vocalisation, and its +peculiar flexibility and pliancy, which enable those who speak it to coin +new and very expressive words for distinct ideas almost at pleasure, yet +open to no misconstruction.</p> + +<p>In outward appearance the Wends are throughout a powerful, healthy, and +muscular race, whose men are coveted for the conscription. The first +Napoleon's famous "Bouchers Saxons"—the Saxon dragoons—were Wends almost +to a man. And in the present day, it is the Wends who contribute the +lion's share of recruits to the Saxon household regiments. Their women are +prized throughout Germany as nurses. They are all well-built, well-shaped, +strong of muscle, and nimble in motion, like the Lacedæmonian women of +old. All surrounding Germany recruits its nurses from Wendland. Next to +stature, the most distinctive external feature of the race is its national +dress, which, as in most similar cases, survives longest, and in its most +characteristic form, among women. As between different districts, such +dress varies very markedly, but throughout it has some common features. +Short bright-coloured skirts, with the hips preternaturally enlarged by +artificial padding, and an unconscionable amount of starch put into the +petticoats on Sundays; close-fitting bodices, under which, in some +districts, by an atrocious perversion of taste, are placed bits of stout +cardboard, designed to compress a strongly developed bust to hideous +flatness; small tight-fitting caps, into which is gathered all the hair, +and which are often concealed under some bright-coloured outer head-gear, +with an abundance of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> ribbons dependent; and a goodly allowance of +scrupulously clean collar, frill, and neckerchiefs, at any rate on +Sundays; and, on festive occasions, stockings of the same irreproachable +whiteness put upon massive calves which on other occasions are worn all +bare—these are, briefly put, the main characteristics of the women's +dress. Oddly, the Roman Catholics, who elsewhere—in the Black Forest, for +instance—affect the gayest colours, among the Wends show a partiality for +the soberest of hues, more specifically brown and black. The men delight +in big buttons, bright waistcoats, and high boots, long coats which pass +on from father to son through generations, and either preternaturally +stout hats of prehistoric mould, or else large blue caps with monster +shades. Their peculiar customs are simply legion, and so are their +traditions and superstitions. Their fairs are a thing to see. +Old-fashioned as the Wends are, ordinary shopping has no attraction for +them. But the merry fair, with its life and society, its exchange of +gossip, its display of finery, its haggling and bargaining, its music and +its dancing, is irresistibly alluring. At the great fair at Vetzschau in +olden days you might see as many as a thousand Wendish girls, all dressed +in their best, formally but merrily going through their Wendish dances in +the market-place. In matters of faith the Wends are all great believers in +little superstitious formulas and observances, such as not turning a knife +or a harrow edge or tine upward, lest the devil should sit down upon it. +Their favourite devices for attracting a man's or a maiden's love are a +little too artlessly natural to be fit for recital here. One great +prevailing superstition is the belief in lucky<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> stones—<i>kamushkis</i>. +Stones, in truth, play a leading part in their traditions. They have a +belief that stones went on growing, like plants, till the time of our +Saviour's temptation, in the course of which, by an improvement upon the +authorised text, they assert that he hurt his foot against one by +accident. In punishment for having caused that pain, their growth is +understood to have been stopped. They have other stones as +well—"fright-stones" and "devil-stones" for instance. But the <i>kamushkis</i> +are by far the most important and the most valuable. They are handed on as +precious heirlooms from parent to child, and often put down at a high +value in the inventory of an estate. The supernatural world of the Wends +is as densely peopled as any mythology ever yet heard of. There is the +<i>psches-poniza</i>—the noon woman, to avoid whom women in pregnancy and +after their confinement dare not go out of doors in the midday hours; +there is the <i>smerkava</i>, or "dusk-woman," who is fatal to children, the +<i>wichor</i>, or whirlwind; the <i>plon</i>, or dragon, who terrifies, but also +brings treasure; the <i>bud</i>, or Will-o'-the-Wisp; the <i>bubak</i>, or bogey; +the nocturnal huntsman, <i>nocny hanik</i>; and the nocturnal carman, <i>nocny +forman</i>; the <i>murava</i>, or nightmare; the <i>kobod</i> or <i>koblik</i>; the +<i>chódota</i> (witch); the <i>buźawosj</i>, who frightens children; the <i>djas</i>, +the <i>graby</i>, the <i>schyry źed</i>, the <i>kunkaz</i>, there are spirits "black" +and "white." Every mill has its peculiar <i>nykus</i> or <i>nyx</i>, who must be fed +and propitiated. And then there are roguish sprites, such as <i>Pumpot</i>, who +is a sort of Wendish "barguest," doing kind turns as often as he plays +mischievous pranks. All this curious Slav mythology alone is worth +studying. If in a family children keep<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> dying young, the remedy certain to +be applied is, to christen the next born "Adam" or "Eve," according to its +sex, which is thought absolutely to ensure its life. Like most +much-believing races, the Wends are remarkably simple-minded, trustful, +leadable, and docile, free from that peculiar cunning and malice which is +often charged, rightly or wrongly, to Slav races—not without fault, but +in the main a race of whom one grows fond.</p> + +<p>To see the Wends ethnographically at their best, you should seek them in +their forest homes, all through that vast stretch of more or less +pine-clad plain, mostly sand, extending northwards from the last distant +spurs of the "Riesengebirge" (which bounds at the same time Bohemia and +Silesia), to the utmost limits of their territory in the March of +Brandenburg, and much beyond that—or else in that uniquely beautiful +Spreewald, some hundred of miles or so south of Berlin, a land of giant +forest and water, an archipelago of turfy islets. That is the ancient +headquarters of the Wendish nation, still peopled by a peculiar tribe, +with peculiar, very quaint dress, with traditions and customs all their +own, settled round the venerated site of their old kings' castle. It is +all a land of mystic romance, sylvan silence, old-world usages, such as +well become the supposed "Sacred Forest" of the ancient "Suevi." Alders +and oaks—the former of a size met with nowhere else—cast a dense, black +shade over the whole scene, which is in reality but one vast lake, on +whose black and torpidly moving waters float wooded <i>kaupes</i> or isles, +scattered over which dwell in solitude and practical isolation the +toilsome inhabitants, having no means of communication<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> open to them +except the myriads of arms of the sluggishly flowing Spree. A parish +covers many square miles. Each little cottage, a picture by itself amid +its bold forest surroundings, stands long distances away from its +neighbours. The outskirts of the forest consist of wide tracts of wobbling +meadow, a floating web of roots and herbage, over which one can scarcely +move without sinking into water up to the hips. Were you to tread through, +down you would go helplessly into the fathomless black swamp. On those +vast meadows grow the heavy crops of sweet nutritious grass which make the +Spreewald hay valued at Berlin for its quality as is the hay of the Meuse +at Paris. On their little islands, as in the <i>Hortillonages</i> of the Somme, +the <i>kaupers</i> raise magnificent crops of vegetables (more particularly +cucumbers, without which Berlin would scarcely be itself), which, as on +the Somme, they are constrained to carry to market by boat. Boats and +skates, in fact, supply in that wooded Holland the only means of +locomotion. And thanks to its canals and its water, all in it is so fresh, +and so luxuriant, and so remarkably silent, that, while one is there, +there seems no place like the Spreewald in which to be thoroughly alone +with Nature. On a mound artificially raised upon one of these islands, at +Burg, once stood the castle of the great Wendish kings, whose sceptre is +supposed still to descend in secret from sire to son in a particular +family, known only to the best initiated of Wends. To this country more +specifically, together with some scores of distinctive water sprites (each +endowed with its own attribute), does Wendish mythology owe its numerous +legends about snakes wearing precious crowns,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> which on occasion they will +carelessly lay down on the grass, where, if luck should lead you that way, +you may seize them and so ensure to yourself untold riches—provided that +you can manage to get safely away.</p> + +<p>In the mountainous country about Bautzen and Loebau in Saxony, where the +scenery is fine, the air bracing, the soil mostly fat, nineteenth century +levelling has been far too long at work for race customs to have +maintained themselves altogether pure. There stand the ancient sacrificing +places of the Wends, the Czorneboh, sacred to the "black god," the +Bjeliboh, sacred to the "white" one—respectively, the Mounts Ebal and +Gerizim of Wendland—and many more. Wendish traditions and Wendish speech +are still very rife in those parts. And most of the brains of the race are +to be found in that well-cultivated district—the "Wendish Mozart," +Immisch, Hornigk, Pfuhl—all the literary coryphæi of the race. From +Bautzen, certainly, with its bipartite cathedral, in which Roman Catholics +and Protestants worship peaceably side by side, divided only by a grating, +it is quite impossible to dissociate Wendish traditions. That is to the +Upper Lusatians what Cottbus is to the lower—<i>mjesto</i>, "the town" <i>par +excellence</i>. There are very true Wends in those regions still. In a +village near Hochkirch the community managed for a long time successfully +to keep out Germans, refusing to sell any property otherwise than to a +Wend. But under the influence of advancing civilisation so many things +externally peculiar to the race have disappeared—their forests, and their +wooden buildings, much of their ancient dress; they live so much in the +great world, that they can scarcely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> be said to have kept up their +peculiar race-life in absolute purity.</p> + +<p>In the forest, on the other hand, where, in fact, dwell the bulk of the +not yet denationalised race, you still see Wends as they were many +centuries ago. It is a curious country, that easternmost stretch of what +once was the great forest of Miriquidi, almost touching Bautzen and +Görlitz with its southernmost fringe, and extending northward far into the +March of Brandenburg. At first glance you would take it to be intolerably +prosaic. It spreads out at a dead level, flat as a rink, for miles and +miles away, far as the eye can see, with nothing to break the straight +sky-line—except it be clouds of dust whirled up by the wind from the +powdery surface of this German Sahara. The villages lie far apart, divided +by huge stretches of dark pine forest, much of it well-grown, not a +little, however, crippled and stunted. The roads are, often, mere tracks +of bottomless sand, along which toils the heavy coach at a foot pace, +drawn by three horses at least, and shaking the passengers inside to bits +by its rough motion across gnarled pine-roots which in the dry sand will +never rot. But look at it a little more closely, and you will find a +peculiar kind of wild romance resting upon it. If you take the trouble to +inquire, you will find that all this forest is peopled with elves. There +are stories and legends and superstitions attaching to almost every point. +Hid away among it are the sites of ancient Wendish villages—you may see +where stood the houses, you may trace where were the ridged fields, you +may feel, Wends will have it, by a creeping sensation coming over you as +you pass, where were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> the ancient grave-yards. Here is an ancient haunted +Celtic barrow. There is a cave in which are supposed to meet, at certain +uncanny hours, the ghosts of cruel Swedish invaders, barbarously murdered +in self-defence, or else Wendish warriors of much older time. Yonder, +again, is a mound beneath which lies a treasure. Here "spooks" this +spirit, there his fellow. By the Wends the forest is regarded with +peculiar awe. It is to them a personality, almost a deity, exacting, as +they will have it, every year at least one victim as a tribute or +sacrifice. Every now and then you will come upon a heap of dry branches, +on which you may observe that every passer-by religiously lays an +additional stick. That is a "dead man," a Wendish "cairn," raised up in +memory of some person who on that spot lost his life. Between the forest +and dry fields picturesquely stretch out sheets of water, some of them of +large size. And where there is water, the scenery at once assumes a hue of +freshness and verdure which is most relieving. Dull and bare as this +country generally is, no Switzer loves his own beautiful mountain home +more fervently, or admires it with greater appreciation, than do the Wends +their native patch of sand and peat and forest; nor does he miss it, when +away, with more painful home-sickness.</p> + +<p>In this flat tract of land you may see the German Slavs still living in +their traditional timber or clay-and-wattle houses, built in the orthodox +Wendish style—with a little round-roofed oven in front, and a draw-well +surmounted by a tall slanting beam, with a little garden, the +<i>Ausgedinge-haus</i> for the pensioned-off late proprietor, the curious +barge-board, ornamented at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> either end with some crudely fantastical +carving (which was borrowed more than a thousand years ago from the early +Saxons), and with that most characteristic mark of all, the heavy arched +beam overshadowing the low windows. The house would be thatched, but that +the Prussian government absolutely forbids thatch for new roofing. The +entire settlement is laid out on the old nomad plan, reminding one of +times when for security villagers had to dwell close together. In the +middle of the village is the broad street or green, planted with high +trees, which, by their contrast with the surrounding pine forest, indicate +the site to the traveller a long way off. The Wends are devoted lovers of +trees, and in every truly Wendish village you are sure to find a large +lime tree, tall or stunted, but in every case spreading out its branches a +long distance sideways, and overshadowing a goodly space. That tree has +for generations back formed the centre of local life, and is venerated as +becomes a "sacred tree" of ancient date. Here young and old are wont to +assemble. Here, on Saturday afternoons in spring-time, gather the young +girls to blend their tuneful voices in sacred song heralding the advent of +Easter. Here used to meet the village council—which has in recent times, +for reasons of practical convenience, removed to the public-house—the +<i>gromada</i>, or <i>hromada</i>, summoned by means of a <i>kokula</i> or <i>hejka</i>, that +is, a "crooked stick" or a hammer, sent round from house to house. Every +householder, large or small, has a right to be present and to take his +full part in the proceedings; for the Wends are no respecters of persons. +In the centre sits the <i>šolta</i>, as president, supported by his +"sidesmen," the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> <i>starski</i>. And there are discussed the affairs of the +little community, heavily and solemnly at first, but with increasing +animation as the <i>pálenza</i>, or <i>schnaps</i>, gets into people's heads. The +most interesting by far of these periodical meetings is the <i>gromada +hoklapnica</i>—the "gromada of brawls," that is—which is held in most +villages on St. Thomas' Day, in some on Epiphany Day, to transact, with +much pomp and circumstance, the business which has reference to the whole +year. The annual accounts are there settled. New members are received into +the commune, and if any have married, the Wendish marriage tax is levied +upon them. If there are any paupers in the parish, they are at that +meeting billeted in regular succession upon parishioners. Another +important matter to settle is the institution of paid parish officers, +none of whom are appointed for more than a year at a time. Watchman, +field-guard, blacksmith, road-mender, &c., all are expected to attend, cap +in hand, making their obeisance as before a Czar, thanking the <i>gromada</i> +for past favours, which have secured them infinitesimal pay, and humbly +supplicating for new, which are, as a rule, granted with a rather pompous +and condescending grace.</p> + +<p>The village homesteads line the common or street on either side, standing +gable outwards, as every Wendish house ought to stand. From them radiate +in long narrow strips the fields, as originally divided, when the settlers +were still a semi-nomad race, when each member was scrupulously assigned +his own share of loam, clay, high land, low land, peat, sand, meadow—not +only in order that none might be better off than his neighbour, but also +that the workers in the fields might at all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> times make sure of +fellowship, to lighten their toil by chat and song, and by taking their +meals in company. During the whole of their history the Wends have shown +themselves devoted to agriculture. Their social system was based upon +agriculture; agriculture occupied their thoughts. Their legends represent +their ancient kings, and the saints of their hagiology, as engaged in +agriculture. And their girls, thinking of marriage, may be heard to sing:</p> + +<p class="poem">"No, such a suitor I will not have<br /> +Who writeth with a pen;<br /> +The husband for me is the man<br /> +Who plougheth with the plough."</p> + +<p>By intuitive instinct the Wends prefer cultivating light land, whereas the +Germans give the preference to strong. All their implements seem made for +light soil. Such are their wooden spades, tastefully edged with steel +which, though not perhaps as useful as our all-steel implements, look +incomparably more picturesque. And from light soil the Wends know better +than any race how to raise remunerative crops. They understand heavy land, +too—as witness their excellent tillage in Upper Lusatia, and above all in +that German "Land of Goshen," the Duchy of Altenburg. But on sand they are +most at home. And in the poorest districts you may make sure that wherever +you see a particularly fine patch of corn, or potatoes, or millet, or +buckwheat, that patch is peasant's land.</p> + +<p>The church, as a rule, is placed right in the middle of the village. The +Wends value their church. For all their stubborn paganism in early days, +against which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> St. Columban, and St. Emmeran, and St. Rupert and St. +Eckbert all contended in vain, the Wends have, since they were +christianized, always been a devoutly religious people, and at +present—barring a little drinking and a little stealing (which latter, +however, is strictly confined to fruit and timber, in respect of which two +commodities they hold communistic opinions)—they are exemplary +Christians. With their parsons they do not always stand on the best of +terms. But that is because some of the parsons, raised from peasant rank, +are, or were—for things have altered by the introduction of fixed +stipends—a little exacting in the matter of tithes and offerings, and the +demand that there should be many sponsors at a christening, for the sake +of the fees. There are some queer characters among that forest-clergy. One +that I knew was a good deal given to second-hand dealing. He attended +every sale within an accessible radius, to bring home a couch, or a whip, +or a pair of pole-chains, or a horse-cloth, for re-sale. His vicarage was +in truth a recognised second-hand goods store, in which every piece of +furniture kept continually changing. Another was greedy enough to claim a +seat at the Squire's table, at the great dinners given in connection with +the annual <i>battues</i>, as a matter of "prescription." A third drank so hard +that on one occasion he had to be propped up against the altar to enable +him to go on with the service. The most curious of all was the "chaplain" +of Muskau, who married his couples wholesale, on the Manchester "sort +yourselves" principle. Sometimes, when things went a little slowly, and he +grew impatient, it was <i>he</i> who "sorted" the couples, and then +occasionally it would happen that, giving the word of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>command like a +Prussian corporal, he would "sort" them wrongly. They were far too well +drilled to discipline not to obey. But when the ceremony was over they +would lag sheepishly behind, scratching their heads and saying: "<i>Knès +duchowny</i>, <i>I</i> should have married <i>that</i> girl, and this girl should have +married <i>him</i>." However, the Church had spoken, and the cause was +finished. Married they were and married they must remain. Even to this the +patient Wends submitted; and, perhaps, they were all the happier for it.</p> + +<p>But all this has nothing to do with the Church proper, as distinct from +the parson. Their religious instinct appears born with the Wends. Religion +seems to be in all their thoughts and most of their acts. The invariable +greeting given is "God be with you." They talk habitually of "God's rain," +"God's sun," "God's crops," "God's bread"—to them "every good gift and +every perfect gift cometh from above." Worshippers returning from church +are hailed with a "Welcome from God's Word." When the sun goes down, it is +to "God" that it goes to rest. Whenever a bargain is struck, the appeal to +the other party is "God has seen it," or "God has heard it." And although +German jurisdiction, with its partiality for oaths slily extracted <i>after</i> +a statement, has imported here and there a little false swearing, in the +main that ancient confirmation of the contract is still respected. In +Wendland the churches are filled as nowhere else in Germany, and however +prosily the parson may preach—as he generally does—nowhere is he more +attentively and devoutly listened to. In Wendland alone of all Germany +have I noticed that Protestants<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> bow at the mention of the name of +"Jesus." Barring some ten thousand Roman Catholics in Saxony, the Wends +are all staunch Protestants of that nondescript Lutheran-Calvinist creed, +which the kings of Prussia have imposed upon their country. But not a few +of their beliefs and superstitions and legends hark back to older days. +They still keep <i>Corpus Christi</i>. In their religious legends, which are of +very ancient origin, the Virgin plays a prominent part—leading off, among +other things, a nocturnal dance, in which the angels all join, clad in +silken gowns with green wreaths on their heads, meeting for the purpose, +of all unsuitable places, in the church, and carefully locking the door +against human intruders. The Virgin's flight into Egypt is put into +strongly agricultural language, "Has a woman with a child passed this +way?" ask Herod's ruthless emissaries. "Aye," answers the truthful Wend, +"while I was sowing this barley." "You fool, that must have been three +months ago." In truth, by a miracle the barley has grown to maturity in +one brief hour. By this expedient the Virgin escapes. The Virgin spins; +the Virgin sews shirts; the Virgin does all that Wendish women are taught +to do. In Scripture-lore the Wends have their own localised versions of +the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; of the fight of St. George and the +Dragon; and an even more localised tale of the doings of King David. The +archangel Michael is made to fight for Budyssin against the Germans. Judas +Iscariot, according to their national tradition, comes to grief mainly +through gambling. The Saviour gave him thirty pieces of silver to buy +bread with. These he staked—tempted by Jews whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> he saw gambling by the +wayside—on an unlucky card; and to recover them it was that he sold his +Master. To cap all this unorthodoxy, the Wends make the Creator call after +Judas that he is forgiven. But remorse drives him to hang himself, +notwithstanding. He tries a pine and a fir, but finds them too soft, so he +selects an aspen tree—hence the perpetual agitation of its leaves. One of +their peculiar legendary saints is Diter Thomas, who was so holy that he +could hang his clothes when going to bed—which he appears to have done in +the daytime—on a sunbeam. One day, however, at church this devout man +espied the Devil seated behind the altar, engaged in taking down on a +fresh cowhide the names of all whom he saw sleeping in church. There must +have been an unusually large number, for the cowhide proved too small, and +Satan was fain to stretch it by holding one end with his teeth and pulling +at the other with his hands. As it happened, his teeth let go, and back +went his head against the wall, with a bang which woke up all the +sleepers. This aroused in pious Thomas so much mirth that he forgot the +respect due to the holy place, and laughed aloud—in punishment for which +offence his grace departed from him, and he was thenceforth reduced to the +necessity of using pegs. For their regularity in attendance at church I +half suspect that the peculiar fondness of the Wends for singing is, in +not a small degree, accountable; and, it may be, also the attraction of a +little gossip after service, and the excitement of an occasional little +fair.</p> + +<p>The Wends would indeed not be Slavs if they were not engrossingly fond of +singing. Singing is, in fact, among young folk reckoned the principal +accomplishment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> And they have a rich store of songs, set to exceedingly +melodious airs. They have them of all descriptions—legends and convivial +songs, martial songs, sacred hymns, short <i>rónčka</i> and <i>reje</i> for the +dancing-room, and long elegies and ballads for the field, to shorten the +long summer's day out at work. They have their own curious instruments, +too, still in use—a three-stringed fiddle, a peculiar sort of hautboy, +and bagpipes of two different sizes, the larger one invariably ornamented +with a goat's head. To be a <i>kantorka</i> (precentress) in church, or even in +a spinning-room, is a thing for a Wendish girl to be proud of, and to +remember to her old age. What a Wendish village would in winter time be +without those social spinning meetings it is difficult to imagine. To no +race do conviviality, mirth, harmless but boisterous amusement, seem so +much of a necessary of life. And none appears to be so thoroughly devoted +to the practice of homely household virtues. Spinning, poultry-breeding, +bee-keeping, gardening, coupled with singing, and nursing children, and +making model housewives—these are the things which occupy girls' +thoughts. At her very christening the baby-girl, borne back from church +"as a Christian," is made to find a spindle and a broom carefully laid in +the room, to act as charms in setting her infant thoughts in the right +direction. Her "sponsor's letter" is sure to contain some symbolic grains +of flax and millet. And a lover's principal gift to his sweetheart +invariably consists of a carefully turned and brightly-painted +"kriebatsche," an antiquated spindle and distaff that is, which is held +dear as a family Bible. Spinning, indeed, is among Wends a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> far more +important occupation than elsewhere. For men and women alike wear by +preference linen clothes, made of good, stout, substantial stuff, thick +enough to keep out the cold. In rural Germany a peasant girl is expected +as an indispensable preparative for marriage to knit her "tally" of +stockings. In Wendland the <i>trousseau</i> consists all of spun linen. +Servants invariably receive part of their wages in flax. Spinning +accordingly is about the most important work to be accomplished in a +household. And as it lends itself capitally to sociability and mirth, the +Wendish maidens take to it with peculiar zest. The date for beginning +these gatherings throughout Lusatia is the 11th of October, St. Burkhard's +Day in the Wendish calendar. On that day the young unmarried women tell +themselves off into <i>pšazas</i>, that is, spinning companies, consisting +of twelve at the outside, all of them girls of unblemished character. +Among no race on earth is purity more valued and insisted upon—in both +sexes—than among these poor forest Wends. Wherever corruption has crept +in, it is wholly due to the evil seductions of Germans, who have taken +advantage of the helplessness of Wendish girls when away on service. In a +Wendish village, to have made a <i>faux pas</i> deprives a young fellow and +girl alike of their character for life. The girl must not sit with the +other girls in church when the young are catechised; she must not walk up +to the altar on high festivals; she must not join in the singing; and the +spinning companies will not have her. In olden time she was not even +allowed to dance. Young men going notoriously astray used to be punished +in their own way.</p> + +<p>Some time before the eventful eleventh, the <i>pšazas</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> assemble to +decide in whose house the spinning gatherings are to be held. In that +house they meet throughout the winter, spinning industriously with wheel +or with spindle from seven to ten, and requiting the housewife for her +hospitality with welcome assistance in various kinds of domestic work. On +the first evening the company quite expect to be treated to a good supper +of roast goose. How all the spinners, with the resident family, and those +young fellows who, of course, will from time to time pay the lasses a +visit—either in disguise or in their own proper garb—manage to meet, and +work, and lark, and dance, where they do, it is rather a problem to solve. +For many of the rooms are not large. They are plain, of course, in their +equipment, like all Wendish rooms (in which paint is allowed only on +chairs, all the other woodwork being subject to the scrubbing-brush), but +strikingly peculiar. Almost in one corner—but far enough away from the +wall to leave space for a little, cosy nook behind—stands the monster +tile stove, very adequately heated with peat or wood, and showing, +tolerably high up, a little open fireplace, in which burns a bright little +wood fire, rather to give light and look cheerful, than to diffuse warmth. +That is the vestal hearth of the Wendish house, without which there would +be no home. In another corner stands the solid, large deal table, with +painted chairs all round. The walls are all wainscoted with deal boards; +and round the whole room runs a narrow bench, similar to the <i>murka</i>, a +seat far more tempting, which encircles the stove. Nearly all the +household implements in use are neatly ranged about the walls, or else +placed on the floor—the <i>boberzge</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> a peculiar plate rack; the <i>polca</i>, +to hold pots and spoons; and the <i>štanda</i>, for water. There are +baskets, cans, tubs disposed about, and a towel hung up for show. This +room grows tolerably lively when the spinning company assemble, telling +their tales, playing their games, gossiping and chatting, but mostly +singing. "Shall we have any new songs?" is the first question invariably +asked when the <i>pšaza</i> constitutes itself. And if there is a new girl +come into the village, the inquiry at once passes round, "Does she know +any new songs?" Indeed, the <i>pšazas</i> serve as the principal singing +classes for the young women in the village. They are kept up throughout +the year as special choirs and sub-choirs, so to speak, singing together +on all sacred and mundane occasions where singing is required. Whenever +"the boys" look in, there is great fun. Sometimes one will dress up as a +"bear," in a "skin" made up of buckwheat straw; or else he will march in +as a "stork," which causes even greater amusement. Once at least in the +season the funny man of the set makes his appearance transformed into +what, by a very wild flight of imagination, may be taken for a pantomime +horseman, with a horse made up of four big sieves, hung over with a white +sheet. Before calling in a real, formal way, the boys are always careful +to ask for leave, which means that they will bring <i>piwo</i> and <i>pálenza</i> +(beer and spirits), the girls revenging themselves by providing cake and +coffee; and then the entertainment will wind up with a merry dance. One +very amusing occasion is the <i>dopalowak</i>, or <i>dolamowak</i>, that is, the +last spinning evening before Christmas, when the boys sit in judgment upon +the girls, and, should they find<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> one or other to be guilty of idleness, +condemn her to have her flax burnt or else her spindle broken, which +penalties are, of course, in every case commuted into a fine. This sort of +thing goes on till Ash Wednesday, when the "Spinte" is formally executed +by stabbing, an office which gives fresh scope to the facetiousness and +agility of the funny man. The night before is the social evening <i>par +excellence</i>. It is called <i>čorny wečor</i>, "the black evening," +because girls and boys alike amuse themselves with blackening their faces +like chimney-sweeps, and with the very same material. The boys are allowed +to take off the girls' caps and let down their hair—the one occasion on +which it is permitted to hang loose. And there is rare merrymaking +throughout the night. Indeed, all Shrovetide is kept with becoming spirit, +perhaps more boisterously than among any other folk, and in true excitable +Slav style. The boys go about a-"zampering," and collecting contributions; +the girls bring out their little savings; and then the young people dance +their fill, keeping it up throughout Lent. Indeed, they dance pretty well +all the year round—</p> + +<p class="poem">"Njemski rady rejwam,<br /> +Serski hišće radsjo;"</p> + +<p>which may be rendered thus:</p> + +<p class="poem">"The German way I love to dance,<br /> +But the Wendish dance I dote on."</p> + +<p>To witness the <i>serska reja</i>—the only truly national dance preserved +among the Wends—at its best, you should see it danced on some festive +occasion, when the blood is up, out in the open air, on the grass plot,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> +where stands the sacred lime tree. There is plenty of room there. The very +sight of the green—say of the young birches planted around for decoration +at Whitsuntide or Midsummer—seems to fire the susceptible spirits. The +dancers throw themselves into the performance with a degree of vigour and +energy of which we Teutons have no notion. The <i>serska reja</i> is a +pantomimic dance. Each couple has its own turn of leading. The cavalier +places his partner in front of him, facing her, and while the band keeps +playing, and the company singing one of those peculiarly stirring Wendish +dance tunes, he sets about adjuring her to grant him his desire, and dance +with him. She stands stock still, her arms hanging down flop by her side. +The cavalier capers about, shouts, strikes his hands against his thighs, +kneels, touches his heart—with the more dramatic force the better. At +length the lady gives way, and in token of consent raises her hand. +Briskly do the two spin round now for the space of eight bars, after which +for eight more they perform something like a cross between a <i>chassez +croisez</i> and a jig, and so on for a little while, after which the whole +company join in the same performance. As a finish the cavalier "stands" +the band and his partner some liquor, and a merry round dance concludes +his turn of leading, to the accompaniment of a tune and song, <i>rónčka</i>, +selected by himself.</p> + +<p>Lent is a season more particularly consecrated to song. Every Saturday +afternoon, and on some other days, the girls of the various <i>pšazas</i> +assemble under the village lime tree, the seat around which is +scrupulously reserved for them, to sing, amid the rapt attention<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> of the +whole village, some of their delightful sacred songs peculiar to the +season. This singing reaches its climax on Easter night, when young +fellows and girls march round the village in company, warbling in front of +every door, in return for which they receive some refreshment. For a brief +time only do they suspend their music to fetch "Easter water" from the +brook, which must be done in perfect silence, and accordingly sets every +mischief-maker at work, teasing and splashing, and playing all sorts of +practical jokes, in order to extract a word of protest from the +water-fetching maidens. As the clock strikes midnight the young women form +in procession and march out to the fields, and all round the cultivated +area, singing Easter hymns till sunrise. It produces a peculiarly striking +effect to hear all this solemn singing—maybe, the same tunes ringing +across from an adjoining parish, as if echoed back by the woods—and to +see those tall forms solemnly moving about in the early gloaming, like +ancient priestesses of the Goddess Ostara. While the girls are singing, +the bell-ringers repair to the belfry (which in many villages stands +beside the church) to greet the Easter sun with the traditional +"Dreischlag," the "three-stroke," intended to indicate the Trinity.</p> + +<p>Lent sees the Wends perform another curious rite, of peculiar antiquarian +interest. The fourth Sunday in Lent is by established custom set apart for +the ceremony of "driving out Death"—in the shape of a straw figure decked +out with the last bridal veil used, which the bride is expected to give up +for the purpose. This poor figure is stoned to destruction to the cry of +<i>Leč hořè, leč hořè</i>, which may be borrowed from the Lutheran +name for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> the Sunday in question, <i>Laetare</i>. In some places the puppet is +seated in a bower of pine boughs, and so carried about amid much infantine +merriment, to be ultimately burnt or drowned. The interesting feature of +this rite is, that it does not really represent the Teuton "expulsion of +winter" so much as the much older ceremony of piously visiting the site on +which in Pagan times bodies used to be burnt after death. It is a heathen +All Saints' Day.</p> + +<p>I have no space here to refer to anything like all the curious Wendish +observances which ought to be of interest to folk-lorists: the lively +<i>kokot</i>, or harvest home, so called because under the last sheaf it was +usual to conceal a cock, <i>kokota lapać</i> with legs and wings bound, +which fell to the lot of the reaper who found it; the <i>lobetanz</i>; the +<i>kermuša</i>, or <i>kirmess</i>, great and small, the merry children's feast on +May Day; the joyful observance of Whit Sunday and Midsummer; the peculiar +children's games, and so on. It is all so racy and peculiar, all so merry +and yet so modest in the expenditure made upon it, it all shows the Wends +so much to advantage as a contented, happy, cheerful people—perhaps a +little thoughtless, but in any case making the best of things under all +circumstances, and glad to show off their Slav finery, and throw +themselves into whatever enjoyment Providence has vouchsafed, with a zest +and spirit which is not to be excelled, and which I for one should be +sorry to see replaced by the more decorous, perhaps, but far less +picturesque hilarity of the prosy Prussians. If only the Wends did not +consume such unconscionable quantities of bad liquor! And if in their cups +they did not fall a-quarrelling quite so fiercely! It is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> all very well to +say, as they do in one of their proverbs, with truthful pithiness, that +"there is not a drop of spirit on which do not hang nine devils." But +their practice accords ill with this proverbial wisdom. The public-house +is to them the centre of social life. Every new-comer is formally +introduced and made to shake hands with the landlord. They have a good +deal of tavern etiquette which is rigidly adhered to, and the object of +which in all cases is, like George the Fourth's "whitewash," to squeeze an +additional glass of liquor into the day's allowance. Thus every guest is +entitled to a help from the landlord's jug, but in return, from every +glass served is the landlord entitled to the first sip. Thus again, after +a night's carousal, the guests always expect to be treated by the host to +a free liquor round, which is styled the <i>Swaty Jan</i>—that is, the Saint +John—meaning "the Evangelist," whose name is taken in vain because he is +said to have drunk out of a poisoned cup without hurt. All the invocation +in the world of the Saint will not, however, it is to be feared, make the +wretched <i>pálenza</i> of the Wends—raw potato fusel—innocuous. It is true, +their throats will stand a good deal. By way of experiment, I once gave an +old woman a glass of raw spirit as it issued from the still, indicating +about 82 per cent. of alcohol. She made a face certainly, but it did not +hurt her; and she would without much coaxing have taken another glass.</p> + +<p>This article has already grown so long that of the many interesting +customs connected with the burial of the dead and the honouring of their +memory I can only refer to one very peculiar and picturesque rite. Having +taken the dying man out of his bed, and placed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> him (for economy) on straw +(which is afterwards burnt) to die, put him in his coffin, with whatever +he is supposed to love best, to make him comfortable—and in addition a +few bugs, to clear the house of them—the mourners carry him out of the +house, taking care to bump him on the high threshold, and in due course +the coffin is rested for part of the funeral service in front of the +parsonage or the church. In providing for the comfort of the dead the +survivors show themselves remarkably thoughtful. No male Wend is buried +without his pipe, no married female without her bridal dress. Children are +given toys, and eggs, and apples. Money used to be put into the coffin, +but people found that it got stolen. So now the practice is restricted to +the very few Jews who are to be found among the Wends and who, it is +thought, cannot possibly be happy without money; and, with a degree of +consideration which to some people will appear excessive, some stones are +added, in order that they may have them "to throw at the Saviour." In +front of the church or parsonage the coffin is once more opened, and the +mourners, all clad in white—which is the Wendish colour for mourning—are +invited to have a last look at the body. Then follows the <i>Dobra noć</i>, +a quaint and strictly racial ceremony. The nearest relative of the dead, a +young person, putting a dense white veil over his or her head and body, is +placed at the back of the coffin, and from that place in brief words +answers on behalf of the dead such questions as affection may prompt near +friends and relatives to put. That done, the whole company join in the +melodious <i>Dobra noć</i>—wishing the dead one last "Good-night." After +that, the lid is once more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> screwed down and the coffin is lowered into +the grave.</p> + +<p>There are few things more picturesque, I ought to say, than a funeral +procession in the Spreewald, made up of boats gliding noiselessly along +one of those dark forest canals, having the coffin hung with white, and +all the mourners dressed in the same colour, the women wearing the +regulation white handkerchief across their mouths. The gloom around is not +the half-night of Styx; but the thought of Charon and his boat +instinctively occurs to one. The whole seems rather like a melancholy +vision, or dream, than a reality.</p> + +<p>Hard pressed as I am for space, I must find some to say, at any rate, just +a few words about Wendish marriage customs. For its gaiety, and noise, and +lavish hospitality, and protracted merriment, its finery and its curious +ways, the Wendish wedding has become proverbial throughout Germany. Were I +to detail all its quaint little touches, all its peculiar observances, +each one pregnant with peculiar mystic meaning, all its humours and all +its fun, I should have to give it an article by itself. It is a curious +mixture of ancient and modern superstition and Christianity, diplomacy and +warfare. The bride is still ostensibly carried off by force. Only a short +time ago the bridegroom and his men were required to wear swords in token +of warfare and conquest. But all the formal negotiation is done by +diplomacy—very cautiously, very carefully, as if one were feeling his +way. First comes an old woman, the <i>schotta</i>, to clear the ground. After +that the <i>druzba</i>, the best man, appears on the scene—to inquire about +pigs, or buckwheat, or millet, or whatever it may be, and incidentally +also about the lovely Hilžička, whom his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> friend Janko is rather +thinking of paying his addresses to—the fact being all the while that +long since Janko and Hilžička have, on the sly, arranged between +themselves that they are to be man and wife. But observe that in Wendland +girls may propose as well as men; and that the bridegroom, like the bride, +wears his "little wreath of rue"—<i>if he be an honest man</i>, in token of +his virtue. The girl and her parents visit the suitor's house quite +unexpectedly. And there and then only does the young lady openly decide. +If she sits down in the house, that means "Yes." And forthwith +preparations are busily set on foot. Custom requires that the bride should +give up dancing and gaiety and all that, leave off wearing red, and stitch +away at her <i>trousseau</i>, while her parents kill the fatted calf. Starve +themselves as they will at other times, at a wedding they must be liberal +like <i>parvenus</i>. Towards this hospitality, it is true, their friends and +neighbours contribute, sending butter and milk, and the like, just before +the wedding, as well as making presents of money and other articles to the +young people at the feast itself. But we have not yet got to that by a +long way. The young man, too, has his preparations to make. He has to send +out the <i>braška</i>, the "bidder," in his gay dress, to deliver +invitations. How people would stare in this country, were they to see a +<i>braška</i> making his rounds, with a wreath on his hat, one or two +coloured handkerchiefs dangling showily from different parts of his coat, +besides any quantity of gay ribbons and tinsel, and a herald's staff +covered with diminutive bunting! Then there are the banns to be published, +and on the Sunday of the second time of asking, the bride and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> bridegroom +alike are expected to attend the Holy Communion, and afterwards to go +through a regular examination—in Bible, in Catechism, in reading—at the +hands of the parson. By preference the latter makes them read aloud the +seventh chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians. At the wedding +itself, the ceremonial is so complicated that the <i>braška</i>, the master +of ceremonies, has to be specially trained for his duties. There is a +little farce first at the bride's house. The family pretend to know +nothing of what is coming; their doors and windows are all closely barred, +and the <i>braška</i> is made to knock a long time before the door is +cautiously opened, with a gruff greeting which bids him go away and not +trouble peaceable folk. His demand for "a little shelter" is only granted +after much further parleying and incredulous inquiry about the +respectability of the intruding persons. When the bride is asked for, an +old woman is produced in her stead, next a little girl, then one or two +wrong persons more, till at last the true bride is brought forth in all +the splendour of a costume to which it is scarcely possible to do justice +in writing. As much cloth as will make up four ordinary gowns is folded +into one huge skirt. On the bride's neck hangs all conceivable finery of +pearls, and ribbons, and necklaces, and strings of silver coins—as much, +in fact, as the neck will carry. There is any amount of starched frilling +and collar above the shoulders; a close-fitting, blue silk bodice below; +and a high cap, something like a conjuror's—the <i>borta</i>, or bride's +cap—upon her head. Even her stockings are not of the ordinary make, but +knitted particularly large so as to have to be laid in folds. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> wedding +party, driving off to church, preceded by at least six outriders, make as +big a clatter as pistol-firing, singing, shouting, thumping with sticks, +and discordant trumpeting will produce. On the road, and in church, a +number of little observances are prescribed. At the feast the bride, like +the bridegroom, has her male attendants, <i>swats</i>, whose duty it is, above +all things, to dance with her, should she want a partner. For this is the +last day of her dancing for life, except on Shrove Tuesdays, and, in some +Prussian parishes, by express order of the Government, on the Emperor's +birthday and the anniversary of Sedan. The bridegroom, on the other hand, +must not dance at the wedding, though he may afterwards. Like the bride, +he has his own <i>sƚonka</i>—his "old lady," that is—to serve him as +guide, philosopher and friend. Hospitality flows in unstinted streams. +Sometimes as many as two hundred persons sit down to the meals, and keep +it up, eating, drinking and dancing, for three days at least, sometimes +for a whole week at a stretch. It would be a gross breach of etiquette to +leave anything of the large portions served out on the table. Whatever +cannot be eaten must be carried home. Hence those waterproof pockets of +phenomenal size which, in olden days, Wendish parsons used to wear under +their long coat-tails, and into which, at gentlemen's houses, they used to +deposit a goodly store of sundry meats, poultry, pudding and <i>méringues</i>, +to be finally christened—surreptitiously, of course—with rather +incongruous affusions of gravy or soup, administered by the mischievous +young gentlemen of "the House," for the benefit of Frau Pastorin and her +children at home. Sunday and Tuesday are favourite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> days for a wedding. +Thursday is rigorously avoided. For two days the company feast at the +bride's house. Taking her to bed on the first night is a peculiar +ceremony. The young girls crowd around her in a close circle, and refuse +to let her go. The young lads do the same by the bridegroom. When, at +last, the two force an exit, they are formally received into similar +circles of married men and women severally. The bride is bereft of her +<i>borta</i>, and receives a <i>čjepc</i>, a married woman's cap, in its place. +After some more hocuspocus, the two are accompanied severally by the +<i>braška</i> and the bride's <i>sƚonka</i> into the bridal chamber, the bride +protesting all the time that she is "not yet her bridegroom's wife." The +<i>braška</i> serves as valet to the bridegroom, the <i>sƚonka</i> undresses +the bride. Then the <i>braška</i> formally blesses the marriage-bed, and out +walk the two attendants to leave the young folk by themselves. Next +morning the bride appears as "wife," looking very demure, in a married +woman's garb. On that day the presents are given, amid many +jokes—especially when it comes to a cradle, or a baby's bath—from the +<i>braška</i> and the <i>zwada</i>—the latter a sort of clown specially retained +to amuse the bride, who is expected to be terribly sad throughout. The +sadder she is at the wedding, the merrier, it is said, will she be in +married life. There is any amount of rather rough fun. On the third day, +the company adjourn to the house of the bridegroom's parents, where, +according to an ancient custom, the bride ought to go at once into the +cowhouse, and upset a can of water, "for luck." After that she is made to +sit down to a meal, her husband standing by, and waiting upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> her. That +accomplished, she should carry a portion of meat to the poorest person in +the village. A week later, the young couple visit the bride's parents, and +have a "young wedding" <i>en famille</i>.</p> + +<p>I have said enough, I hope, to shew what an interestingly childlike, +happily disposed, curious and contented race those few surviving Wends +are. And they are so peaceful and loyal. Russian and Bohemian Pan-slavists +have tried all their blandishments upon them, to rouse them up to an +anti-German agitation. In 1866 the Czar, besides dispensing decorations, +sent 63 cwts. of inflammatory literature among them. It was all to no +purpose. Surely these quiet, harmless folk, fathers as they are of the +North German race, might have been spared that uncalled-for nagging and +worrying which has often been pointed against them from Berlin for purely +political purposes! In the day of their power they were more tolerant of +Germanism. They fought side by side with the Franks, fought even under +Frankish chieftains. Germany owes them a debt, and should at least, as it +may be hoped that she now will, let them die in peace. Death no doubt is +bound to come. It cannot be averted. But it is a death which one may well +view with regret. For with the Wends will die a faithfully preserved +specimen of very ancient Slav life, quite unique in its way, as +interesting a piece of history, archæology and folk-lore as ever was met +with on the face of the globe.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p> +<h2>VI.—VOLTAIRE AND KING STANISLAS.<a name='fna_9' id='fna_9' href='#f_9'><small>[9]</small></a></h2> + + +<p>One can scarcely help wondering that among all the books written about +Voltaire and his varied experiences, there should be practically not one +which treats of that brief but eventful period during which, in company +with the "<i>sublime Emilie</i>," the great writer found himself the guest of +hospitable King Stanislas—"le philosophe-roi chez le roi-philosophe." To +Voltaire himself that was one of the most memorable episodes in his long +and changeful life. It left on his mind memories which lasted till death. +He showed this when, in 1757, looking about him for a peaceful haven of +rest, he fixed his eyes once more, as if instinctively, upon Lunéville as +a place in which to spend the evening of his days. Stanislas would have +been only too thankful to receive him. Old and feeble, rapidly growing +blind and helpless, and reduced by ill-health and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> desertion of his +Court to the poor resource of playing <i>tric-trac</i>—backgammon—in his +lonely afternoons, with such uncourtly <i>bourgeois</i> as his messengers could +pick up in the town, the <i>fainéant</i> Duke would have hailed Voltaire's +presence, as he himself says, as a godsend. However, the <i>philosophe</i> was +once more out of favour with Louis XV. Accordingly, the permission was +withheld, and the royal father-in-law found himself denied the small +solace which surely he might have looked for at the hand of his daughter's +husband.</p> + +<p>The biographical neglect of Voltaire's stay in Lorraine appears all the +more surprising since in Lorraine, almost alone of Voltaire's favourite +haunts, are there visible memorials left of his sojourn. Nowhere else is +anything preserved that could recall Voltaire. In Lorraine dragoons and +<i>piou-pious</i> now tramp where in his day courtiers sauntered, and +nursemaids lounge where the first wits of the century made the air ring +with their <i>bon-mots</i>. Still, the stone buildings, at any rate, of +Lunéville and Commercy have been allowed to stand, and French +destructiveness has spared some of the flower-beds that delighted +Voltaire. In that pretty "Bosquet" of Lunéville you may walk where +Voltaire trod, where he rallied Madame de Boufflers on her "Magdalen's +tears," where Saint Lambert made sly appointments with Madame du +Châtelet—and with not a few other ladies as well. In the Palace you may +step into the upper room where Voltaire lived and wrote, and fought out +his battles with the bigot Alliot. You may walk into "le petit appartement +de la reine," on the ground-floor, which Stanislas good-naturedly gave up +to Madame du Châtelet for her confinement—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> her death. There it was +that those impassioned scenes occurred of which every biographer of +Voltaire speaks, and there that the Marchioness's ring was found to tell +the mortifying tale of her unfaithfulness to her most devoted lover. You +may walk through that side-door through which, dazed with grief, the +stupefied philosopher stumbled; and sit on the low stone-step—one of a +short flight facing the town—on which he dropped in helpless despair, +"knocking his head against the pavement." In that hideously rococo church, +tawdrily gay with gew-gaw ornament, you may stand by the black marble +slab, still bare of any inscription, below which rest, rudely disturbed by +the rough mobs-men of the first Revolution, the decayed bones of the +<i>sublime</i> but faithless <i>Emilie</i>.</p> + +<p>Barring his rather unnecessary grief over the threatened production of a +travestied <i>Semiramis</i>, there were for Voltaire no happier two years than +those which saw him, with one or two interruptions, King Stanislas' guest. +And to Stanislas, eager as he was to attach the great writer to his bright +little court, there could have been no more welcome rigour than that +which, at his daughter's instance, drove the leading spirit of the age +into temporary exile. Voltaire had paid his court a little too openly to +the powerful favourite. After that <i>cavagnole</i> scandal at Fontainebleau, +neither he nor Madame du Châtelet stood for the time in the best of odours +at Court. Therefore, it probably required little persuasion on the part of +the two royal princesses, prompted by their revengeful mother, to prevail +upon Louis XV. in that one little square-rod of hallowed ground, over +which the power of the mighty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> Circe did not extend, their nursery, to +decree the banishment of the poet. Madame de Pompadour might have reversed +the judgment had she been given the chance; but she was not given it, and, +after all, Voltaire's exile did not make much difference to her. So the +philosopher and Emilie were allowed to pursue their cold winter's journey, +amid sundry break-downs and accidents, and prolonged involuntary +star-gazing in a frosty night, to that pretty little oasis in ugly +Champagne—a Lorrain <i>enclave</i>—in which stood the du Châtelets' castle.</p> + +<p>Stanislas did not allow the brilliant couple to remain long in their +uncongenial retirement. He was anxious not to be forestalled by Prussian +Frederick, who made wry faces enough on finding the preference over +himself and his famous Sans-souci given to the <i>prince bourgeois</i> and his +<i>tabagie de Lunéville</i>. Stanislas' great ambition was, to make his Court a +favoured seat of learning and letters. In his own, rather too +complimentary opinion, he was himself something of a <i>littérateur</i>. +Voltaire laughed pretty freely—behind the king's back—at his uncouth and +incorrect prose and at those long and limping verses <i>de onze à quatorze +pieds</i>, which the world has long since forgotten, as well it might. There +are some well-put thoughts to be found in the king's <i>Réflexions sur +divers sujets de morale</i>—for instance: "l'esprit est bien peu de chose +quand ce n'est que de l'esprit," to say nothing of his oft-quoted motto: +"malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem." But, at best his +writings, however carefully revised by Solignac—his answer to Rousseau, +and his <i>Oeuvres d'un Philosophe Bienfaisant</i>—are but ephemeral<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> trash. +Really, Stanislas could not even speak or write French correctly. But +though he was nothing of a writer, and not much more of a wit, he knew +thoroughly how to appreciate talent and genius in others. And in a man +occupying nominally royal rank, placed at the head of a brilliant Court, +having a civil list corresponding in value to at least 6,000,000 francs in +the present day, and a pension list of perfectly amazing length in his +bestowal, such appreciation must mean something.</p> + +<p>To understand the life of the little world into which, in 1748, Voltaire +entered, we ought to remember what at that time Lorraine and its Court +were. Stanislas had not been put upon his ephemeral throne without a +definite object. To lodge the French king's penniless father-in-law, who +no doubt had to be maintained somewhere, in the Palace of Lunéville, +instead of that of Meudon or of Blois, and to allow him to amuse himself +with playing at being king, was one thing. But very much more was required +of him. In 1737 France had, after toying for several centuries, with +greedy eyes and hungry tongue, with the precious morsel of Lorraine, at +length firmly and finally closed her jaws upon it. It was a bitter fate +for the duchy, in which France was detested; and the hardship was felt by +every one of its sons from the powerful "grands chevaux" down to the +humblest peasant. Of what French government meant, the Lorrains had had +more than one taste. They were sipping at the bitter cup at that very +time; they were having it raised daily to their lips, while that ablest of +French administrators, De la Galaizière—a veritable French Bismarck, +hard-headed, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>hard-hearted, inexorably firm, and pitilessly exacting—was +loading them with <i>corvées</i>, with <i>vingtièmes</i>, with the burden of +conscription for the French army, plaguing them with high-handed judgments +and oppressive penalties, all of which ran directly counter to the +constitution which the nominal sovereign, Stanislas, had sworn to observe. +It was Galaizière who was king, not Stanislas, the ornamental figure-head; +and under his stern rule all Lorraine cried out.</p> + +<p>Even courtly Saint Lambert, who, as a moneyless member of the <i>petite +noblesse</i>, with his mouth wide open for French favours, represented in +truth the least popular element in Lorrain Society, felt impelled by his +Muse to record his protest in verse:</p> + +<p class="poem">J'ai vu le magistrat qui régit la province<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">L'esclave de la Cour, et l'ennemi du prince,</span><br /> +Commander <i>la corvée</i> à de tristes cantons,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Où Cérès et la faim commandoient les moissons.</span><br /> +On avoit consumé les grains de l'autre année;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Et je crois voir encore la veuve infortunée,</span><br /> +Le débile orphelin, le vieillard épuisé,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Se trainer, en pleurant, au travail imposé.</span><br /> +Si quelques malheureux, languissants, hors d'haleine,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Cherchent un gazon frais, le bord de la fontaine,</span><br /> +Un piqueur inhumain les ramène aux travaux,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Ou leur vend à prix d'or un moment de repos.</span></p> + +<p>But there was no help for it. Kind-hearted Stanislas was caused many a +wretched hour by the incongruity of his position, which led his "subjects" +to appeal to him against the oppression of "his chancellor," as he +patronizingly called him who was in truth his master.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> He had begged Louis +to appoint a more humane and merciful man, but his prayer had proved of no +avail.</p> + +<p>Still, there was something which Stanislas could do. Affable, genial, +kind, free-handed to a fault, the stranger puppet-king—the originally +distrusted "Polonais"—might, in spite of all harsh government +administered in his name, by tact and liberality gain the personal +affections of his nominal subjects, and so in the character of a Lorrain +Prince discharge better than any one else that odious task of +un-Lorraining the Lorrains. All things considered, he earned his civil +list.</p> + +<p>French writers have very needlessly contended over the motives which led +Father Menoux, of all men, the King's Jesuit confessor, to urge Stanislas +to invite the great <i>philosophe</i> to his Court. Although repeatedly +assailed on the score of its inherent improbability, Voltaire's own +version is doubtless the most plausible. One of the leading +characteristics of the Lorrain Court, as Voltaire knew it, was the sharp +division prevailing between French and Lorrains, Jesuits and +<i>philosophes</i>. By all his antecedents—by his rigidly Romanist education, +by the principles carefully instilled into him, first by his parents, +later by his wife—Stanislas was predisposed to take sides staunchly with +the Jesuits. A more devout Catholic was not to be found. The king made all +his household attend mass, appointed a special almoner for his +<i>gardes-du-corps</i>, and directed the kitchen-folk to select a monastery for +the scene of their daily devotions. In respect of offerings, the Church +bled him freely, and found him a willing victim. More especially during +the lifetime of his wife, that homely, very religious Catherine Opalinska +whose <i>bourgeois</i> manners gave such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> great offence to the courtiers of +Versailles, the Jesuit faction had it all their own way.</p> + +<p>But when Voltaire came to the Court, Catherine had been nearly a year in +her grave. King Stanislas' immediate <i>entourage</i>, it is true, was still +wholly Jesuit—the French governor, Galaizière; the King's <i>intendant</i>, +Alliot; his father-confessor, Menoux; his useful secretary, de Solignac; +Bathincourt, Thiange, and Madame de Grafigny's "Panpan," De Vaux. But +otherwise a decided change had come over the scene. The lady head of the +Court now was the peculiarly attractive Marquise de Boufflers, a declared +<i>philosophe</i>, and, in virtue of her birth, the powerful leader of the +Lorrain faction. She was a Beauvau, the daughter of that lovely Princesse +de Craon who had ruled the heart of the late Duke Leopold. Her husband +(who had not stood seriously in the way of her <i>amours</i>) was dead; and she +was therefore quite free to give herself up to her <i>liaison</i> with +Stanislas, who had formally installed her in some of the best apartments +in the palace, in a suite adjoining his own, and handed over to her the +management of the Court. She must have been a remarkably fascinating +woman. We find Voltaire, in his courtly way, writing of her:</p> + +<p class="poem">Vos yeux sont beaux, mais votre âme est plus belle,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Vous êtes simple et naturelle,</span><br /> +Et sans prétendre à rien, vous triomphez de tous.<br /> +Si vous eussiez vécu du temps de Gabrielle,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Je ne sais ce qu'on eût dit de vous,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Mais l'on n'aurait point parlé d'elle.</span></p> + +<p>She is described as possessing a fine girlish figure,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> a peculiarly clear +and delicate complexion, exceptionally beautiful hair, and neat hands +(which made de Tressan enamoured of her "<i>comme un fou</i>") and, moreover, a +charming lightness and grace of movement and manner—endowments of nature +which scarcely needed a fine discriminating taste and more than average +intellectual powers to render effective. She sang, played, painted pastel, +and possessed an inexhaustible fund of tact and self-command. Whenever she +happened to be absent from the Court, de Tressan writes to Devaux, "Je me +meurs, je péris d'ennui. On ne joue point, la société est décousue." Her +nickname at Court was "La Dame de Volupté," which, as is shown by the +following lines, composed by herself for her epitaph, she accepted +good-humouredly:—</p> + +<p class="poem">Ci gît, dans une paix profonde,<br /> +Cette Dame de Volupté,<br /> +Qui, pour plus grande sûreté,<br /> +Fit son paradis dans ce monde.</p> + +<p>To the priests her relations with Stanislas constituted a serious +stumbling-block, and many a lecture had the king to listen to from his +confessor, Menoux. He accepted it submissively, and even performed the +penances which on the score of Madame de Boufflers the Jesuit decreed. But +discard her he would not, on any consideration. Just as little, on the +other hand, would he discard the Jesuit, however good-humouredly he might +listen to Madame de Boufflers' rather violent abuse of him.</p> + +<p>Menoux was now trembling for his authority. <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>Madame de Boufflers' +influence appeared to him to be growing too formidable. They were curious +relations which subsisted between Voltaire and the priest. With de Tressan +and other Academicians Menoux was at open and embittered feud. Voltaire +was more of a statesman. To their faces the two opponents invariably +professed the sincerest friendship and the warmest admiration. Even many +years after we find Voltaire, when writing to Menoux, declaring to him his +unaltered love and attachment, while at the same time paying the Abbé +delicate compliments on the score of his <i>esprit</i>: "Je voudrais que vous +m'aimassiez, car je vous aime." Behind their backs they called each other +names. Menoux was by no means a mere hierophantic prig or sacerdotal oaf. +Voltaire calls him "le plus intrigant et le plus hardi prêtre que j'ai +jamais connu," and adds that he had "milked" Stanislas to the extent of a +full million. D'Almbert describes him as the type of a Court +divine—"habitué au meilleur monde," without any "rigidité +claustrale"—"homme d'infiniment d'esprit, fin, délicat, intelligent, +subtile, ayant heureusement cultivé les lettres et en conservant les +grâces et la fraicheur sans la moindre trace de pédanterie." Between him +and Boufflers there was continual warfare—above-ground and below-ground, +by open hostilities and by schemes and intrigues. It was with a view to +checkmating Boufflers, so Voltaire relates, that Menoux first suggested an +invitation to Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet to come to the Court. Madame +du Châtelet was to become the favourite's rival. To this theory French +writers object that, as du Châtelet was some years older than Boufflers, +not nearly as good-looking,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> certainly not <i>dévote</i>, and another man's +property already, the scheme was absurd. In the result Menoux certainly +showed himself to have made a mistake; but that was owing to a +circumstance which neither he nor any one else could have foreseen. +Otherwise the scheme cannot be pronounced bad. To literary-minded +Stanislas, at his time of life, the intellectual graces of du Châtelet +might well balance the greater personal attractions of Boufflers. Besides, +Menoux did not look for an actual ally so much as for a rival to the +favourite. Even to lessen her absolute authority would be quite enough for +his purpose. He travelled all the way to Cirey to sound the two, and, +finding them willing, pressed their invitation upon Stanislas.</p> + +<p>Stanislas was, as Menoux had foreseen, only too eager to accept the +suggestion. He had had more than one taste of the pleasures of playing the +Mæcenas. Montesquieu had been at his Court, working there at his <i>Esprit +des Lois</i>, and Madame de Grafigny, Helvétius, Hénault, Maupertuis; and the +shy and retiring, but gifted Devaux was a fixture. However, Stanislas +wanted more. The only disappointment to Menoux was that he found the +invitation planned by himself actually issued by his rival, Madame de +Boufflers. It was, of course, accepted; and the beginning of 1748 saw +Voltaire and Madame du Châtelet safely arrived at Commercy.</p> + +<p>The Lorrain Court, always bright and gay, was at that time perhaps at its +very brightest. Stanislas, being permitted to play at being king, and +given ample pecuniary resources for doing so, played the game in good +earnest, with a due appreciation of showy <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>externals, and with a +singularly happy grace. He had at his command an apparatus which any real +king might have envied. Here was Commercy, raised by Durand for the rich +and tasteful Prince de Vaudémont, the friend of our William III. and of +the elder Pretender, a blaze of magnificence, with gardens around it, and +sheets of water, and cascades, which cast Versailles into the shade. His +principal residence, however, one of the masterpieces designed by +Boffrand, was the Palace of Lunéville. On seeing it Louis XV., surprised +at its grandeur, exclaimed, "Mais, mon père, vous êtes mieux logé que +moi." That was the</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">salon magnifique,</span><br /> +Moitié Turc et moitié Chinois,<br /> +Où le goût moderne et l'antique,<br /> +Sans se nuire, ont uni leurs lois,</p> + +<p>of which Voltaire writes—very incongruous, but decidedly splendid and +comfortable. Stanislas had added the delightful "Bosquet," laid out for +him by Gervais—overloading it, it is true, with kiosks and pavilions, +renaissance architecture and renaissance statuary, a hermitage, and +eventually with de Tressan's "Chartreuse." Like all persons of "taste" in +his day, Stanislas loved gimcrackery; he had utilized François Richard's +inventive genius for embellishing his principal residence with a unique +contrivance, admired by all Europe—an artificial rock with clockwork +machinery setting about eighty figures in motion. You may see a picture of +it still in the Nancy Museum. It must have been very ingenious and very +ugly. First, there was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> miller's wife opening her casement-window to +answer some supposed caller; then two cronies appear on the scene, +engaging in a morning chat. A shepherd playing on his <i>musette</i> leads his +flock, tinkling with bells, across the rock. Two wethers engage in a real +contest; a clockwork dog jumps up, barking, and separates them. There was +a forge, with hammers beating and sparks flying. An insatiable tippler +knocks at the closed door of the tavern, and is answered by the hostess +with a pailful of water emptied upon his head from a window above. In the +distance a pious hermit is seen telling his beads. And in the background +is discovered, standing on a balcony, to crown the whole, the Queen, +Catherine Opalinska, complacently looking down upon the scene, while two +sentries pace solemnly up and down, occasionally presenting arms. Such +were the toys of royalty in those days. Besides these two palaces +Stanislas had others—Chanteheux, well in view from Lunéville, built in +the Polish style: "rien de plus superbe, rien de plus irrégulier"; +Einville, flat and level, disparaged by the duc de Luynes, but +nevertheless grand, and possessing a "salon" famed for its magnificence +throughout Europe; and lastly the historic Malgrange, close to Nancy, the +"Sans souci" of Henri le Bon, in which Catherine of Bourbon had met the +Roman doctors of divinity, despatched to convert her, in learned +disputation, and sent them away discomfited, to the no little annoyance of +her brother, Henri IV. Beyond this, Héré was at work beautifying Nancy in +the Louis-Quinze style, with statuary and balustrades, gorgeous gateways, +and magnificent arches; and he was building that handsome palace, which +now serves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> as the Commanding General's quarters, in which, in 1814, when +the Emperor of Austria, the last real Lorrain Duke's grandson, was lodged +there, was hatched the Absolutist conspiracy of the "Holy Alliance."</p> + +<p>The Court itself was modelled entirely on the pattern of the superior +Olympus of Versailles. "On ne croyait pas avoir changé de lieu quand on +passait de Versailles à Lunéville," says Voltaire. There was splendour, +display, lavishness, gilding everywhere—only in Lorraine there was an +absolute absence of etiquette and restraint—"ce qui complétait le +charme." At Lunéville the etiquette was of the slightest. From the other +palaces it was wholly banished—"me voici dans un beau palais, avec la +plus grande liberté (et pourtant chez un roi)—à la Cour sans être +courtisan." "C'est un homme charmant que le roi Stanislas," Voltaire goes +on, in another letter. And not without cause. For Stanislas had placed +himself and all his household at the great writer's service. The king +entertained a perfect army of Court dignitaries, who had scarcely anything +to do for their salaries. He had his <i>gardes-du-corps</i>, resplendent in +scarlet and silver, his <i>cadets-gentilhommes</i>, who were practically pages, +half of them Lorrains, the remainder Poles, his regular pages, two of whom +must always stand by him, when playing at <i>tric-trac</i>, never moving a +muscle all the while. He had his pet dwarf "Bébé," decked out in military +dress, with a diminutive toy-coach and two goats to carry him about, and a +page in yellow and black always to wait upon him. This dwarf the king +would for a joke occasionally have baked up in a pie. Upon the pie being +opened Bébé would jump out, sword in hand, greatly frightening the ladies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> +and performing on the dinner-table a sort of war-dance, which was his +great accomplishment. Then he had his <i>musique</i>, headed by Anet, the +particular friend of Lulli, and with Baptiste, another friend of Lulli, +for "premier violon." The Lorrain court had always been noted for its +concerts, its theatricals and its <i>sauteries</i>—that was at the time the +fashionable name for balls. Adrienne Lecouvreur, Mademoiselle Clairon, +Fleury, had all come out first on the Lorrain stage. Lunéville it was +which invented the "Cotillon," which has become so popular all over the +continent. Lunéville also was the birthplace of the aristocratic and +graceful "Chapelet." And king Stanislas' orchestra enjoyed a European +reputation. "Do you pay your musicians better than I do?" asked Louis +Quinze of his father-in-law with a touch of jealousy. "No, my brother; but +I pay them for what they do, you pay them for what they know." There was +wit and fashion in abundance, and a galaxy of beauty—the royal-born +Princesse de Roche-sur-Yon, the Princesse de Lützelburg, the fascinating +Princesse de Talmonde, Stanislas' cousin, who subdued the heart of our +young Pretender, the Countess of Leiningen, the Princesse de Craon, Madame +de Mirepoix, Madame de Chimay, and others. But what of all things +Stanislas prided himself upon most were his table and his kitchen. He was, +as I have said, fond of gimcracks and he was a great eater, though he +often concentrated all his eating upon one Gargantuan meal. The +dinner-hour never came round fast enough for him, which made Galaizière +say, "If you go on like that, Sire, we shall shortly have you dining the +day before." His particular delight were quaint culinary refinements, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>"imitations" and "surprises," which were only to be achieved with the +help of so accomplished a master as his supreme <i>chef de cuisine</i> (there +were five other <i>chefs</i> besides) Gilliers, the author of that unsurpassed +cookery-book, <i>Le cannaméliste français</i>. Every dining-table at Court was +a mechanical work of art. Touch a spring, when the cloth was removed, and +there would start up a magnificent <i>surtout</i>—there were some measuring +five feet by three—a silversmith's <i>chef d'œuvre</i>, covered with rocks, +and castles, and trees, and statuary, a swan spouting water at a beautiful +Leda, and the like. And between these ornaments was set out a rich array +of dessert, likewise so shaped as to represent every variety of figures, +like Dresden China. One year, when all the fruit failed—I believe it was +while Voltaire was in Lorraine, in 1749, which was a year of unparalleled +distress—Gilliers kept the Court supplied with a continual succession of +imitation fruit, which did service for real plums and peaches. Stanislas +had introduced such "bizarreries septentrionales" as raw <i>choucroûte</i> and +unsavoury messes of meat and fruit, and imitation <i>plongeon</i> (great +northern diver), produced by plucking a goose alive, beating it to death +with rods, and preparing it in a peculiar way. A turkey treated in the +same manner found itself transformed into a sham capercailzie. But the +<i>chefs d'œuvre</i> were Gilliers' "surprises," prepared after much +thought, to which Stanislas contributed his share. Voltaire makes out that +"bread and wine"—which he did not always get—would have been amply +sufficient for his modest wants; but what we hear of the Lorrain Court +shows him to have been by no means indifferent to the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>products of +Gillier's inimitable <i>cuisine</i>. We read of Voltaire's eyes glistening with +delight when, after the removal of the cloth, what looked like a ham was +brought upon the table, and a truffled tongue. The ham turned out to be a +confectionery made up of strawberry preserve and whipped cream, <i>pané</i> +with macaroons; the tongue something of the same sort, truffled with +chocolate. I must not forget the coffee, to which Voltaire, like most +great writers, was devoted. Swift declared that he could not write unless +he had "his coffee twice a week." Voltaire consumed from six to eight cups +at a sitting—which is nothing compared with the performance of Delille, +who, to keep off the megrim, swallowed twenty. Stanislas employed a +special <i>chef du café</i>, La Veuve Christian, who was responsible for its +quality. Then, there was the wine, Stanislas' special hobby. Of course, he +had all the Lorrain <i>crûs</i>. The best of these, that grown on the famous +Côte de Malzéville, close to Nancy, he had made sure of by bespeaking the +entire produce in advance for his lifetime, at twelve francs the +"measure." His peculiar pride, however, was his Tokay. Every year his +predecessor, Francis, become Emperor of Germany, sent him a large cask, +escorted all the way by a guard of Austrian grenadiers. As soon as ever +that cask arrived, Stanislas set personally to work. What with drugs, and +syrups, and sugar, and other wine, he manufactured out of one cask about +ten, which he drew off into bottles specially made for the purpose. Some +he kept for his own use at dessert. The larger portion he distributed +among his friends, who every one of them becomingly declared upon their +oath that better Tokay they had never tasted.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>But there were better things to entertain the Lorrain Court. There were +fêtes; there were theatricals—at some of which Voltaire and du Châtelet +performed in person, Voltaire as the "Assesseur" in <i>L'Etourderie</i>, du +Châtelet as "Issé"; there was brilliant conversation, music, everything +that money could buy and good company produce. And Voltaire was the fêted +of all. "Voltaire était dieu à la Cour de Stanislas," says Capefigue. He +could do as he liked—sleep, wake, work, mix with the company, stroll +about alone—without any restraint; the king and all were at his beck, all +eager for his every word, taking everything from him in the best part, +appreciating, admiring, worshipping. His plays were put upon the stage. He +was allowed to drill the actors at his pleasure. In this way, <i>Le +Glorieux</i> was produced with great pomp; also <i>Nanine</i>, <i>Brutus</i>, <i>Mérope</i>, +and <i>Zaïre</i>, the last-named, for a novelty, by a troupe of children. +Whatever he wrote, he could make sure that he would have an attentive +audience of illustrious personages to hear him read out.</p> + +<p class="poem">Je coule ici mes heureux jours,<br /> +Dans la plus tranquille des Cours,<br /> +Sans intrigue, sans jalousie,<br /> +Auprès d'un roi sans courtisans,<br /> +Près de Boufflers et d'Emilie;<br /> +Je les vois et je les entends,<br /> +Il faut bien que je fasse envie.</p> + +<p>If Voltaire was "god," Madame du Châtelet was "goddess"—waited upon, +petted, having her every wish and every whim studied and gratified. There +could seemingly be no more congenial, mutually appreciative group of +persons than Stanislas and Voltaire, the Marquise de Boufflers and the +Marquise du Châtelet.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>Stanislas was then already an oldish man—according to one of his +biographers, Abbé Aubert, sixty-six; according to another, Abbé Proyart, +seventy-one. He was not quite the robust hero that he had been when he +accompanied Charles XII. on his trying ride to Bender, and shared rough +camp-life with Mazeppa. When, in 1744, Charles Alexander of Lorraine +crossed the Rhine at the head of 80,000 Austrians, and sent out manifestos +which gladdened his countrymen's hearts, proclaiming that he was coming to +take possession of the old Duchy—when signal-fires blazed on every +hilltop of the Vosges to bid him welcome, and all Lorraine was throbbing +with patriotic excitement; when Galaizière mustered what scratch forces he +could improvise for defence, and dragged the twelve ornamental pieces of +cannon out of the Lunéville Park to point against the foe—then Stanislas, +remembering his age, had discreetly retired, in a sad state of tremor, +behind the safe walls of Nancy. But in 1748 he was at any rate still hale +and hearty, and bore the weight of his years with an easy grace. He +managed to gallop to the Malgrange at a pace which left all his younger +companions far behind. He is described as of winning manners, rather +majestic in figure and bearing, of an engaging countenance, exceedingly +good-natured and affable. It was said that "il ne savait pas haïr." "Je ne +veux pas," he declared when multiplying charities and hospitals, "qu'il y +ait un genre de maladie dont mes sujets pauvres ne puissent se faire +traiter gratuitement." Among such "maladies" he included "the law"—for he +paid advocates to give gratuitous advice to the poor.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>Voltaire is described as about at his best at that period. The air of +Lorraine is said to have suited him particularly well. He was just turned +fifty—a little too old, as Madame du Châtelet was cruel enough to inform +him, to act the part of an ardent lover, but appearing to less exacting +persons still in the very vigour of manhood. "Après une vie sobre, réglée, +sagement laborieuse," he is represented as "well preserved"—slim, +straight, upright, of a good bearing, with a well-shaped leg and a neat +little foot. His features, we know, were wanting in regularity; but they +wore a benevolent and pleasing expression. His greatest charm is said to +have lain in his brilliant and expressive eyes, which seemed by their play +to be ever anticipating the action of his lips. His mind certainly was +still young, and so were his tastes. He is described as a most fastidious +dandy, <i>irréprochablement poudré et parfumé</i>, affecting clothes of the +latest cut and richly embroidered with gold. To his factotum at Paris, +Abbé Moussinot, he writes from Lunéville: "Send me some diamond buckles +for shoes or garters, twenty pounds of hair-powder, twenty pounds of +scent, a bottle of essence of jessamine, two 'enormous' pots of pomatum <i>à +la fleur d'orange</i>, two powder puffs, two embroidered vests,"—&c. He was, +moreover, an accomplished courtier. Properly to ingratiate himself with +his new host, he made his appearance at Commercy with a complimentary copy +of his <i>Henriade</i> in his hand, on the flyleaf of which were penned these +lines:</p> + +<p class="poem">Le ciel, comme Henri, voulut vous éprouver:<br /> +La bonté, la valeur à tous deux fut commune,<br /> +Mais mon héros fit changer la fortune<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Que votre vertu sut braver.</span></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>Of Madame du Châtelet's appearance we have two hopelessly irreconcilable +accounts. She was certainly past forty-two; if her ill-natured cousin, the +Marquise de Créqui, speaks truly (and she refers doubters to the parish +register of St. Roch), she was even five years more. Voltaire's portrait +of her, painted with the brush of admiration, is probably more +complimentary than strictly truthful. Madame du Deffand limns her in very +different lines:—"Une femme grande et sèche, une maîtresse d'école sans +hanches, la poitrine étroite, et sur la poitrine une petite mappe-monde +perdue dans l'espace, de gros bras trop courts pour ses passions, des +pieds de grue, une tête d'oiseau de nuit, le nez pointu, deux petits yeux +verts de mer et verts de terre, le teint noir et rouge, la bouche plate et +les dents clair-semées." This hideous portraiture, it is true, Sainte +Beuve protests against as a "page plus amèrement satirique" than any to be +found in French literature. But Madame de Créqui has even worse to say of +her cousin, adding, by way of further embellishment, "des pieds terribles, +et des mains formidables"—let alone that, if Emilie was "une merveille de +force," she was also at the same time "un prodige de gaucherie." "Voilà la +belle Emilie!" Even Voltaire speaks of her "main d'encre encore salie." +However, everybody agrees in praising the grace of her manner, the +remarkably attractive play of her expressive eyes—Saint Lambert calls her +"la brune à l'œil fripon"—and her peculiar skill in becomingly +dressing her dark hair. She spoke with engaging animation and +quickly—"comme moi quand je fais la française," says Madame de Grafigny +(who was always proud of being a Lorraine)—"comme<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> un ange," she +completes the sentence. If during the day, while wholly engrossed upon her +<i>Newton</i>, Emilie showed a little too much of the pedant, according to the +same lady's testimony—"le soir elle est charmante."</p> + +<p>The advent of the brilliant couple from Cirey, it need not be stated, +added further strength to the <i>philosophe</i> party. Abbé Menoux found out +that he had reckoned without his host. Between the two Marchionesses, De +Boufflers and du Châtelet, in the place of the expected jealousy and +rivalry, there proved to be nothing but sincere, close, and demonstrative +friendship. To some extent Madame du Châtelet's amiability towards the +Duke's favourite was a piece of diplomacy. She had not come into Lorraine +without a very material object in view. Her husband was not as well off as +either he or she might have wished; and, although in other matters she +showed herself very indifferent to the dull "<i>bonhomme</i>"—that is what she +used to call him—in matters of money she thoroughly supported his +interest. As in some respect a vassal of the Duke of Lorraine, and a +member of one of those four distinguished families which were known in +Lorraine as "Les grands Chevaux"—the Lignivilles, the Lenoncourts, the +Haraucourts and the du Châtelets—she considered that her husband had +something like a claim upon king Stanislas. One of King Stanislas' best +pieces of patronage, the post of <i>grand maréchal des maisons</i>, worth 2,000 +<i>écus</i> a year, had at the time fallen vacant, and for her husband <i>la +belle Emilie</i> resolved to secure it. It cost her a tough struggle, for +there was a formidable rival in the field in the person of Berchenyi, a +Hungarian, and one of the King's old favourites. However, her woman's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> +persistence triumphed in the end. Apart from such cupboard love, the two +women, both of them possessing <i>esprit</i>, both born courtiers, and both, +moreover, sharing a sublime contempt for the prosaic rules of what has +become known as the "Nonconformist Conscience," seemed thoroughly made for +one another. And their alliance told upon the Court. The Jesuits became +alarmed. Menoux put himself upon his defence, and threw himself into the +contest, more particularly with Voltaire, with a degree of vigour and +energy which taxed all the combative power of his opponent. Others might +eye the infidel askance and profess a holy horror of the opinions of one +whom Heaven was fully expected some day to punish in its own way. There is +an amusing anecdote of an unexpected encounter between Madame Alliot, the +wife of the "Jesuit" <i>intendant</i>, and Voltaire, both of whom rushed for +shelter, in a sudden and exceptionally violent storm, under the same tree. +At first the lady shrank from the atheist as from an unclean thing. The +rain, however, was inexorable. She revenged herself by preaching to the +infidel, attributing the entire displeasure of Heaven, as evidenced in +that fearful storm, to his unbelief. Voltaire, it is said, not feeling +quite sure of his ground while lightnings were flashing, and in no sort of +mood to play the Ajax, contented himself with meekly pleading that he had +"written very much more that was good of Him to whom the lady referred +than the lady herself could ever say in her whole life." Such harmless +little hits the <i>philosophe</i> had now and then to put up with; but for +serious fighting few besides Menoux had any stomach. Devaux (Panpan), +however "dévot," was disarmed by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> being—quite on the sly, but no less +ardently—one of Madame de Boufflers' chosen admirers. Galaizière was +taken up with other things. Solignac was too much of a dependent. "Mon +Dieu" Choiseul did not carry sufficient weight. There was, indeed, another +Abbé at Court, who might have been expected to help: Porquet, who became +the Duke's almoner, a most amusing person in a passive way. But he was by +no means cut out for a champion. Besides, being tutor to the young de +Boufflers, he was scarcely a free agent. He himself describes himself as +an "homme empaillé." When first appointed almoner, and called upon to say +grace, he found that he had quite forgotten his Benedicite. Stanislas made +him occasionally read to him out of the Bible, with the result that, +half-dozing over the sacred page, he fell into mis-readings such as this: +"Dieu apparut en singe à Jacob." "Comment," interrupted the Duke, "c'est +'en songe' que vous voulez dire!" "Eh, Sire, tout n'est-il pas possible à +la puissance de Dieu?"</p> + +<p>There was one sturdy supporter of Catholicism, however, who never flinched +from the fight: that was Alliot, the Duke's <i>intendant</i>, who, by virtue of +his office, had it in his power to make his dislike sharply felt. With +what abhorrence he regarded the infidel guest, for whom he had to cater, +we may learn from the contemporary records of his clerical allies, +narratives which do not ordinarily come under the notice of persons +reading about Voltaire. One can scarcely help drawing the inference that +King Stanislas, with all his goodness and all his affected devotion to +<i>periculosa libertas</i>, was a little bit of a "Mr. Facing-both-ways," using +very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> different arguments in different companies—a Pharisee to the +Pharisees, a <i>philosophe</i> to the <i>philosophes</i>. Only thus could it come +about that we have such extraordinary stories, altogether inconsistent +with known facts, vouched for on the authority of reverend divines like +Abbé Aubert and Abbé Proyart. "On vit quelquefois," says Abbé Proyart, "à +la Cour du roi de Pologne certains sujets peu dignes de sa confiance, et +le Prince les connoissoit; mais il trouvoit dans sa religion même des +motifs de ne pas les éloigner." It was represented to him (by Alliot) that +Voltaire "faisoit l'hypocrite." "C'est lui même, et non pas moi qu'il fait +dupe," replied the king. "Son hypocrisie du moins est un hommage qu'il +rend à la vertu. Et ne vaut-il pas mieux que nous le voyions hypocrite ici +que scandaleux ailleurs?" But "le vrai sage," the Abbé goes on, found +himself compelled at last to dismiss "le faux philosphe, qui commençoit à +répandre à sa Cour le poison de ses dangereuses maximes." Under this +clerical gloss the well-known story of Alliot stopping Voltaire's supply +of food and candles assumes a totally new shape. "Ce ne fut pas une petite +affaire que d'obliger Voltaire à sortir du château de Lunéville." In vain +did the king treat his guest with marked coldness; the philosopher would +not take the hint. In his predicament Stanislas appealed to the +<i>intendant</i> for advice. "Sire," replies Alliot, "<i>hoc genus dæmoniorum non +ejicitur nisi in oratione et jejunio</i>," which means, he explains, that +"pour se débarrasser de pareilles pestes," having "prayed" them to go +without avail, he should now enforce a "fast," which would certainly drive +them out of the place. Stanislas is alleged to have fallen in with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> the +Jesuit's counsels; hence that open tiff with Alliot over the stoppage of +provisions, which made Voltaire complain that he had not been allowed +"bread, wine and candles." In truth, of course, all this clerical story is +pure invention. Of the stopping of the provisions Stanislas knew nothing +till advised by Voltaire, when he quickly set the matter right.</p> + +<p>What with feasting, working, acting, dancing, travelling, the time passed +most pleasantly. "En vérité," writes Voltaire to the Countess D'Argental, +"ce séjourci est délicieux; c'est un château enchanté dont le maître fait +les honneurs. Je crois que Madame du Châtelet passerait ici sa vie." +Sometimes at Commercy, sometimes at the Malgrange, most generally at +Lunéville, with visitors coming and going, discussions raised, attentions +being paid this side and that, gallantry, billiards, <i>tric-trac</i>, +<i>lansquenet</i>, <i>comète</i> (which was a great favourite), marionettes, fancy +balls, time could hang heavily on no one's hands. "On a de tout ici, hors +du temps." Madame du Châtelet, writing till five o'clock in the morning, +though she rose not later than nine, worked hard at her translation of +<i>Newton</i>, which Voltaire cried up as a masterpiece—more particularly the +preface. Whenever she found herself at fault, she had a splendidly +fitted-up astronomical cabinet, kept up by Stanislas, to fall back upon, a +cabinet which, says Voltaire, "n'a pas son pareil en France." Voltaire +himself carried on a brisk correspondence with the Argentals, with +Frederick the Great, with his friend Falkener in Wandsworth, and with many +more, and worked at his history "de cette maudite guerre," at the <i>Siècle +de Louis XIV.</i>, at <i>Catilina</i>, and so on, with the easy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> industry which +comes from comfort and absolute absence of restraint amid agreeable +surroundings. To ingratiate himself the more with Madame de Boufflers, he +wrote <i>La Femme qui a raison</i>. He acted and he criticized. He performed +with a magic lantern, to the great amusement of the Court; and at masked +balls he got himself up, sometimes as a "wild man," sometimes as an +ancient augur. He was sorely troubled when threatened with a performance +in Paris of a travesty of <i>Semiramis</i>. Then he lost some manuscripts. +Then, again, Menoux frightened him with a tale that <i>Le Mondain</i> and <i>Le +Portatif</i>, published at Amsterdam, had both been in France traced to his +pen. Among the visitors who in the second year of his stay came to enliven +the Court was our Young Pretender—over whose misfortunes Voltaire had +pathetically lamented before King Stanislas—and Prince Cantacuzene. The +Pretender's cause Voltaire had espoused with fervid warmth. The news of +his arrest in Paris arrived at Lunéville at the very moment when he was +delighting the Lorrain Court with reading out his just completed chapter +of <i>Le Siècle de Louis XIV.</i>, treating of the Stuarts. "O ciel!" he +exclaimed, "est-il possible que le roi souffre cet affront et que sa +gloire subisse une tache que toute l'eau de la Seine ne saurait laver?" +"Que les hommes privés," he wrote later, "qui se plaignent de leurs +infortunes jettent leurs yeux sur ce prince et sur ses ancêtres."</p> + +<p>Several times he left Lorraine for a brief time, going with Madame du +Châtelet to Cirey, to Châlons, and to Paris. One visit he paid to Paris by +himself, to see <i>Semiramis</i> put on the stage. He came back in a pitiable +state, the account of which in Longchamp's journal reads<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> comical enough. +"Il est vrai que j'ai été malade," he writes later, "mais il y a plaisir à +l'être chez le roi de Pologne; il n'y a personne assurément qui ait plus +soin de ses malades que lui. On ne peut pas être meilleur roi et meilleur +homme." One would think not. Voltaire was petted like an invalid child. He +had but to send word that he wished to see Stanislas, to bring the king to +his bedside. When he found himself "malingre, bon à rien qu' à perdre ses +regards vers la Vôge," he was taken out to Chanteheux, and made thoroughly +comfortable there, where he could best indulge in the idle pleasure of +contemplating the mountains. Meanwhile Madame du Châtelet had been to +Plombières with Madame de Boufflers, and had come home just as much +disgusted with the place as Voltaire himself had been nine or ten years +before. Then the gay Court reassembled, and there was the same life, the +same succession of pleasures, the same effusion of wit and raillery. +Gilliers invented new dishes. King Stanislas exhibited his indifferent +pastels. Madame de Boufflers played the harp, and courtiers with voices +sang to her accompaniment. Under Voltaire's inspiration, all the Court +turned <i>littérateur</i> and engaged in versifying. Stanislas took up his pen +once more and wrote, among other things, <i>Le Philosophe +Chrétien</i>—horrifying thereby his daughter, the Queen of France, who +persuaded herself that in the book she discerned the malignant teaching of +the infidel Voltaire. Madame de Boufflers wrote; Saint Lambert composed +fresh ditties; Devaux grew industrious; even Galaizière found himself +impressed by the lyric Muse. Every courtier mounted his own little Pegasus +and made an attempt to produce<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> something witty, or clever, or at least +readable. Lunéville became a modern Athens.</p> + +<p>But there was a snake in the grass. One of the pleasantest features of the +remarkably sociable life carried on by the brilliant company assembled +under the roof of Stanislas, while at Lunéville and at Commercy, were +those merry nocturnal gatherings held as soon as the king had retired to +rest—which he did punctually at ten o'clock, without ever troubling the +company, in spite of his jealousy, with an unexpected reappearance. Then +began Madame de Boufflers' reign in good earnest; and to the good cheer of +a choice little supper, to which often an exciting game of <i>comète</i> or of +<i>cavagnole</i> added a fresh delight, was summoned, by means of a lighted +candle placed in a particular window, a new guest, whom Stanislas' +jealousy would not otherwise tolerate in the palace. This guest was the +young and handsome Saint Lambert, a captain in the Duke of Lorraine's +Guards, the cynosure of the ladies' world, of whom it was said that no +fair heart to which he seriously laid siege could resist him. His muse had +not yet taken the frigid turn which eventually produced those dull and +chilling <i>Seasons</i>, a poem in which no one will now detect any merit, +though Voltaire praised it up to the skies, and French contemporaries +declared that the poet had surpassed Thomson. But he dabbled very neatly +in little ditties, <i>vers d'occasion</i>, and the like, some of them rather +light and pretty, though not of the most perfect style. Voltaire professes +to regard Saint Lambert as a <i>terrible élève</i>, of whose poetry he owns +himself "jealous." "Il prend un pen ma tournure et l'embellit—j'éspère +que la postérité m'en remerciera."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> Posterity has done nothing of the +kind. In matters of courtship Saint Lambert resembled the "<i>papillon +libertin</i>" sketched by himself in one of his prettiest <i>pièces +fugitives</i>:—</p> + +<p class="poem">Plus pressant qu'amoureux, plus galant que fidèle,<br /> +De la rose coquette allez baiser le sein.<br /> +D'aimer et de changer faites-vous une loi:<br /> +A ces douces erreurs consacrez votre vie.</p> + +<p>Neither Society nor History would ever have known him, nor have detected +any talent in him, had it not been his fortune to dispossess his two great +contemporaries, Voltaire and Rousseau, successively of their mistresses, +conquering the heart, first of Madame du Châtelet, and later that of +Madame de Houdetot. Madame de Houdetot and he turned out to be really +congenial spirits. For Madame du Châtelet his own conduct shows that he +did not really care—as how could a young man of thirty-one for a woman of +forty-two or else forty-seven, who had been some years a grandmother? Her +letters are full of impassioned professions of affection, impatient +longings for his presence, reproaches for his indifference. On his side it +was all a question of vanity. It flattered him to think that he had +eclipsed the great genius of the age in the affections of a woman of whom +all the polite world was talking. What she was he knew well enough. More +than once had she tasted of the forbidden fruit. Voltaire's <i>Epître à la +Calomnie</i> had not whitewashed the Magdalen who had had relations +successively with Guébriant, with Richelieu, and with Voltaire. Of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>Voltaire's overstrained praise of her assumed modesty Saint Lambert +himself writes:—</p> + +<p class="poem">De cette tendre Courtisane<br /> +Il faisait presque une Susanne.</p> + +<p>But what could have induced Madame du Châtelet to engage in this +conspiracy of deceit all round—deceit on her part towards Voltaire, +deceit on Saint Lambert's part towards both Voltaire (with whom he was not +then on terms of intimacy) and Madame de Boufflers (with whom he had a +standing <i>liaison</i>)? It was in Madame de Boufflers' drawing-room, of all +places, that the courtship was most actively carried on. Her gilt-framed +harp, we hear, served as a letter-box for the lovers. There was a slit in +it just of a convenient size to hold the letters, which passed daily. Of +Madame du Châtelet's passion there could be no doubt. She threw herself +into the <i>amour</i> with the fervour of a girl of sixteen. She sent her lover +dainty <i>billets-doux</i> written on pink and blue-edged, fringed, and scented +paper; declared that she could not live two days without hearing from him, +when he was away; appointed <i>rendez-vous</i> in the "Bosquet"—watched and +waited for him. It seems ridiculous in a grandmother; but she was not the +first woman of her age to go wrong.</p> + +<p>Clogenson will have it that the attachment sprang up some years +before—that Madame du Châtelet became annoyed at Voltaire's long absence +at the Court of King Frederick, and looked out for a new lover. We know, +however, that Emilie and Saint Lambert met for the first time at the +Lorrain Court in 1748, when Voltaire had long been back from Berlin, and +was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> devoting himself to his lady with an assiduity which could not be +excelled. Besides, we know—from correspondence quite recently come to +light—that as late as 1744 the relations between Voltaire and Emilie were +still quite unclouded. The miniature portrait of Voltaire, which she wore +so long secretly in her ring, and which was after her death found to have +been replaced by one of Saint Lambert, was painted in 1744. In February of +that year she writes to Abbé Moussinot: "Je vous laisse la choix du +peintre, et je ne le trouverai pas cher, quoiqu'il puisse coûter." That +does not sound like pining for a fresh lover. Evidently the later +attachment dated only from 1748, when she first became personally +acquainted with Saint Lambert; and, as the late M. Meaume puts it, "threw +herself at his head." There is no need to look very far for an +explanation. Emilie herself is perfectly outspoken about it. The +temptation came. She had yielded so often that she had not sufficient +virtue left to resist. The odd part of the business is, that Voltaire so +readily forgave her; that he continued to dote upon her, to look upon her +as half of his own self; and that he grew fast and admiring friends, +almost <i>in consequence</i> of the betrayal, with his betrayer, Saint Lambert. +Many years after, Saint Lambert very naïvely set forth his own views on +the proper conduct of friends in matters of this kind in his <i>Conte +Iroquois</i>. Voltaire accepted that not very chivalrous theory readily, and +contented himself with protesting—"O ciel! voilà bien les femmes! J'en +avais ôté Richelieu, Saint Lambert m'a expulsé: cela est dans l'ordre, un +clou chasse l'autre."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>Growing poetic, he says:</p> + +<p class="poem">"Dans ces vallons et dans ces bois,<br /> +Les fleurs dont Horace autrefois<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Faisait des bouquets pour Glycère—</span><br /> +Saint Lambert ce n'est que pour toi<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Que ces belles fleurs sont écloses:</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">C'est ta main qui cueille les roses.</span><br /> +Et les épines sont pour moi."</p> + +<p>Indeed, his relations with Madame du Châtelet were not those of an +ordinary lover. He did not look upon her as in his young days he had +looked upon the inconstant "Pimpette," on the beautiful "Aurore," the +pretty "Artemire," on the very "natural" Rupelmonde, or the false +Adrienne. His heart beat to a different tune at Cirey from what it did in +the Rue Cloche Perce. She was a companion and a friend—"une âme pour qui +la mienne était faite."</p> + +<p>There is no need to review the incidents of that melancholy love-making in +detail. They are well known. It was at Commercy that the treachery was +detected, and that those half-comical, half pathetic scenes described by +Longchamp occurred—Voltaire, mad with a sense of the injury endured, +firing up, abjuring Emilie, almost accepting Saint Lambert's challenge to +fight, ordering his valet, Longchamp, to bespeak a coach and horses at +once, that very night, for Paris. Longchamp knew too well who was master. +Instead of rushing to the posting-house, he went quietly to Emilie, who +directed him to let post-master, horses, and coach alone, and report that +there were none to be had. Her cynically frank explanation, next morning, +in Voltaire's own room put matters straight and Saint Lambert was not +only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> pardoned but asked pardon of by Voltaire and admitted as a friend to +both parties. Later came the ludicrous trick played off upon the Marquis +at Cirey. Last of all, there was the sad ending at Lunéville.</p> + +<p>Madame du Châtelet had a short time before met Stanislas at the Trianon, +and had begged him for the use, for the time of her confinement, of "le +petit appartement de la reine" in the ducal palace, a handsome set of +apartments on the ground-floor, looking out on one side on the Cour +d'Honneur, on the other on the private gardens reserved for the +Court—apartments which were magnificently furnished, but were prized by +the petitioner chiefly for their comfort, and for their nearness to those +other rooms, on the first floor (which command a splendid view across the +Bosquet, bounded in the distance by the gorgeous façade of Chanteheux), in +which Voltaire was to be lodged. Those rooms in the first story are now +appropriated as a granary. Madame du Châtelet's apartments serve as +quarters for the divisional General. King Stanislas, kind-hearted as ever, +gladly acceded to the petition, and entered into all the arrangements with +particular personal interest, as if they had concerned some near relative +of his. Under his own and Madame de Bouffler's attentive care (to say +nothing of Voltaire and Mademoiselle du Thil), we know how admirably +Emilie was looked after, how satisfactorily at first all seemed to +proceed—her <i>Newton</i> was finished just in the nick of time—till that +fatal glass of iced <i>orgeat</i> suddenly turned happiness into grief, and +made the palace a house of mourning.</p> + +<p>Voltaire was dazed at the loss, unable to command<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> his words or his steps. +He tottered out on to the little flight of stairs, where he sat in dull +despair and stupefaction. In spite of all that had happened of late, he +declared that he had lost, not a mistress, but "half of his own self." The +world would be a different world to him now. There was to be no more of +woman's love for him in his after-life. Lunéville was no longer a place +for him. "Je ne pourrais pas supporter Lunéville, où je l'ai perdue d'une +manière plus funeste que vous ne pensez." Stanislas, kind to the last, did +all that he could to comfort his distressed friend. On the day of his +great trial he went up thrice into his room, sat with him, and wept with +him. We hear little of the funeral, except that it was carried out in a +magnificent style, attended by the whole of the Court, and with all the +honours which were due to a member of one of the four "<i>Grands Chevaux</i>." +It seemed like a mockery of Fate that, on being carried out to be placed +on the car the bier should have broken down in the large saloon in which +only a few weeks before Emilie had gathered brilliant laurels in her +favourite character of Issé, and that a mass of flowers, with which her +coffin was covered, should have dropped on the very spot where on that +occasion had fallen a shower of bouquets thrown in token of admiration. +The parish church of St. Remy, then quite new, received the body—it is +that same hideously grotesque rococo church now dedicated to St. Jacques, +overladen with misshapen ornament, whose two lofty but gingerbread spires, +"bourgeoises, lourdes, cossues et bonhommes au demeurant," as Edmond About +describes them, stand up, a conspicuous landmark, visible from afar off, +and looking down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> on a scene far more attractive than themselves—the +little town with its rectangular streets and squares, brightly-green +vineyards all around, and laughing hop-grounds, carefully-kept gardens, +dark bosquets, and luxuriant meadows, watered on one side by the broad +Meurthe, on the other by the modest Vesouze—with the chain of the Vosges +rising in the distance, overtopping those prettily undulating elevations +with which Lunéville is fenced in. The tomb was new, the first dug in the +nave—and it has remained the last. A black marble slab, bearing no +inscription, was laid over the grave. That same black slab is there still. +It was displaced once, when the rough champions of the Revolution raised +it, in order to possess themselves of the lead of the coffin, scattering +about rudely the bones which that coffin enclosed—almost at the precise +moment when the body of Voltaire was being carried in triumph to the +Pantheon in Paris. Pious hands gathered the remains once more together, +and there they rest in the same humble vault.</p> + +<p>Voltaire wrote serious verses upon Emilie's death; King Frederick the +Great wrote flippant ones. Maupertuis lamented the possessor of brilliant +powers never put to a bad use, a woman guilty of "ni tracasserie, ni +médisance, ni mechanceté." Madame de Grafigny mourned over one who had +"never told a lie:" Voltaire added that she had "never spoken ill of +anyone." It all mattered little after she was gone. Voltaire packed up his +things, and hurried off sorrowfully to Cirey, where he gathered together +the various chattels with which he had made that place more habitable and +more attractive; and before the Marquis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> could seriously object, he had +carried them off to Paris.</p> + +<p>He had done his work at Lunéville. He had put the stamp of literature and +taste on the place. He had set the current of learning flowing towards the +Lorrain capital, where a year after de Tressan appeared, to add one more +captive to the admiring army vanquished by de Boufflers—Tressan, the +"Horace, Pollion et Tibulle" of Voltaire, but forgotten now—who in 1751 +founded, under Stanislas' auspices, that "Société de Sciences et de Belles +Lettres," which soon acquired the name of "Academy," and took rank in +public estimation almost on a par with the sacred Olympus of the "Forty" +at Paris. Montesquieu, Helvétius, Hénault, Fontenelle, Bishop Poncet, +Bishop Drouas—all begged as a favour to be admitted. Really, that +Academy—which is still a flourishing institution at Nancy—was Voltaire's +work. Stanislas' fond dream had been realized, and the Court of Lorraine +had become a foremost seat of the Muses.</p> + +<p>Voltaire never forgot the hospitality received at Stanislas' hands. To the +time of that nominal sovereign's melancholy death, he continued in +friendly and affectionate correspondence with him. In 1760, after Louis +XV. had refused him permission to settle once more on the banks of the +Vesouze, we find him writing to the Polish king:—"Je me souviendrai +toujours, Sire, avec la plus tendre et la plus respectueuse reconnaissance +des jours heureux que j'ai passés dans votre palais. Je me souviendrai que +vous daigniez faire les charmes de la société comme vous faisiez la +félicité de vos peuples, et que si c'était un bonheur de dépendre de vous, +c'en était un plus grand de vous approcher."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>Six years after that the little drama of the Lorrain Court was played out. +Blind, and old, and deserted, Stanislas was not even sufficiently cared +for to have some one handy to help when his silk dressing-gown caught +fire. He died of his wounds—with an innocent <i>bon-mot</i> on his lips. The +Lorrains, who had been slow to welcome him, crowded round his sick bed and +his hearse. He had done his work. In spite of his failings, his posings, +his airs, and his frivolities, no one need grudge him that tribute of +esteem. He had made the change from independence, dear as life itself to +the Lorrains while under their own dukes, to incorporation with France +very much easier. He had done much material good to the Duchy, and to +literature he had rendered very useful service. His Court is forgotten +now. His Palace is turned into a barrack; and the once gay capital has, +but for its garrison, become a sleepy little provincial town, in which the +presence of a stray stranger puts the police at once on the <i>qui vive</i>. +The hop-trade and the manufacture of <i>dentelleries</i> monopolize the +attention of the inhabitants; and only rarely is it that some inquiring +traveller comes to inspect with interest the spot on which was enacted the +most important scene of what the late Comte d'Haussonville has aptly +called "the great second act" of the <i>comédie</i> of Voltaire's life—that +act which, according to the same gifted author, might be named "L'amour de +la science, et la science de l'amour."</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p> +<h2>VII.—THE PRINCE CONSORT'S UNIVERSITY DAYS.<a name='fna_10' id='fna_10' href='#f_10'><small>[10]</small></a></h2> + +<p class="note">"Quarum virtutum laude hominum animas, dum in hac urbe morabaris, +mirifice Tibi devinxisti."—<i>Address of the Senate of Bonn to Prince +Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, January, 28, 1840.</i></p> + + +<p>There are incidents in a man's life—sometimes important, sometimes +insignificant—which impress themselves upon his mind as if graven in +"with a pen of iron." Thirty-two years have now passed away, but I +remember, as if it had happened only a few weeks ago, old "Senius" putting +his weather-worn face into my bedroom at Bonn, on the memorable grey +morning of mid-December, 1861, to make the melancholy announcement: "Uür +Prinz is doht." "Dat war 'ne johde Heer," he added rather impressively.</p> + +<p>"Senius" was our "Stiefelfuchs"—which means a great deal more than having +to "polish our boots." And in some capacity or other—it must have been a +subordinate one—it had been his fate to be employed in the Prince +Consort's household while the latter was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> a student at Bonn. What +qualified him for either of these positions I am at a loss to conjecture. +He was nothing of a valet. We used to beg him, for mercy's sake, not to +attempt to remove stains from our clothes, inasmuch as in doing so (in the +only way which seemed to suggest itself to his untutored mind) he +invariably made two smudges out of one by spitting just a little wide of +the mark. At least that was the tradition. For any delicate mission, such +as smuggling liquor into the "Carcer," he was absolutely useless. He knew +well enough how to bandage a man for a "Mensur." And on the bitter cold +days of a North-German winter the huge bowl of his ever-smoking pipe would +be very acceptable as a hand-warmer to those gloved for the fight. He was +honest, no doubt, and strictly faithful, and that must have helped to +ingratiate him with the Prince. But his main recommendation appears to +have been his curious capacity for saying odd things in an odd way, and in +the quaintest of broad Rhenish <i>patois</i>, which made them sound doubly +droll. What with quaint habits and quaint sayings, he had become a +"character" at Bonn, generally popular as such, known to every man, woman +and child in the place, and allowed almost any latitude of speech. The +Prince, whose relish for humour was, in his student days, fully as keen as +ever in after-life, appears to have been tickled with the man's unintended +drollery; for, according to "Senius's" own naïvely frank account, he made +it his amusement to "draw" him, eliciting odd answers by inoffensively +unmerciful chaff. And this may account for "Senius" remaining in the +princely household, and experiencing much kindness at his master's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> hands. +If gratitude be a return, the Prince had it in ample measure. That "dat +war 'ne johde Heer" was spoken with unmistakable feeling, and it proved +the prelude to a whole string of little anecdotes which—though not +perhaps in themselves particularly remarkable or worth repeating—were +poured forth with such simple earnestness as sufficiently testified, how +firmly a sense of regard and affection had taken root in the old man's +heart, to live there through many years of separation.</p> + +<p>"Senius" was not the only person in Bonn who could grow warm upon this +subject. The Prince's death, indeed, set loose in the University town a +whole flood of anecdotes and reminiscences, some very trivial and +commonplace, but all of them evidencing a lively interest and abiding +regard. It is strange what power some persons possess of impressing men's +minds. There have been scores of princes students at Bonn since, some of +them spending more money and making much more of a show; but memory has +closed over them like water over a ripple. There is none remembered like +the then Prince of Coburg—down to the days of his grandson, the present +Emperor, who, of course, conquered local hearts by identifying himself +rather demonstratively with the place.</p> + +<p>At my time people spoke frequently of "der Prinz Albehrt." All the older +townsfolk remembered the "bildschöne junge Mann," who sat his horse like a +born cavalier, and whose mere appearance was calculated to prepossess +people in his favour. Two friends of mine—the brothers von C—— (one of +them is now a retired general who has covered himself with glory in the +wars in 1866 and 1870)—used as boys to make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> a point of watching for the +Coburg Princes when about to mount horse, from the house of their +neighbour, Landrath von Hymmen, who lived just opposite. They would rush +out eagerly at the proper moment to hold the Princes' stirrups, and +consider themselves amply rewarded with a kind word or a genial smile. +Travelling Englishmen have afterwards made it a matter of duty, Murray or +Baedecker in hand, to "do" the simple house "in which Prince Albert +lived," as they "did" the Münster and the Alte Zoll. To the people of Bonn +the Prince's doings were a living memory. Only eighteen months ago I was +surprised, while accidentally alluding to the subject in conversation with +an old resident, since dead, to find that gentleman at once pulling out of +his pocket a photograph of the Prince's house, which he seemed to carry +about with him habitually. He knew all the windows, and the gateway, and +answered questions about the Prince's habits of life as if they had +referred to matters of yesterday.</p> + +<p>In truth, Bonn owes a great deal to the Prince Consort—more than most +people are aware. If the University has grown great and popular, a +favourite with reigning houses, a High School in which every King of +Prussia is expected to have pursued his studies, something like a "Christ +Church" among German Universities; if the town has grown rich and +flourishing, a favourite residence with wealth and position <i>en retraite</i>, +the merit is in no small measure due to the Prince who, practically +speaking, first set the fashion among illustrious folk. No scion of a +reigning house, to speak of—none, certainly, to make a mark—had been at +Bonn before. Indeed, Bonn, with its associations of the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>Burschenschaft, +of disaffection and of ecclesiastical strife, did not stand in the best of +odours. Hence, when a Prince came to break the ice, of more than ordinary +promise, and already connected by rumour with a high destiny, very +naturally, all eyes were turned upon him. His subsequent marriage with the +Queen—at that time certainly the most powerful sovereign in +Christendom—following almost immediately upon his studentship, no doubt +emphasised the effect and added force to the example. We see at once +princes flocking to the <i>Fridericia Guilelmia Rhenana</i>—Schaumburgs, and +Mecklenburgs, and Schleswig-Holsteins, and Meiningens. Twelve years after +we have the heir to the Prussian Crown matriculating as a student. We find +the roll of students growing at a bound from 650 to 731—to increase since +to above 1,200. In short, we see Bonn developing into a different place. +English folk—as the Prince's friend, Professor Loebell, puts it, rather +uncomplimentarily, in one of his Belgian letters—send their "young bears" +to Bonn in whole batches, "to be licked." Then the parents come +themselves, bringing their families with them, to settle there. German +rank and fashion follow in their wake, quintupling the population in less +than sixty years—and the reputation and position of the town are made.</p> + +<p>Bonn was a very different place from the fashionable town that it is now, +when, on May 3, 1837, Professor Wutzer, as Rector Magnificus, pledged +"Prinz Albrecht Franz, Herzog von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha", "by pressure of +hand in place of oath," to be a faithful "citizen" of the University. +Prince Ernest, the Prince's elder brother, matriculated at the same time. +There was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> also a Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, of whom little was seen +or heard; moreover, Prince William of Löwenstein, who grew to be the +Prince's intimate friend; and two Hohenlohes. (Prince Erbach is not in the +University Register included among persons of illustrious birth.) All the +wide belt of spruce and tidy villas set up amid laughing gardens, which +now make Bonn so charming and attractive, and impart to it so pleasing a +look of prosperity and comfort, were still a thing to come. The little +town, having only about 12,000 inhabitants, still lay hemmed in within the +lines of its old walls, the gates of which were carefully closed for +security every night. There was an air of "smallness" about everything, +except the handsome "Schloss," which Archbishop Clemens August had built +(with money received from France) as a sumptuous residence for himself, +but which King Frederick William III. in 1818, without much regard for +Roman Catholic susceptibilities, converted into a "double-denomination" +University. Lutheran divines now taught where the most orthodox of +Catholic princes had held court. A non-denominational Senate conferred +degrees where the last Archbishop-Elector, the Austrian Archduke Max +Franz—"Abbé Sacrebleu," as he was popularly called—had danced with most +unepiscopal perseverance and vigour. And at Poppelsdorf learned professors +made the air malodorous with chemical stenches in the same palace in which +that most courtly of all archbishops, Clemens August, had entertained +those beautiful ladies who got him into rather serious trouble at Rome. +But, apart from these costly buildings, all was country-townish. There was +no Coblenzer Strasse as yet—only a small<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> cluster of houses, among which +the <i>Vinca Domini</i>—whilom the winepress of the local lord—and the villa +of the patriot Arndt, were alone conspicuous. Inside the walls the +students were much in evidence, rough in their uncouth costume of those +days, very "Guys" in embroidered "pikesches" and wide petticoat-trousers, +having long curls dangling from their heads and heavy rapiers from their +waists. However, opinion in high quarters was not altogether favourable to +them. The revolutionary "Burschenschaft" had been strong in Bonn, +numbering Heinrich Heine among its members. Rhineland was, moreover, at +that time still wholly unreconciled to Prussian rule. Its seventeen years +of incorporation with France had raised a crop of free and anti-Prussian +ideas which were not soon to be eradicated. And with Austria so powerful, +and Austrian sympathies so widely diffused, thanks to Max Franz, the +authorities had still to deal gingerly with their new subjects. It made +them wince to hear the words "'ne Prüss" commonly and openly used as a +term of reproach and contempt—they were so to down in the fifties. But +they could not interfere too rigorously. Then there was the ecclesiastical +squabble, foreshadowing Prince Bismarck's "Culturkampf," and every bit as +serious and as violent. Only incapacity like that of a Schmedding, and +infatuation like that of a Bunsen, could have created such a hopeless +dilemma. "Is your Government mad?" Cardinal Lambruschini is reported to +have asked, when Bunsen communicated to him the appointment of Droste von +Vischering to be Archbishop of Cologne, as a supposed "angel of peace." +The Crown Prince, subsequently Frederick William IV., favoured the +appointment. The "angel of peace" proved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> a very demon of war. What with +the dispute over mixed marriages, the Episcopal protest against State +interference in Church matters, the Anathema pronounced by the new prelate +against the latitudinarian school of the followers of Hermes, particularly +favoured by the Government and deliberately installed at Bonn, and the +Archbishop's uncompromising ban upon the University <i>Convictorium</i>, there +was war along the whole line. All Rhineland, be it remembered, was then +still staunchly Romanist. Bonn contained but a handful of Protestants. The +"concurrently endowed" University, planted in the midst of a Catholic +country, was a standing abomination and a perpetual taunt to the native +population. The Prince's letters of that time show how fully he +appreciated the grave significance of the struggle even at his early age. +It was while he was at Bonn that the refractory Archbishop was carried off +by force, to be "interned" at Minden.</p> + +<p>Under such circumstances it required some resolution for a young +Protestant Prince to settle amid an excited Romanist population. If to be +"'ne Prüss" was a reproach, to be "'ne Jüss"—that is "Gueux," or +Protestant—meant downright anathema. And Prince Albert settled right in +what may be called a little Protestant colony, saucily set up under the +very shadow of the beautiful east-end of that splendid old "Münster," +which traces its foundation to Constantine, and has been the scene of +Councils and Imperial coronations from the tenth century downwards.</p> + +<p>The Empress Frederick, a few years ago, when in Bonn, very naturally asked +to be shown the house in which her father had lived. By that time every +vestige<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> of it had disappeared, and she could only be pointed out the +site—a garden it is now, fronting an entirely new building in the +Martinsplatz, close to where, up to the beginning of the century, stood +the church which gave the square its name. But I can perfectly recall the +unpretending structure, a three-storied, flat-gabled house, with a +two-storied wing—the old-fashioned windows set off by dark-green +shutters—lying rather in a hollow, within a yard enclosed in a stone wall +pierced by a gate, but generally open in situation and yet, thanks to the +enclosure, pretty private. It commanded very fair views of the +Poppelsdorfer Allee—the favourite strolling-ground, ever since it was +planted, for fashionable and unfashionable Bonn—of the Kreuzberg, and +sideways of the more distant Seven Mountains. It seemed a small house to +harbour two Princes and their suite, more especially when one was told +that what seemed the main portion was reserved for the use of the owner. +But it was a building of considerable depth, and so afforded sufficient +room for the illustrious inmates and all their not very numerous +household, which included, of course, the "excellent" Doctor Florschütz as +tutor, the rather starchy martinet-soldier Herr von Wiechmann, who acted +as governor, the Prince's favourite valet, and some more. All about the +household, as about the Prince's doings generally, was marked by extreme +simplicity, which could not, however, in any particular have suggested +anything like niggardliness, but merely the voluntary plain living of a +gentleman who had no taste for sumptuous habits. Meals, appointments, +entertainments, everything indicated a dislike of display. The Prince's +trap was such as an innkeeper<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> living opposite could, on its original +owner's departure, purchase and use for his business-drives without +occasioning remark. If there was one material thing in respect of which +the Prince practised luxury, it was his little stud, which was small, but +generally admired as choice, and which was, it need scarcely be added, +much prized by its owner. The hours kept in the little green-shuttered +house were probably the most regular in all the town. Everything in the +illustrious student's life was subordinated to the purposes of study. +Every hour had its allotted task. He must have been an early riser who +could have seen the blinds down of a morning; and long before lights went +out in some of the adjoining houses, all was darkness and rest in the +Prince's home, which was a veritable temple of method and punctuality.</p> + +<p>The quarters had been selected because the Duke of Saxe-Coburg wished his +sons to be lodged with a professor. There were not many such with +sufficiently large dwellings to select from, and possibly on that ground +the choice had fallen upon a Professor of Medicine, who could have been of +little service to the Princes in the prosecution of their studies. He was +popularly known as "Gamaschenbischof"—"Gaiter-Bishop"—to distinguish him +from the other Geheimrath Bischoff who became better known as a great +professor of chemistry, but who wore no gaiters. I quite forget whether +"Gamaschenbischof" was a Roman Catholic or a Protestant. But his next-door +neighbour on the side of the old Neuthor—then still an old-fashioned +arched gateway with a substantial gate to keep out bad characters at +night—was the acknowledged head of the Lutheran congregation, then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> a +mere handful, the sparing growth of twenty years of Prussian rule. The +little community did not yet possess a church of their own as they do now. +Indeed, for many years after they had to content themselves with the use +of the bald but lofty University chapel, which for many decades they have +shared with their English fellow-Christians, often enough keeping the +latter waiting when their sermon happened to be long, and considerately +leaving a crucifix as a fixture for rigid Evangelicals to chafe at and +write letters about to successive chaplains. But the proper stronghold of +local Protestantism was to be found in that turreted little Château +Gaillard facing the Münster, in which Pusey's friend, Professor Sack, +Schleiermacher's least heterodox pupil, had at the Prince's time his +official residence. The Coburg Princes, who loyally upheld their own +Protestant church, were not infrequent visitors in the house of this +pastor, who was well-informed and sociable, and by no means an +unacceptable neighbour. Beyond the parsonage, directly abutting upon the +Neuthor, was another Protestant institution—the Lutheran school—which, +some years later, became a noted centre of attraction to males of all +creeds, by reason of the residence in it of "The Three Graces," the +<i>Küster's</i>—that is, the clerk and schoolmaster's—remarkably handsome +daughters. But in 1837 and 1838 those ladies were still too young to do +much mischief, even to so impressionable a cavalier as Prince Ernest. All +these buildings spoken of, which still stood at my time, have long since +been pulled down and made to give place to houses of a more modern type.</p> + +<p>All things considered, it would have been difficult<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> for the Duke of +Coburg to make a better choice of a University in which to give his sons +the last finishing touch of education. Bonn has always stood high as a +home of learning. King Frederick William III. was careful, with the most +luxurious buildings and what was at that time considered a truly princely +endowment, to bestow upon his own peculiar "pet child" as competent a +teaching staff as money and favour could procure. And in 1837, though +Niebuhr was gone, and Arndt was suspended—for preaching too vigorously +the gospel of German union, which was then reputed rank heresy—and though +Dahlmann, who would have been a professor after Prince Albert's own heart, +had not yet come, the teaching staff could compare with that of any +period. But apart from that, there was a tone of freedom and geniality +prevailing at Bonn which distinguished that place from all other German +universities. It was the least Prussian of all Prussian High Schools—far +more in the world and in touch with the world than all its sisters. Set up +on "Frankish" soil, which used to give Germany its Emperors; the chosen +residence, until recently, of prelates of an ancient See, who had +entertained relations from time immemorial with all great Courts, and who +had been recruited from princely houses; and, last, but not least, only a +generation before an integral portion of the Republic, "one and +indivisible," which planted its tricolor nowhere without leaving its free +spirit behind, even after the outward ensign was gone—Bonn nourished a +more independent habit of thought and encouraged wider and larger views +than did the "zopf"-ruled universities of the East. It was here, +doubtless, among the patriotic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> aspirations of a "Young Germany" unchilled +by Carlsbad and Laibach, under the inspiring teaching of Arndt, that Duke +Ernest, prophetically styled <i>Spes patriæ</i> in an address presented by the +Academical Senate, conceived that liberal, high-minded and unselfish +policy which paved the way as much as anything else for the Union of 1871. +And to Prince Albert, likewise, this must have seemed a wider world than +that of Coburg; and, in a period of life more formative of character than +any other, it must have served to prepare him better for that freer sphere +of action into which he was destined shortly to be called.</p> + +<p>Niebuhr, as observed, was gone from Bonn. Arndt was removed from his +"chair" for saying too freely in 1820 what Princes had openly proclaimed +in 1813. Dahlmann was, in truth, still one of "the Seven of Göttingen," +inasmuch as Ernest Augustus had not yet made his Hanoverians to regret +that they were governed by the Salic law. But there was Welcker, the great +historian of art, and the brilliant elocutionist, from whom the Prince +must have learnt much of that close knowledge and warm appreciation of art +which afterwards made him so efficient a furtherer of culture in this +kingdom. There were Loebell and Perthes, von Alten, Bethmann-Hollweg, +Walter, Brandis, Nitzsch, Deiters, Bleek, Breidenstein, Nöggerath, +Argelander, Schlegel, Fichte, Plücker, Böcking, and many more—not a few +of whom I can perfectly remember from my own days. The two Princes, and +more particularly Prince Albert, knew how to turn the opportunities at +their command to admirable account, not merely by attending the public +lectures with exemplary regularity, but, in addition,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> by seeking out +learning, so to speak, <i>en déshabillé</i>, and drawing from it in the easy +way of conversation and chat probably more information than it dispensed +on more formal occasions. Prince Albert was on excellent terms with the +most able of these men—Schlegel, Perthes, Bethmann-Hollweg, Walter and +some more—and was frequently to be seen walking with one or other of them +in the Poppelsdorfer Allee, or else on the Venusberg, or along the Rhine, +keeping up an animated conversation. And often would he ask some one or +two to his house, or else drop in—sometimes on his own invitation—to +that peculiarly German repast of evening "tea," further to prosecute his +cross-questioning. "Tea," of course, does not in this application mean +anything like our own "five o'clock," nor yet quite so substantial a meal +as our middle-class "high tea," but a light evening repast, such as is +usual (viz., after a good mid-day dinner) among the cultivated classes in +Germany, when <i>en famille</i>, from the Imperial Court downward. Taxing the +stomach but little, such a meal leaves the head all the more free for +intellectual occupation, and is, in truth, dependent for its best relish +on the Attic salt supplied by the company. (The "tea" itself is, +unfortunately, as a rule, indifferent in quality.) At Bonn these "teas" +became little feasts of reason, and used to be, I am told, one of the +Prince's particular delights. He was in the habit of discussing questions +of learning and politics and statesmanship very freely with his own chosen +little set, Prince Löwenstein and others. But he knew the difference +between this and putting Professors (who in Bonn were then not merely men +of the lamp) into the witness-box<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> and pleasurably pumping them dry over +their own tea-table. Nobody relished this treatment more than the +Professors themselves, who in after-time often spoke of the enjoyable +evenings which they had spent, and the pleasure of discussing matters on +which they were masters with so apt a pupil, who knew how to put +brightness and stimulating interest into the conversation. The Prince's +enjoyment, it is to be suspected, went even a little further. For, men of +great learning as these Professors were, more than one of them had +contracted odd habits of speech and manner, which no man was more quick to +note and more apt inoffensively to caricature—in mien and with +pencil—than the Prince. We know that he could use pen and brush deftly +enough. And more particularly of his artist's work completed at Bonn +several specimens survive—for instance, the Queen's "Savoyard Boy." Some +of the caricature sketches referred to are said to have been admirable, +and no less so the mimicry which, without malice or guile, brought out +tellingly the little oddities of these learned gentry, to the intense +amusement of a privileged and very select audience. There was, as it +happened, ample material. Schlegel, the great and the witty—there could +have been no pleasanter companion than he who first made the Germans +understand Shakespeare—was, with all his merits, vain and conceited, and +foolishly insisted upon parading his conceit before the world. He was old +at that time, and lectured only at rare intervals, but every now and then +some of that old impetuosity would break out, which in earlier days had +made him, without regard for conventionalities, pull off his coat and +waistcoat in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> the midst of an evening party, in order to fling to his +brother Frederick the smaller garment, for which in a rash moment he had +bartered away a good story. Then there was Loebell, the friend of Tieck, +the uncompromising Protestant, full of historic lore as an egg is of meat, +and of truly magnetic attractiveness to his pupils, but ugly as a monkey, +diffident and gauche, and, thanks to his habitual absence of mind, a +source of the oddest and never-failing anecdote. Perthes and Fichte laid +themselves equally open to ridicule. The "University Judge" (Proctor) von +Salomon, commonly nicknamed "the Salamander," was made more than once to +sit for a comic portrait; and Oberberghauptmann Count Beust—the Prince's +own countryman, a native of Saxe-Coburg, with whom the Prince was on terms +of comparative intimacy—provided at times irresistible food for laughter, +not only by his curious squat little figure, but even more by that +genuinely Saxon sing-song accent, which seems to be a common feature of +all Beusts who have not remained in their old Brandenburg home. The +statesman of the same name, whom we have seen in our midst, shared this +same family defect, and was accordingly known in Saxony as "Beist;" and +one of the Ministries of which he formed a member was currently spoken of, +by way of joke, as "Behr <i>beisst</i> Rabenhorst." As droll as any was +Professor Kaufmann, from whom, long before I listened to the curious +cadences of his speech, the Prince Consort learnt very orthodox political +economy conveyed in the prosiest of ways, fortunately relieved by the +quaintest illustrations of economic truths which could ever have issued +from the brain of man. He looked like one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> of Cruikshank's figures come to +life, and it was really difficult not to laugh at him.</p> + +<p>The Prince's shafts of wit never wanted point, but at the same time they +never struck painfully home. There was no mimicry or jest which even its +victims could not readily forgive. Years after the Prince had left Bonn, +the very men whom he had amused himself by taking off most mercilessly +looked back, not only without resentment, but with absolute satisfaction, +on all this intercourse. And when, on the approach of the Prince's +marriage, it was proposed to send him a Latin address of congratulation, +and to bestow upon him—as the fittest offering for the occasion that the +Senate could think of—the Degree of <i>Doctor utriusque juris</i>, the motion +was carried by acclamation, and the learned Professor Ritschl was at once +commissioned to compose a Latin ode, which turned out perfect in grammar +and prosody, but which is a trifle too long to be here quoted.</p> + +<p>With the students, generally speaking—apart from his own little princely +set—the Prince was less intimate. He would mingle with them in the +quadrangle, the lecture-hall, and the fencing-room, and he would invite +them periodically, in batches, to his hospitable table, where, of course, +he made a most genial host. But I have heard complaints of his supposed +reserve and coldness, and his keeping people at a distance, contrasting +just a little with the <i>engouement</i> with which Prince Ernest was ready to +take part in the fun and frolic of German student life. It was said that +the coming engagement with the Queen, which rumour considerably +ante-dated, had chilled Prince Albert's young blood, and led him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> to stand +a little on his dignity. Probably this was to some extent a question of +manner. But, moreover, it ought to be borne in mind, that student life was +in those days just a trifle rough, and, knowing what it was, one can +readily understand the Prince's disinclination to identify himself +altogether with habits not by any means congenial to himself. He could +grow sociable enough with students on proper occasions. He is known to +have been a regular attendant at the <i>Fechtboden</i>—where, however, he +practised rather with the broad-sword than with the student's +rapier—ready to accept the challenge of any competent opponent; and he +would occasionally look on with interest at a real <i>Mensur</i>, whenever good +fencers were put forward to fight. We know that at a great fencing match +he carried off the first prize.<a name='fna_11' id='fna_11' href='#f_11'><small>[11]</small></a> Even beyond this, from time to time he +would visit a students' <i>Kneipe</i>—having duly prepared himself for the +short nocturnal dissipation with a little snooze—and join very readily in +the fun and the mirth, more particularly in such amusements as allowed +play for the intellectual faculties. He was fond of German melodies, and +knew how to delight his audience with a song. And when it came to some +serio-comic diversion—such as the mock-trial know as a <i>Bierconvent</i>, a +travesty of legal proceedings, conceived, when ably led, in the spirit of +Demosthenes' hypothetical lawsuit about "the shadow of an ass"—he is said +to have been excellent. But mere beer-drinking and shouting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> were not in +his line. At home he was wont to cultivate the Muses, People still talk of +a little volume of poetry which the two brothers are said to have brought +out conjointly in support of a local charity, and to which Prince Albert +is supposed to have contributed the verse, and Prince Ernest the tunes. I +should not be surprised to learn that Prince Albert had as much to do with +the music as with the text. So far as there was poetry and music and +geniality to be found under the rough mask of student life, the Prince was +very ready to take part in it. And during the sixteen months of his +studentship he grew sufficiently familiar with some of his fellow-students +even to <i>tutoyer</i>. My friend, E. von C——, who was then a boy, distinctly +remembers meeting him walking towards the Rhine, and hearing him accosted +by two burly "Westphalians": "Wo gehst du hin, Albert?" "Ich gehe ins +Schiff," was his reply; "ich reise nach England." The Westphalians at once +turned round to see him off. That was an eventful journey "to England."</p> + +<p>How little <i>hauteur</i> really had to do with the Prince's intercourse with +his fellow-men is testified by the friendly acquaintanceship which grew up +at Bonn between him and persons of an entirely different class, and which +has still left its honourable memories behind.</p> + +<p>Pretty well opposite his own quarters, cornering the Martinsplatz—where +now are two much-frequented shops—in those days stood a middle-sized +house, over the door of which might be read the inscription +"Weinwirthschaft von Peter Stamm." In later days, under a new proprietor, +the house came to be more <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>ambitiously christened "Gasthaus zum Deutschen +Hof." In this establishment both Princes were frequent visitors, perhaps +Prince Albert more so than his brother. It was at this corner generally +that they mounted horse for a ride—I believe that some of their horses +were put up in the "Weinwirthschaft"—and here accordingly my friend, von +C——, used to watch for them, in order to hold their stirrups. In a +University town, in which</p> + +<p class="poem">Bibit hera, bibit herus,<br /> +Bibit miles, bibit clerus,<br /> +Bibit ille, bibit illa,<br /> +Bibit servus cum ancilla,<br /> +Bibit velox, bibit piger,<br /> +Bibit albus, bibit niger,<br /> +Bibit constans, bibit vagus,<br /> +Bibit rudis, bibit magus,<br /> +Bibit pauper et aegrotus,<br /> +Bibit exul et ignotus,<br /> +Bibit puer, bibit canus,<br /> +Bibit praesul et decanus,<br /> +Bibit soror, bibit frater,<br /> +Bibit anus, bibit mater,<br /> +Bibit iste, bibit ille,<br /> +Bibunt centum, bibunt mille:<br /> +Tam pro Papa, tam pro rege<br /> +Bibunt omnes sine lege,</p> + +<p>of course there are wine-shops many, and beer-shops many; and neither +student nor "Philistine" need ever be in any fear of having to remain +"dry" for want of liquor. But there has always been some one or other +wine-house raised a little above the common run, not by any pretentious +architecture or outfit—as a rule it was in external features one of the +most unpretending in the town—but by the superior quality of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> liquor +served. Here would meet—as is doubtless the case now—the <i>honoratiores</i> +of the town, and some other blithe spirits, admitted almost by favour, a +select <i>clientèle</i>, to sip down, to the accompaniment of fluent +conversation, not the vulgar "schoppen" of the multitude, but the +capitalist "special"—a half-pint held in a massive goblet-shaped glass. +In my time the "select" wine-house of this sort was that of +"Schmitzköbes"—which means "James Schmitz"—in the market-place. In the +Prince's time it was the house of Peter Stamm. However, it was not for the +wine that the Prince came to this house—though in moderation he +appreciated a glass of good Rhenish, or Walporzheim. In our +aristocratically organised country, where, moreover, sportsmanship is held +to be public property, as accessible to the stockbroker as to the squire, +we have no idea of the fast link which in Germany—altogether differently +constituted, at any rate, then—the love of sport will bind between +persons of totally different classes. It holds them together like a +bracket. Prince and farmer, noble and tradesman—it is all alike <i>quoad</i> +sport; for that purpose genuine comradeship is established, on altogether +equal terms. There is no giving one's self away in this, nor yet any undue +presumption. The tradesman remains a tradesman, the prince no less a +prince; social differences are merely put aside. Now Peter Stamm was a +most zealous sportsman, who knew where to find a hare or a bird for many +miles round, and could spend whole nights and days with his dog and with +his gun—more particularly if there were some like-minded companion to +share the sport. And what was more for the present purpose, he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> an +ardent horse-fancier, and a connaisseur of horse-flesh. His brother, +"Stamm-hannes"—that is, "John Stamm"—was a noted horse-dealer and +horse-breaker, who always had some good cattle on hand. And, moreover, +Peter Stamm was a great dog-fancier, and known for having the best dogs in +all Bonn. From him, I believe, it was that the Prince purchased that +handsome favourite of his, Eôs, whom he brought over with him to England, +his constant companion then on walks and drives and travels. So here was a +threefold cord which bound together these two neighbours, living within a +stone's throw of one another—a link which never broke in after-life. Long +after the Prince had left Bonn, there used to be messages going backwards +and forwards. When Peter was gone, Stamm-hannes kept up the intercourse, +and on one of his travels to England even visited the Prince as an old +friend. They are both dead now—and so is Nicolas, the third brother, who +kept the Bellevue Hotel on the Rhine. But to the present day old Fräulein +Stamm, now eighty-three years of age, carefully preserves and +affectionately cherishes the few keepsakes which still remain of the +Prince's giving—originally to Peter—and there is nothing that the old +lady is more fond of talking about than those old days, when the Prince +and Peter used to drive out to the Kottenforst together, and Peter would +come home and tell her of their common, not overexciting, adventures. The +keepsakes have dwindled down to three pictures and two porcelain cups, the +latter rather rudely painted, as was the fashion in those days, with views +of the Drachenfels and Rolandseck. Of the pictures, two are portraits of +the young Princes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> taken at Brussels before they repaired to Bonn, and +showing their boyish faces flanked by two heavy pairs of epaulettes. The +third, a woodcut, represents some unknown sportsman going a-stalking. +There used to be other small articles, such as sportsman friends are in +the habit of presenting to one another; but time has, one after the other, +disposed of them.</p> + +<p>The Prince, we know, was always particularly fond of bodily exercise. At +Bonn he would fence regularly. And he would swim with as much zest, and +think nothing of mixing with the common crowd in those rough-and-ready +swimming-baths which I well remember; for in my time they were still all +the convenience for river bathing that Bonn had to offer—a rude concern +on the other bank of the Rhine, knocked together out of a raft and a few +sheds. In those baths the Prince did not seem to mind whom he rubbed +shoulders with. In this respect he closely resembled his son-in-law, the +Emperor Frederick, whose popularity in Berlin was not a little enhanced by +the <i>sans gêne</i> with which he would, while in the water, join in the +splashing and larking of his future subjects, to whom it never on such +occasions occurred to forget themselves. A simple "Na, Jungens, jetzt ist +genug" from the Prince would at once warn them back into proper distance. +The Prince Consort became just as popular among the swimmers at Bonn. The +Rhine is really a troublesome river to swim in, on account of the force of +its current. The Prince would have himself rowed up a pretty long +distance, to swim back. I once or twice swam the same distance, in company +with Count H——, of the "Borussians," and we both found it quite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> long +enough. A very favourite sport with the Prince was, to tumble little boys +into the water—the swimming-master being by for safety—and then dive +after them to bring them up. He would select such as were not likely to be +frightened. And they came to like the fun.</p> + +<p>But the Prince's favourite recreation of all was going a-shooting. In the +near neighbourhood of Bonn there is no very ambitious sport. The more +venturesome spirits go as far as the Eifel Mountains, there to kill +wild-boar and red-deer. For this the Prince grudged the time. So he had to +be content with hares and birds, an occasional roebuck—and, I dare say, +in those, early days he now and then brought down a fox, which in Germany +is reckoned rather good sport. When, in 1858, the Crown Prince, Emperor +Frederick, came back from his wedding, and found the officers of the Deutz +Cuirassiers drawn up in line at the Cologne station to salute him, he +singled out Count F——, of M—dorf, to present more especially to his +bride. "I must present Count F—— to you," he said; "it was on his estate +that I shot my first fox." Either Count F——'s conscience stung him, or +else he realised better than the Crown Prince in what light vulpicide is +regarded in the Princess's country: "It was not really a fox, Sir," he +explained with some embarrassment; "it was a wild cat."</p> + +<p>There were water-fowl near Brühl; there used to be a heronry there. But I +do not think the Prince went in that direction. His ordinary +shooting-ground was near Bergheim, on the other side of the Rhine and, +beyond the Venusberg, in the Kottenforst, a long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> stretch of forest, not +everywhere well-timbered, in which Peter Stamm had a "Jagd," to which of +course the Prince was welcome. Wherever the forest was a little ragged +there were, of course, black game. And then, in spring, to the Prince's +great delight, there was woodcock shooting. The "Schnepfenstrich" was his +pet sport, and never was he to be seen more regularly driving his plain +little trap out to Röttgen—where Stamm had his shooting—the faithful +Peter always by his side—than in the four weeks which precede Palm +Sunday, the season of all others sacred in Germany to woodcock shooting, +for</p> + +<p class="poem">Oculi, da kommen sie;<br /> +Laetare, das ist das wahre;<br /> +Judica, sind sie auch noch da;<br /> +Palmarum, Trallarum.</p> + +<p>The Latin words are the Lutheran calendar names for the four Sundays next +before Easter.</p> + +<p>Often Stamm-hannes would be of the party—often also Everard Sator, +another local Nimrod and horse-fancier, of Stamm's peculiar set, and +acceptable to the Prince. And some of the Prince's more aristocratic +companions would likewise occasionally join. But the Prince and Peter were +in this matter inseparables, roughing it out on the wooded heights from +sheer love of sport; and after that they would meet in the +"Weinwirthschaft" and talk over their common experiences, being +attentively overheard by a small company who reckoned it a privilege, +however little they might know about shooting, to listen to these +sportmen's tales, and bottle them up to retail to others after the Prince +was gone.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>There was another very faithful friend, of humbler station still, whose +heart the Prince managed to capture by his genial affability and the kind +interest which it was his wont to manifest in others. Nobody could have +stayed any time in Bonn at that particular period without becoming +acquainted with "Appeltring"—or, as she was more ceremoniously called to +her face, "Frau Gevatterin." She was, without question, the most popular +"character" in Bonn, and there was no man who had not a kind word for her, +and was not ready to test her well-known power of repartee by a little +joke. "Appeltring," of course, means "Apple-kate"—"Tring" standing for +Katherine by one of those extraordinary transformations of names which, +probably, not even Grimm could explain, and which in the Rhenish dialect +convert "Heinrich" into "Drickes," and "Reinhard" into "Nieres." She was +an apple-woman, as her name implies, or, rather, a seller of fruit +generally, and had her stall or tent just outside the Neuthor, close to +the Prince's quarters, and on a spot which he must pass several times +almost every day—a coign of vantage, moreover, from which all the +fashionable and unfashionable world taking the air in the Poppelsdorfer +Allee, might be surveyed, as can all the fine folk passing in and out of +Hyde Park from Hyde Park Corner. She was on that spot still when I was at +Bonn twenty-three years later, and she was there for some time after—a +weather-bronzed, wrinkled old woman then, but still full of chat and +lively talk, humour and repartee, and endowed with a truly encyclopædic +knowledge of everyone who had been anyone at Bonn, and of his life, and +failings, and little adventures. Even in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> Prince's day she was +decidedly past her first youth, and devoid of personal attractions; but +she had still something of the halo about her then of a not very distant +serio-comic little love affair, about which she was made to hear no end of +chaff—with a trumpeter (named Bengler, if I recollect right) who lost his +life in that Russian war in which the great Moltke won his first spurs. +During all the time that she offered her wares outside the Neuthor her +stall was a favourite resort with folk who had a spare quarter of an hour +on their hands, some of them of the best blood. The Emperor Frederick has +sat on that spot many a time, watching the passers-by, and exchanging chat +with "Tring," while eating cherries from one of the shallow flat-bottomed +baskets in which "Frau Gevatterin," or her younger assistant, served them +from the tent; and so have the Coburg Princes, more particularly Prince +Albert, who had a peculiar liking for "Appeltring" and her quaint ways, +her good temper, and her ready answers. Barring the Princes, "Tring's" +customers were not always prompt paymasters. This necessitated the keeping +of accounts, which, as "Tring" was nothing of a penwoman, resulted in a +description of bookkeeping so curious as to induce a learned archæological +society of Bonn afterwards to publish her records in facsimile. There were +no names, but rude imitations of a beard, or a tassel, or big top-boots, +or else a peculiar nose, or a pair of spectacles, or some other +distinguishing feature about the particular debtor.</p> + +<p>The habit of almost daily chat begot a peculiar familiarity and interest +in one another's affairs between these two people at opposite poles of +society, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> inspired "Tring" with a devotion to the Prince which has +just a touch of romance about it. To her simple but honest mind the Prince +was the noblest creature that walked the earth. Whenever he failed to pass +to bid her good-day, she seemed to feel as if deprived of a substantial +pleasure. For years and decades after he had gone she would relate with +striking animation little stories of his life in Bonn, and tell of his +kindness to her. She was indefatigable in inquiries about him, and would +draw in every word of information received with eager curiosity. Nor did +she ever hear of anyone going to England without commissioning +him—"Jrüsse Se den Prinzen Albehrt." It sounded very ridiculous to some, +no doubt. But I venture to surmise, that to the Prince himself that +broadly Rhenish "Jrüsse Se den Prinzen Albehrt" would have been a not +unwelcome greeting.</p> + +<p>Most of the good people here spoken of, with whom the Prince exchanged +jokes and more serious intercourse, whom he charmed with his happy temper +or edified with graver talk, are now dead and gone. Bonn has grown a town +of 50,000 or 60,000 inhabitants, well-to-do, bright and attractive, adding +to its population year by year. The University has throughout its history +maintained its old high rank. As a new generation rises up old +reminiscences are dying out. Stories which thirty years ago passed current +from mouth to mouth are gradually being forgotten. There is so much more +that used to be told of the Prince, when memories were fresh; indeed, +there is much that might be told still, only the incidents seem trivial in +themselves, and memorable only as demonstrating what singular power their +hero possessed of riveting men's affections, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> as concurring in +impressing a stamp of noble principle, unselfish consideration for others, +of a genial and happy disposition, and laborious devotion to study upon +his student life of sixteen months. There was, there is reason to believe, +very much good done in private, of which the outside world never heard. To +Bonn the Prince's stay was a turning-point in its history; and, since +elsewhere scarcely anything has been said about that particular epoch in +the Prince's life, it may not be unmeet to gather together the fragments +of traditions and reminiscences surviving, before they pass finally out of +men's minds, and thus to fill a gap hitherto left in the memorials of a +life which has in its later periods amply realized the promise given in +the early days of youth here spoken of.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> +<h2>VIII.—SOMETHING ABOUT BEER.<a name='fna_12' id='fna_12' href='#f_12'><small>[12]</small></a></h2> + + +<p>When Judas Iscariot, as the legend has it, prompted by a presumptuous +ambition to emulate Our Saviour in the performance of a miracle similar to +that of Cana, spoke his cabalistic words over the water which he desired +to make potable, it may be argued that a worse product might have resulted +from the process than beer—at any rate from a non-teetotal point of view. +According to another legend, of wider currency, the inventor of beer was +not the apostate apostle, but a more or less mythical king of Brabant, +named Gambrinus. His bine-crowned visage may be seen beaming from the +walls of most tap-rooms in Germany and in those more or less German +provinces which once formed, or should have formed, or still form, that +political desideratum, the "Middle Kingdom." This is a case of <i>ex +vocabulo fabula</i>. For Gambrivium is Cambray—the Cambray of the League and +also of early <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>brewing. And "Gambrinus" is either John the Victorious of +Brabant, who fell in a tournament held at Bar-le-Duc on the occasion of +the marriage of Henri, count of that country, with Eleanor, daughter of +our King Edward I., or else—and more probably—it is Jean Sans-Peur of +Burgundy, who, to ingratiate himself with his Flemish subjects, had a +dollar coined, showing a wreath of hop-bine encircling his head—and also +instituted the order of the <i>Houblon</i>, giving no little offence thereby to +his loyal clergy. Not that there was anything at all heretical in his act. +No; but the case was really much worse. For the clergy, it turned out, in +those days had a vested interest in beer. That was in the fourteenth +century, when the liquor was still generally brewed without hops, a +mixture of aromatic herbs being used instead, which was in most cases +supplied from episcopal forests. So it was in Brabant. The Bishop of Liége +possessed virtually a monopoly of the trade in <i>gruyt</i>, and when Duke John +favoured the cultivation of hops, the bishop's income suffered a serious +diminution. Accordingly, his Eminence remonstrated—just as in our +country, about 1400, and again in 1442, complaint was made to Parliament +of the introduction of that "wicked weed, that would spoil the taste of +drink and endanger the people." In the dioceses of Utrecht and Cologne it +was just the same thing. The bishops fought hard for their <i>gruyt</i> or +<i>krüt</i>, using their crosiers as a defensive weapon, but had eventually to +give in. From this it would appear that what King Gambrinus really did +introduce was not beer, but the use in the brewing of it of hops, the +ingredient over which that eminent saint, Abbess Hildegardis of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> +Rupertusberg, had already pronounced her benediction. St. Hildegardis was +a saint of unquestionable authority, having been specially recognised at +the Council of Trèves as a prophetess by St. Bernard and Pope Eugenius IV. +She recommended hops on the ground that, though "heating and drying," and +productive of "a certain melancholy and sadness" (she must have been +thinking of the effects next day), they possess the sovereign virtues of +preventing noxious fermentation and also of preserving the beer. (Burton, +in partial opposition to the saint, asserts that beer—hopped, of +course—"hath an especial virtue <i>against</i> melancholy, as our herbalists +confess.") St. Hildegardis' opinion was given in the twelfth century. That +was not by any means the earliest age of beer; for we find it referred to +in history some centuries before. Whether the inhabitants of Chalcedon, +when they shouted in derision after the Emperor Valens, "Sabajarius! +Sabajarius!"—which has been translated, "drinker of beer"—really +referred to beer, as we now understand it, must appear doubtful. In the +same way, the reputed "beer" of the early Egyptians and Hebrews—alluded +to by Xenophon, Herodotus, and other ancient writers—may or may not have +been beer in our sense. But in the eighth century we find Charlemagne +enjoining brewing in his dominions. In 862 we have Charles the Bald making +to the monks of St. Denis a grant of ninety <i>boisseaux d'épeautre</i> a year +<i>pour faire de la cervoise</i>. In 1042 we have Henri I. conferring on the +monks of Montreuil-sur-Marne the valuable right of brewing, and in 1268 +St. Louis laying down rules for the guidance of brewers in Paris. Paris<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> +was then, as it now is becoming again—I cannot say that I like the +idea—a very "beery" place. Its brewers, even at a very remote time, +formed a highly respected corporation, using as their insignia and +trade-mark an image of the Holy Virgin—their patron saint—incongruously +enough grouped together with Ceres, both being encircled by the +legend:—<i>Bacchi Ceres aemula</i>. No modern Pope would allow such crossing +of the two religions. Ceres was of course in olden time looked upon as the +especial goddess of beer, made of barley, which was after her named +<i>Cerevisia</i>. Juvenal mentions <i>Demetrius</i> as its name, derived of course +from Demeter. However, Fischart, a notable German poet, who lived in the +sixteenth century, ascribes its invention to Bacchus, as an intended +substitute for wine wherever there are no grapes. Modern Germany has +produced a very pretty song, which represents Wine as a wonder-working +nobleman, making a triumphal progress in grand style, clad in silk and +gold, and Beer crossing his path as a sturdy but rather perky peasant, in +a frieze jacket and top-boots, challenging him to a thaumaturgic tourney, +as Jannes and Jambres challenged Moses. After an amusing little squabble +the two make friends, and henceforth rule the world in joint sovereignty +and happy unity. At Paris, in the reign of Charles V., we find the local +brewers, twenty-one in number, so wealthy as to be able to pay a million +<i>écus d'or</i> for their licenses. Under Charles VI., beer had become a +regulation drink at the French court, and we have our own Richard II. +presenting the French king with a "<i>vaisseau à boire cervoise</i>." From this +it may be inferred that the famous verselet—</p> + +<p class="poem"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> +Hops and turkeys, carps and beer,</p> + +<p>or, as some rigid Anglican has improved it—</p> + +<p class="poem">Hops, reformation, bays, and beer<br /> +Came to England all in one year—</p> + +<p>to wit, the year 1525—is a little wrong in its date, and that beer was +known earlier. After the date named, we know that it soon made its way +into the highest circles. As proof of this we have the one shoe which +Queen Bess carelessly left behind after that lunch, of which beer formed +an item, with which she was regaled on her progress through Sussex, under +the spreading oak still shown in that pretty village of Northiam—</p> + +<p class="poem">O fair Norjem! thou dost far exceed<br /> +Beckley, Peasmarsh, Udimore, and Brede—</p> + +<p>which shoe may still be seen, by favour, in the private archæological +collection at Brickwall House, in company with Accepted Frewen's +toasting-fork.</p> + +<p>Saxon descent may have had much to do with the development of our own +peculiar cerevisial taste—taste, that is, for beer with some body and a +good strong flavour of malt. There can be no doubt that, compared with the +produce of other countries, our beer is still the best—if only one's +liver will stand it—the most tasty, the most nourishing—"meat, drink and +cloth," as Sir John Linger puts it—beer which will occasionally "make a +cat speak and a wise man dumb." The Saxons always had a liking for beer +with something in it—not merely "strong water," as Sir Richard l'Estrange +calls the small stuff. The ancient Teutons, we know, were all of them +furious drinkers. Accordingly, not a few of the modern generation hold, +with Luther's Elector of Saxony, that a custom of such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> very venerable +antiquity ought not to be lightly abandoned. Tacitus writes that the +Germans think it no shame to spend a whole day and night a-drinking. The +Greek Emperor Nicephoras Phorcas told the ambassador of Emperor Otho that +his master's soldiers had no other proficiency but in getting drunk. +Rudolph of Hapsburgh grew vociferous over the discovery of good beer. +"Walk in, walk in!" he shouted, standing at a tavern door in Erfurt, +wholly oblivious of his imperial dignity; "there is excellent beer to be +had inside." And "good King Wenceslas" of our Christmas carol—described +as "good" nowhere else—was an habitual toper, and was "done" accordingly +by the French at Rheims, where he thought more of the wine than of the +treaty which he was negotiating. Henri Quatre would on no account marry a +German wife. "Je croirais," he said, "toujours avoir un pot de vin auprès +de moi." A modern writer, Charles Monselet, says that in Strassburg—in +this respect a typically German town—"tout se ressent de la domination de +la bière." Beer lends its colour to the faces of the inhabitants, to their +hair, to their clothes; to the soil and the houses; and the very women +seem nothing but "walking <i>chopes</i>." But the Saxons in particular—not the +modern ones, but those of the North, some of whom found their way into +England—always loved good stout nutritious drink, such as that to which +the German composer Von Flotow ascribes our sturdy robustness:</p> + +<p class="poem">Das ist das treffliche Elixir,<br /> +Das ist das kräftige Porterbier.</p> + +<p>Obsopæus says of the ancient Saxons:</p> + +<p class="poem">Coctam Cererem potant <i>crassosque liquores</i>.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>And an old rhyme, still quoted with gusto, goes to this effect:</p> + +<p class="poem">Ein echter Sachse wird, wie alle Völker sagen,<br /> +Nie schmal in Schultern sein, noch schlaffe Lenden tragen.<br /> +Fragt Einer, welches denn die Ursach' sei:<br /> +Er isset Speck und Wurst, und trinket <i>Mumm</i> dabei.</p> + +<p>"Mumm" is our own good old "mum," about the meaning of which in an Act of +Parliament there was recently some controversy, when even Mr. Gladstone +did not quite know how to explain it. It is the good, thick, stout, +nourishing beer—<i>nil spissius illo</i>—which makes blood and flesh, and +gives strength—"vires præstat et augmentat carnem, generatque cruorem," +says the school of Salerno. Very presumably it is such beer as this, too, +of which the unnamed witty poet quoted in Percy's "Reliques" writes:</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 10em;">nobilis ale-a</span><br /> +Efficit heroas dignamque heroe puellam.</p> + +<p>No doubt beer has had a good many nasty things said about it. The same +school of Salerno lays it down that "crassos humores nutrit cerevisia, +ventrem quoque mollit et inflat." It also affirms that ebriety resulting +from beer is more hurtful than that produced by wine. But, notwithstanding +this, it endorses the advice given by Matthew de Gradibus, which is, to +drink it in preference to wine at the beginning of, or even throughout, +meals, and above all things after any great exertion. "Cerevisia vero +utpote crassior, et ad concoctionem pertinacior, non tam avide rapitur: +quare ab ea potus in principio prandii vel cœnae utilius inchoatur. +Cerevisia humores etiam orificio stomachi insidentes abluit, et sitim, quæ +ex nimia vini potatione<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> timetur, praeterea et quamlibet aliam mendosam +coercet ac reprimit." To say nothing of the censure pronounced by Crato, +Henry of Avranches, and Wolfram von Eschenbach—that pillar of the Roman +Church, Cardinal Chigi, charitably suggests that if beer had but a little +sulphur added, it would become a right infernal drink. And Moscherosch, +joking on the admixture of pitch with beer, common in his time—possibly +copied from a similar practice applied to wine in the days of ancient +Greece—speaks of "la bière poissée qui habitue au feu de l'enfer." "Pix +intrantibus" used to be a familiar superscription placed for a joke over +tavern doors. Then, again, we have Luther barely qualifying the old German +rhyme—</p> + +<p class="poem">Gott machte Gutes, Böses wir:<br /> +Er braute Wein, wir brauen Bier—</p> + +<p>by laying it down that "Vinum est donatio Dei, cerevisia traditio humana." +And he went so far as to pronounce the leading brewer of his time "Pestis +Germaniae." But this same Luther was himself a zealous beer-toper. He +drank beer, it is on record, when plotting the Reformation with +Melanchthon at Torgau. He called for <i>Bierseidel</i> when Carlstadt came to +the "Bear" at Jena to discuss with him the subject of consubstantiation. +And the two divines used their pewters very freely by way of accentuating +their theological arguments, and, towards the close of the sitting, even +in substitution of them. Luther records with satisfaction, in his "Table +Talk," that many presents reached him from France, Prussia, and Russia, of +"wormwood-beer." And at Worms, where he was pleading the cause of the +reformed faith before a hostile Diet, the one ray of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> comfort which +pierced through the gloom of his imprisonment was the arrival, +particularly mentioned in his letters, of a small cask of "Eimbeck" beer +from one of the friendly princes. Like our modern M.P.'s annually +exercised about the matter, the German reformer had a fervent zeal for the +"purity of beer"—so fervent, that he actually threatened adulterating +brewers with Divine wrath. He wrote these lines:</p> + +<p class="poem">Am jüngsten Tage wird geschaut<br /> +Was jeder für ein Bier gebraut.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, Cardinal Chigi's Roman anathema is more than +neutralised by any number of benedictions, expressed or implied, from holy +men of his Church. There are the regulations of St. Louis, of St. +Hildegardis, the enlisted interest of the Bishops of Cologne, Utrecht, and +Liége, the patron-saintship of St. Amandus, St. Leonard, St. Adrian, and +the Irish St. Florentius, and, moreover, the very close connection which +from time immemorial monks and religious houses have maintained with +brewing. In olden days they were the brewers <i>par excellence</i>. In Lorraine +our English Benedictines of Dieulouard, who maintained themselves in their +monastery near Pont-à-Mousson down to the time of the Revolution, long +possessed an absolute monopoly of brewing, and were famed for their +produce. And M. Reiber will have it that there are still in Germany, at +the present day, <i>des congrégations de moines brasseurs</i>. Then there is +St. Chrodegang, a near relative of Charlemagne, the great reformer of +monastic orders, who particularly directed—and the rule is still +observed—that monks should be allowed the option of either beer or wine. +And sensible monks, a communicative <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>Carthusian confided to me the other +day, prefer good beer any day to bad wine.</p> + +<p>If, in face of all this, neither Romanists nor Protestants can say +anything against beer, much less are Mussulmans in a position to do so. +For Mahomet actually, though he expressly forbids wine, never says a word +in prohibition of beer—thus leaving a convenient loophole to thirsty +Mahommedans, of which French writers tell us that bibulous Algerians +eagerly avail themselves.</p> + +<p>From all this it will be seen that, despite teetotal disparagement, beer +comes before the world, so to speak, with very respectable credentials, +entitling it to a fairly good reception. Brillat-Savarin, it is true, +admits to its detriment that "l'eau est la seule boisson qui apaise +véritablement la soif." But "l'eau," says another French writer, M. +Reiber, "est la prose des liquides, l'alcool en est la poésie." Speaking +more particularly of beer, among alcoholic drinks, M. Dubrunfaut writes: +"La bière occupe incontestablement le premier rang parmi les boissons +hygiéniques connues." And he goes on to say that among the beer-drinking +nations one finds, as a rule, manly qualities most developed—as among the +English, the Germans, the Dutch, the Belgians, and the Northern French. +Brillat-Savarin only objects that beer makes people stout.</p> + +<p>Of course there is beer and beer. The wise doctors of Salerno very rightly +gave particular attention to this subject—as well they might, for beer +was adulterated in their days with no more scruple than it is in ours. The +Minnesinger Marner, in the thirteenth century, bitterly complains that +brewers make beer even without malt. There was no minnesinging to be done +on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> such drink. Then there was the manufacture of the aroma. Before there +were hops—and even after—people had a violent fancy for spices, the +indulgence in which was carried to such a point that the Church, meeting +in Council at Worms in 868, and at Trèves in 895, felt bound to take +notice of the matter, and in a special canon laid down the rule that beer +spiced after the manner then prevalent should be allowed, as a luxury, +only on Sundays and saints' days. What those spices were may be gathered +from the following recipe for making beer, which appears to have been +first published at Strassburg (from early days a cerevisian city) in 1512, +and which was twice re-issued, under special approbation—namely, in 1552 +and 1679. "To one pound of coloured 'sweet-root' (probably liquorice) add +seven ounces of good cinnamon, four ounces of the best ginger, one ounce +each of cloves, 'long' pepper, galanga, and nutmeg, half an ounce each of +mace and of cardamom, and two ounces of genuine Italian saffron." Whatever +might be added in the shape of malt, who would recognise in this decoction +anything remotely worthy of the name of beer? It is of such stuff that +Cardinal Chigi must have been thinking when he pronounced beer "infernal +drink." For brewing beer the school of Salerno give the following good +advice:</p> + +<p class="poem">Non acidum sapiat cerevisia, sit bene clara.<br /> +Ex granis sit cocta bonis satis, ac veterata.</p> + +<p>It must not, above all things, be sour. For acidity "ventriculo inimica +est. Acetus nervosas offendit partes." As the Germans have it—and they +ought to know—</p> + +<p class="poem">Ein böses Weib und sauer Bier<br /> +Behüt' der Himmel dich dafür!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>It should be clear, because "turbida impinguat, flatus gignit, atque +brevem spiritum efficit." "Bene cocta" it should be, for "male cocta +ventris inflationes, tormina et colicos cruciatos generat"—which Latin +speaks for itself. As for good grain, the doctors appear to prefer a +mixture of barley and oats. They allow either wheat, barley, or oats. +Wheat, they say, makes the most nourishing beer, but heating and +astringent. Barley alone makes the beer cold and dry. A mixture of barley +and oats renders it less nourishing, but also lighter on the stomach, and +less confining and distending. The Germans nowadays brew beer of every +conceivable grain and no-grain, even potatoes. But according to the +material so is the product. Lastly, say the doctors, beer, like wine, +should be old, or you will feel the effects in your stomach.</p> + +<p>We cannot at the present period dissociate from beer the idea of hops. But +it was comparatively late in history before hops were regarded as an +indispensable ingredient. The Sclav nations are reported to have had them +early; also the Mahommedans of the East. Haroun-al-Rashid's physician +states that in his day they were given as medicine. In France, the first +record of their cultivation is of the year 768, when Pepin le Bref gave +some directions as to the hop-grounds belonging to the monastery of St. +Denis. In Germany they are known to have been successfully cultivated +about Magdeburg in 1070. We are supposed to have received them over here +in 1525. In Alsace, beer-drinking country as it is, they were not +cultivated till 1802. The soil being very suitable, they then made way +with such rapidity that they soon crowded out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> completely madder and woad, +which had previously been considered the most profitable crops—so +profitable, that from the <i>coques de pastel</i> (woad), which were looked +upon as the emblem of prosperity and well-being, the Lauraguais, and +indeed the whole country round Toulouse, came to be christened <i>le pays de +Cocagne</i>. Hence our own word of "Cockaigne," about the derivation of which +so many contradictory guesses have been made. It may be interesting to +note that in Strassburg the bakers at one time used to put hops into their +yeast, and that in some foreign countries the young shoots of the hop-bine +furnish a favourite vegetable, dressed like asparagus.</p> + +<p>Drinking habits are of course by far the most developed in Germany, where +beer has really become the object of a cult. Blessed with a healthy +thirst, which made our own poet Owen exclaim—</p> + +<p class="poem">Si latet in vino verum, ut proverbia dicunt,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Invenit verum Teuto, vel inveniet—</span></p> + +<p>the nation has seized upon beer as a second faith, "outside which there is +no salvation." Fischart, indeed, in his verses bade people who <i>must</i> +drink beer, and would not be satisfied with German wine, "go to +Copenhagen; there they would find beer enough." Denmark truly was of +old—we know from "Hamlet"—a grand country for drinking. But in respect +of beer, in the present day, it is not "in it" with Germany. Tacitus wrote +about German drinking. Emperor Charlemagne felt bound to pass a law +against it. The earlier Popes, before consenting to crown a German +emperor, exacted from him an affirmative reply to the standing question: +"Vis sobrietatem cum Dei auxilio custodire?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> Of the old Palsgraves it +used to be said: "Potatores sub cœlo non meliores;" and "bibere more +palatino" became a byword. Maximilian I. felt called upon to pass +stringent laws. In the sixteenth century Germany went by the name of "Die +grossen Trinklande." And Luther, when resting from his <i>seidels</i> +accompanying theological disputations, expressed a fear "lest this devil +(of thirst) should go on tormenting Germany till the day of judgment." The +modern Germans have remained true to the custom of their forefathers, and +have developed it scientifically.</p> + +<p class="poem">Um den Gerstensaft, geliebte Seelen,<br /> +Dreht sich unser ganzer Staat herum.</p> + +<p>The whole commonwealth literally "hinges" upon beer. The Emperor has drunk +it as a student at Bonn, and presumably still drinks it—in moderation. +The German Chancellor, instead of the parliamentary full-dress dinners +customary among ourselves, invites the members of the Diet to +"beer-evenings." If a learned professor discover a new bacillus or +antidotal lymph; if an African traveller annex a new province; if a +statesman attain his jubilee—there is but one form of public recognition +for all varieties of merit and distinction, and that is a <i>biercommers</i>. +No doubt the great extension of university education has a great deal to +do with the spread of regulated beer-drinking. The learned classes set the +tone, and the many follow it.</p> + +<p class="poem">Cerevisiam bibunt homines, animalia cætera fontes.</p> + +<p>That has become the general motto. It sounds very filthy to hear of the +astounding quantities of liquor consumed. But, in the first place, where +much is drunk, it is only very light stuff. And, to make it less trying,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> +the drinkers adopt the Socratic maxim of "small cups and many," by +frothing the beer up incredibly. Altogether they follow good classical +rules, which it is curious to trace, and which make their symposia rather +interesting. Drinking is not the end, but only the natural means for +attaining hilarity. And there is a good deal of rough geniality about it. +Like the ancient Greeks, these organised drinkers fix a well-recognised +τρόπος τῆς +πόσεως. They have their absolute ruler, the +symposiarch, their accepted order of drinking, their proper scale of +fines. And also, as in Greece, only too often drinking is not a voluntary +act, but ἀναγκάζεσθαι, and it is made to be +ἀπνευστὶ πίνειν—drinking without taking breath. +There is the προπίνειν +φιλοτησίας—drinking to one another—which <i>must</i> be answered. There are +songs and jokes—though no <i>tæniæ</i> and, fortunately, no kisses. And the +small cups are duly followed up with the large horns, the κέρατα, +and the huge vessels which the Greeks called φρέατα. Nay, these +modern classics even imitate the Greeks in respect of the ἅλες +καὶ κύμινον. For in many places the well-salted and carawayed +ἐπίπαστα forms a standing accompaniment to the liquor. And next day, if +they are a trifle "foxed," they copy the Greeks in κραιπάλην +κραιπάλη ἐξελαύνειν, or, as Sir John Linger calls it in better +"understanded" language, they take "a hair of the same dog," with a +pickled herring covered with raw onions for a companion, which is supposed +to set all things right. There are beer-courts to adjudge upon disputes, +there are indeterminate beer-minutes to settle the time—everything is +"beer." In all this joking there is no harm. As little harm is <i>meant</i> to +be in the <i>missœ cerevisiales</i> which tradition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> has handed down from +the time when monks were both the greatest brewers and also the greatest +drinkers, and, probably, in their refectories and misericords made as much +fun of the service over their cups as do now—or did until lately—German +students. There is the genuine chanting of versicles and responses, but +the words have reference to beer. This practice, I am glad to say, is now +very much on the decline.</p> + +<p>All this is scarcely surprising. We all knew it of the Germans long ago. +But it is a little strange to find France once more—few people know about +the first time—taking her place among beer-drinking countries and placing +the <i>honestas chopinandi</i> among the precepts of the modern decalogue. The +French are good enough to explain that they do this, not for their own +gratification, but as a public service, as "saviours of society," to +"rendre les mœurs gambrinales plus aimables." That may be. But the fact +remains, that the annual consumption of beer per head of the population in +France has now risen to 21 litres (about 14 quarts), which on the top of +119 litres of wine (however light), 20 litres of cider, and 4 litres of +spirits, is a respectable allowance enough. For Germany the figures are +said to be—93 litres of beer, 6 of wine, and 10 of spirits—and such +spirits! France brews every year more than eight millions of hectolitres +of beer, and consumes considerably more. To do this, of course it must +import from abroad. And very rightly too, I should say. For though French +beer may no longer deserve the description given of it by the Emperor +Julian, who condemned it as "smelling strongly of the goat," there is +still little enough that is really good.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> And it is drunk out of such tiny +thimbles! I suspect that there is a dodge in this. The "bocks" have grown +smaller and smaller, till in some places they are mere tea-cups. But then +out come the <i>restaurateurs</i> with their old disused "bocks," now +re-christened <i>bocks sérieux</i>, and charge double price. That promises to +make France a real brewers' paradise. But, large glasses or small, there +is something about the beer which you must first get used to. Accordingly, +many of those gorgeous <i>brasseries</i>, of genuinely German type, which seem +so out of place in the Paris boulevards, are supplied, not from +Tantonville or Xertigny, but from Munich or Vienna, or else from +Strassburg. For, of course, the attachment which Frenchmen feel for their +lost provinces had a great deal to do with their new departure in the way +of a liking for beer. France, as it happens, owes some reparation to +Strassburg, and more particularly to its brewers. For at various times it +has treated the latter most unkindly. In the first place, the Second +Empire unmercifully hastened on the hour of "Bruce," making it eleven +"sharp," instead of the quarter past which had been previously allowed. +This threatens never to be forgotten or forgiven. In the second place, the +First Republic, though it honoured hops by assigning to them, in the place +of the calendar saint, St. Omer, the patronship of the 9th of September, +inflicted a very grievous injury when, in the <i>An II.</i> of its era, its +<i>tribunal révolutionnaire</i> imposed a fine of 255,000 livres upon the +brewing trade, as is stated in the official <i>Livre Bleu</i>, "pour les abus +qu'ils ont pu se permettre sur leur comestibilité." The mulct is explained +in this wise:—"Considérant que la soif de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> l'or a constamment guidé les +brasseurs, il les condamne à deux cents cinquante-cinq mille livres +d'amende, qu'ils doivent payer dans trois jours, sous peine d'être +déclarés rebelles à la loi et de voir leurs biens confisqués." There is no +talk of "compensation," as among ourselves. To be sure, the bakers, with +nothing against them—except it be on the score of weight—fared worse. +For they were declared <i>hostes generis humani</i>, and fined 300,000 livres. +The brewers really paid only 188,000 livres. But that was considered heavy +enough. In spite of this imposition, the brewing trade in Strassburg has +made tremendous strides, and continues flourishing. And very much more +beer is now consumed in the city than wine. For 1878 the figures were: +121,345 hectolitres of beer and 36,583 of wine. Paris in 1881 consumed +300,000 hectolitres of beer; in 1853 only 7,000 and in 1864 still only +40,000 hectolitres. (All this beer-drinking, it will be seen, dates from +1870.) In Paris, in spite of protection, the brewing interest appears to +find foreign competition rather formidable. At the time of the first +revolution, a French general (Santerre), with the assistance of government +subsidies, tried very hard to oust us from the market by brewing "ale" and +"porter." This earned the veteran the nickname of "Le Général Mousseux." +But the speculation did not pay, and had to be abandoned. Having become so +popular, beer has, of course, found many fervid apologists in France. "La +bière fait en ce moment le tour du monde. Mieux que tous les raisonnements +et quoi qu'en disent les esprits chagrins, sa vogue prouve que la boisson +en houblon est utile, que l'humanité l'apprécie et en a besoin." So says +M. Reiber. "La<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> bonne bière n'est pas une boisson malsaine; elle est +tonique et nourrissante." So says Dr. Tourdes.</p> + +<p>But really this is nothing new. Old inscriptions, dating from the +Gallo-Roman era, show that Pliny was correct in setting down, at his +period, the Gauls as a largely beer-drinking race. They had earthenware +beer-pots, some of which have been exhumed, bearing the inscription, +"Cerevisariis felicitas!" An old Gallo-Roman flagon is preserved in Paris, +on which is engraved—"Hospita reple lagenam cervisia!" The oldest +beer-song extant is Old-French, dating from the thirteenth century. It is +as follows:</p> + +<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 2em;">LETABUNDUS</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Or hi purra;</span><br /> +La <i>cerveyse</i> nos chauntera<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Alleluia!</span><br /> +Qui que aukes en beyt<br /> +Si tel seyt comme estre doit<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Res miranda.</span></p> + +<p>The prohibition which Charlemagne issued against keeping St. Stephen's Day +too zealously by the consumption of beer and wine, applied to France no +less than to Germany. The French were, in truth, great respecters of +saints' days in a bibulous way. St. Martin's Day was with them a favourite +occasion for drinking. Hence <i>martiner</i> still currently signifies drinking +more than one ought. Another suggestive popular term is "Boire comme un +Templier." France then has really only returned to her <i>premier amour</i>. +But in doing so she has set upon it a seal of domination, which is +significant, as meaning that it is not likely to be readily surrendered.</p> + +<p>No doubt beer, having held its own so long, though much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> assailed, will +still continue to maintain its position. There is too much of human nature +in man to admit of its being effectually proscribed. "Abusus non tollit +usum." The same school of Salerno which praises beer as a wholesome drink +adds this wise proviso:—"Hic unicum de cervisiæ usu præceptum traditur: +nempe ut modice sumatur, neque ea stomachus prægravetur vel ebrietas +concilietur." Sebastian Brant writes in old German:</p> + +<p class="poem">Eyn Narr muosz vil gesoffen han,<br /> +Eyn Wyser maesslich drincken kann.</p> + +<p>There is great virtue in the <i>modice sumatur</i>. The wine-trade has passed +through a similar change. Though four-bottle men have died out, the +wine-trade is doing better than it did in olden days. So it will probably +be with beer. However temperance advocates may regret it, it is not to be +got rid of by railing. In truth it is now indeed making <i>le tour du +monde</i>. And, unless mankind changes its character altogether, it will +probably go on drinking—more or less <i>modice</i>—to the end of the chapter, +a beverage which stands commended by so exemplary a Father of the Church +as the whilom Bishop of Bath and Wells, Polydore Virgil, who pronounces it</p> + +<p class="poem">Potus tum salubris tum jucundus.</p> + + + +<p> </p><p> </p> +<hr style="width: 50%;" /> +<p><strong>Footnotes:</strong></p> + +<p><a name='f_1' id='f_1' href='#fna_1'>[1]</a> Blackwood's Magazine, August, 1894.</p> + +<p><a name='f_2' id='f_2' href='#fna_2'>[2]</a> The church encloses, in addition to one of the "true" pebbles with +which was stoned, says M. Bellot-Herment, the chronicler of Bar, "<i>St +Etienne, curé de Gamaliel, bourg du diocèse de Jerusalem</i>," that boldly +original sculpture from the chisel of the great Lorrain artist, Ligier +Richier, whom we so undeservedly ignore, the famous "<i>Squelette</i>"—the +mere name of which frightened Dibdin away, as he himself relates. Durival +terms this sculpture "<i>une affreuse beauté</i>"—but "<i>beauté</i>" it +undoubtedly is.</p> + +<p><a name='f_3' id='f_3' href='#fna_3'>[3]</a> Patriotic Frenchmen derive this name from the Latin <i>fascinatio</i>. But +quite evidently it is a gallicised form of the German <i>fastnacht</i>, which +in Alsace is pronounced <i>fàsenacht</i>, or very nearly <i>fàsenocht</i>; in a +French mouth it would naturally become <i>faschinottes</i>.</p> + +<p><a name='f_4' id='f_4' href='#fna_4'>[4]</a> Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1891.</p> + +<p><a name='f_5' id='f_5' href='#fna_5'>[5]</a> National Review, February, 1892.</p> + +<p><a name='f_6' id='f_6' href='#fna_6'>[6]</a> Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1893.</p> + +<p><a name='f_7' id='f_7' href='#fna_7'>[7]</a> See the <i>Memoirs of the Family of Taaffe</i>, p. 13.</p> + +<p><a name='f_8' id='f_8' href='#fna_8'>[8]</a> Westminster Review, May, 1892.</p> + +<p><a name='f_9' id='f_9' href='#fna_9'>[9]</a> National Review, May, 1892.</p> + +<p><a name='f_10' id='f_10' href='#fna_10'>[10]</a> Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1894.</p> + +<p><a name='f_11' id='f_11' href='#fna_11'>[11]</a> The "English" student who took the second prize on the occasion must, +I think, have been Edmund Arnold. At any rate, I can discover no other +English name on the register. English students were still few in those days.</p> + +<p><a name='f_12' id='f_12' href='#fna_12'>[12]</a> Gentleman's Magazine, March, 1891.</p> + + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Odd Bits of History, by Henry W. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/39696.txt b/39696.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5e7e58 --- /dev/null +++ b/39696.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7106 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Odd Bits of History, by Henry W. Wolff + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: Odd Bits of History + Being Short Chapters Intended to Fill Some Blanks + +Author: Henry W. Wolff + +Release Date: May 14, 2012 [EBook #39696] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ODD BITS OF HISTORY *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive.) + + + + + + + + + +ODD BITS OF HISTORY. + + + + + ODD BITS OF HISTORY + BEING + _SHORT CHAPTERS INTENDED TO FILL SOME BLANKS_ + + + BY HENRY W. WOLFF + + + LONDON + LONGMANS, GREEN & Co. + AND NEW-YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET + 1894. + + _(All rights reserved.)_ + + + + +PREFACE. + + +The chapters composing this book appeared originally in the shape of +review articles. I owe acknowledgments to the Editors of _Blackwood's +Magazine_, the _National Review_ and the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for the +permission kindly accorded me to republish them. + +To my regret I find, on receiving the clean sheets, that pressure of time +and a rather troublesome nervous affection of one eye have led me to +overlook a few printer's errors, such as: p. 70, _occassion_ for +_occasion_; p. 137, _Fuensaldana_ for _Fuensaldana_; p. 253, _Nicephoras +Phorcas_ for _Nicephorus Phocas_; p. 267, _Polydore Virgil_ for _Polydore +Vergil_. The misprints will in every instance, I believe, explain +themselves. + +H. W. W. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE PRETENDER AT BAR-LE-DUC 1 + + II. RICHARD DE LA POLE, "WHITE ROSE" 58 + + III. THE EARLY ANCESTORS OF OUR QUEEN 91 + + IV. ABOUT A PORTRAIT AT WINDSOR 120 + + V. THE REMNANT OF A GREAT RACE 145 + + VI. VOLTAIRE AND KING STANISLAS 181 + + VII. THE PRINCE CONSORT'S UNIVERSITY DAYS 219 + + VIII. SOMETHING ABOUT BEER 248 + + + + +I.--THE PRETENDER AT BAR-LE-DUC.[1] + + +"The Pretender Charles Edward resided here three years in a house which is +still pointed out." So you may read in "Murray," under the head of +"Bar-le-Duc." The information, which is apt to suggest inquiry to those +who, like myself, are fond of picking up a little bit of neglected history +on their travels, is, as it happens, not altogether accurate. For, in the +first place, the "Pretender" who "resided" at Bar was not "Charles Edward" +at all--_could_ not have been "Charles Edward," who was not born till five +years after the Pretender who _did_ reside there had left. In the second, +so little is "the house still pointed out" that, on my first visit to Bar, +in August, 1890, I could actually not find a soul to give me even the +vaguest information as to its whereabouts. Even mine hostess of the +"Cygne," in whose stables, I afterwards discovered, some of the +Pretender's horses had been put up, had never heard of our political +exile. "_Cela doit etre dans la Haute Ville_"--"_Cela doit etre dans la +Basse Ville_"--"_Eh bien, moi je n'en sais rien_." Why should they know +about the Pretender? There were no thanks, surely, due to him. While in +the town, he had given himself intolerable airs, had put the town to no +end of expense and all manner of trouble, and in the end had slunk away +without so much as a word of thanks or farewell, leaving a heavy score of +debts to be paid--and, up in a cottage perched on the very brow of the +picturesque hill--for which some one else had to pay the rent--one pretty +little Barisienne disconsolate, betrayed, disgraced. There was, in fact, +but one man belonging to the town who had taken the trouble to trace the +house from the description given in the local archives--a description, +indeed, exact enough--M. Vladimir Konarski, and he was away on his +holiday. There was nothing, then, for me to do, but to go home with an +empty note-book, _quoad_ Bar, and return in 1891 to resume my inquiry. + +Even to us Englishmen the first Pretender is not a particularly attractive +personage. But he is a historical character. And about his doings at Bar +thus far very little has been made known. With the help of M. Konarski's +notes, of the local archives, freely placed at my disposal by the kindness +of M. A. Jacob, of the manuscripts in the _Archives Nationales_, in the +Archives of Nancy and in the Foreign Office at Paris, of the Stuart MSS. +in London, and of other neglected sources of information, as well as some +rather minute local research, I have managed to gather together +sufficient historical crumbs to make up a fairly substantial loaf--all +the information on the subject, I suppose, that is to be got. And, at any +rate, as a secondary side-chapter to our national history at an important +epoch, perhaps the account which within the limits of a magazine article I +shall be able to give, may prove of passing interest to more besides those +staunch surviving Jacobites who still from time to time "play at treason" +in out-of-the-way places. + +What sent the Pretender to Bar every schoolboy knows. We had fought with +France and were, in 1713, about to conclude peace. Our court had, as a +Stuart MS. in Paris puts it, showed itself extremely "_chatouilleuse et +susceptible_" with respect to the countenance given at Versailles to +James, and to his residence in France--where he seemed to us perpetually +on the spring for mischief. Louis XIV., we were aware, had expressed his +desire to render to the Pretender's family "_de plus grands et plus +heureux services_" than he had yet been able to give. And so, very +naturally, before engaging to suspend hostilities, we insisted that James +should be turned out of France. Once we were about it, we might as well +have asked a little more, and pressed for his removal to a farther +distance from our shores. Considering all the commotion which afterwards +arose upon this point, how Queen Anne was periodically pestered with +addresses calling upon her to demand his removal, one might have thought +that so much forethought might have been exercised. However, the idea +seems never to have suggested itself to our wise statesmen at the proper +time. On the contrary, the one thing which in 1712 and 1713 they appeared +eager for was, that James should _not_ be allowed to settle in +"papistical" Italy--the very country into which afterwards, just _because_ +it was papistical, so M. de Robethon's official letters admit in the +plainest terms, the Court of Hanover was extremely anxious to see its +enemy decoyed. If he would but go to Rome, that would be best of all. For +it would do for him entirely at home, M. de Robethon thinks. However, in +1713 we took a different view, and, as Lorraine lay particularly handy and +convenient, from the French point of view--being near, and though +nominally an independent duchy, entirely under French influence--to +Lorraine James was sent. There was some talk of his going to Nancy. He +himself did not at first fancy Bar-le-Duc. He feared that he might find it +slow. The French king believed that in a large town like Nancy, which had +still some poor remnants of its once famous fortifications left, he would +be safer. And when Duke Leopold had gone to all the trouble of putting the +half-dilapidated chateau of Bar into habitable order, taking to it the +pick of his own furniture from the palace at Nancy, and embarking in +additional large purchases--in order to make James thoroughly comfortable, +as Louis had told him that he must--he not unnaturally became, as the +French envoy M. d'Audriffet reports, "_fort agite_," on being unexpectedly +advised that after all the Chevalier was to go elsewhere. "Very well," +said he in high dudgeon, "I will take back all my furniture. But I wash my +hands of the whole business. At Bar I could have answered for the +Chevalier's safety within reasonable limits. At Nancy the king will have +to see to it himself. That is a 'neutral' town, and every dangerous +character from any part of Europe--cut-throat, assassin, Hanoverian +emissary--has access to it. You will have to watch every stranger, to keep +the exile perpetually under lock and key, to give him a large escort every +time he leaves the town. To mark my refusal of all responsibility, I shall +at once withdraw my little garrison of a company of guards from the +place"--a brilliant little troop, decked out gaily in scarlet-and-silver. +James, who was at the time at Chalons, awaiting the king's +pleasure--waiting also for a passport and safe conduct (a most important +requisite in those days)--and waiting, not least, for money, of which he +was chronically, and at that moment most acutely, in want--his mother says +that he had none at all--did not relish the idea of so much restraint and +danger. So he begged Louis to change his mind back again, and to allow him +after all to go to Bar. And Louis, having put poor Leopold to more +trouble--for he had at once set eighty men at work at Nancy, turning his +palace, "_pille, degrade, neglige_" that it was, to rights--coolly has +Leopold informed that his first choice is again to hold good, with not a +word of regret added to sweeten the pill, except it be, that all the +trouble incurred "_sera bientost repare_." Later, James found the air at +Bar "_trop vif_" and accordingly thought of moving to Saint Mihiel. After +that, his courtiers hoped that he would prevail upon the Duke to lend him +his rather magnificent palace of Einville, near Luneville. And in one of +the despatches it is shown that their suspicion that Lord Middleton was +opposing this proposal was one of the reasons why they so very much +disliked him. But, after all, with the interruptions caused by very +frequent, and often prolonged, visits to Luneville, to Commercy, and to +Nancy--as well as to Plombieres, and one or two sly expeditions to Paris +and St Germains--in the interesting and picturesque little capital of the +Barrois, washed by the foaming Ornain, did the Chevalier remain, hatching +schemes, writing despatches to the Pope, _qua_ king, moreover making love +to his nameless fair one, and beguiling the time with the games of the +period, until the _Fata Morgana_ of rather hoped for than anticipated +success lured him on that unhappy expedition into Scotland. + +James tries to make a serious hardship of his "exile" at Bar. But he +might, without much trouble, have fixed upon a very much worse spot. Bar +was not in his day the important town that it had been. The resident +dukes, with their courts and knighthood, their tourneys and banquets, and +all the pageantry of the days of early chivalry, had passed away. The +famous University of de Tholozan, highly praised by Jodocus Sincerus, had +likewise disappeared. Nor was the town anything like as accessible as it +is now. There was no railway leading to it, no Rhine-Marne +Canal--beautifying the scene wherever it passes--to carry life and +business into the place. The roads were simply execrable. The surrounding +woods swarmed with brigands, outlaws, and other bad characters, whom +special _chasse-coquins_ were retained to keep in awe. Whenever "His +Majesty" moved from one place to another, the forest-roads had to be +literally lined with troops to ensure his safety. But all this was no +drawback peculiar to Bar. The entire duchy of Lorraine was suffering from +the same trouble--the after-effect of French ravages and French +occupation. Leave that out of account, and Bar must have been attractive +enough. Its situation is remarkably picturesque. The castle-hill rises up +steeply, all but isolated from the surrounding heights, above the smiling +valley of the Ornain, with delightfully green and tempting side-valleys +curling around it, like natural fosses, on either side. The view of the +long, bright green stretch of meadows bordering the river; the laughing +gardens, full of flowers and shrubs; the luxuriant fruit-trees and hedges; +the half-archaic-looking streets, venerable with their churches and +monasteries, and the eleven old turreted gates, as they were then; the +soft, rounded _cotes_, covered with clustering vines, but looking at a +distance as if carpeted with velvety lawn; the picturesque range of hills +on the opposite bank, contoured into a telling sky-line; the dark forests +of richly varied foliage, and the charming "hangers" which drop down +gracefully here and there, with pleasingly effective irregularity, into +the plain; the pretty little cottage plots, bright with flowers, shady +with overhanging trees, which then as now lined that useful _Canal +Urbain_; and the peculiarly engaging perspective of the landscape +spreading out right and left--all this combines to form a truly +fascinating picture. The view of the castle-hill from below is no less +pleasing. In James's day the hill was still crowned with the old historic +castle, built in the tenth century, but embodying in its masonry the +remains of the much more ancient structure in which Childeric I. had, like +the Stuart prince, found a welcome refuge--the castle in which Francis of +Guise was born, who drove us out of Calais--the castle in which Mary +Queen of Scots, bright with youthful beauty, and radiant with happiness, +delighted with her cheering presence the gay Court of her cousin and +playmate, Charles III., fresh to his ducal coronet, as she was to the +second crown which decked her head--for she was newly married to Francis +II., newly crowned Queen of France at Rheims. The daughter of Marie de +Lorraine, brought up in Lorrain Conde, she reckoned herself a Lorraine +princess, and as a Lorraine princess the Lorrains have ever regarded, and +idolised, her. To the memory of this unhappy queen, round which time had +gathered a bright halo of romance, not least was due that hearty welcome +which the Lorrains readily extended to her exiled kinsman. Most +picturesque must the castle have been in olden days, when those seventeen +medieval towers (removed by order of Louis XIV. in 1670) still stood round +about it like sturdy sentries, each laden with historic memories. Even now +the view of the hill is pleasing enough--with its winding roads, its steep +steps, its antique clock-tower, its terraced gardens and rambling lanes, +with that rather imposing convent-school raising its walls perpendicularly +many storeys high, the quaint church of St Peter[2] topping the southern +summit with its tower flattened to resist the wind, with those +delightfully green and shady Paquis just beyond, densely wooded with +trees, including the two largest elms in France--the Paquis which, with +their _paslemaile_, formed the favourite resort of James while at Bar, and +in the shady seclusion of which he spun his web of deceiving flattery +round the guileless heart of the girl whom he betrayed. Only to please +him, we read in the archives, it was that the town council put up benches +in that shade, which cost the town nine livres. + +At James's time Bar was still a rather considerable provincial capital, +the _chef-lieu_ of the largest _bailliage_ in Lorraine. And in that little +"West End" of the _Haute Ville_, where a cluster of Louis-Quatorze houses +still stand in decayed grandeur, to recall past fashionableness, the +nobility of the little Barrois, locally always a powerful and influential +body--the Bassompierres, the Haraucourts, the Lenoncourts, the +Stainvilles, the Romecourts--had their town houses, and there also dwelt +the pick of the bureaucracy, all ready to pay their court to the Stuart +"king," to whom even the French envoy reckoned it "an honour" to be +introduced. The town had its own municipal government--at one time with +its own _clerge_, _noblesse_, and _tiers etat_; in James's day still with +its _syndic_, to represent the Crown, its elected _mayeur_, _Maitre des +Comptes_, so many _eschargeots_, _esvardeurs_, _gouverneurs de +carrefours_, and so on. It had a wall all round with no fewer than eleven +gates. When James was there, Bar was famed throughout France and Lorraine +for its peculiarly "elegant" _poignees d'epee_ (sword-hilts) and other +cutlery. Corneille tells us that the whole street of Entre Deux Ponts was +full of cutlers' shops, and no visitor ever came to the place but he must +carry off at least one sword-hilt as a keepsake. The town already +manufactured its famous _dragees_ and _confitures_, and pressed that same +sour wine which "Murray" will have it--on what ground I know +not--"resembles champagne," and which then was appreciated as a delicacy. +The sanitary arrangements were not perfect. The _Canal Urbain_ +occasionally overflowed its banks and swamped the entire Rue des Tanneurs, +in which the Pretender's house was situated. And, together with the rest +of Bar and Lorraine, the town was still a little bit destitute after the +havoc wrought by French and Swedes, Croats and Germans, _Cravates_ (local +brigands) and Champenois peasants, and all that "omnium bipedum +sceleratissima colluvies," which had again and again overrun the duchy, +robbing, burning, pillaging, violating, desecrating, torturing, exacting, +and sucking the country dry to the very bone. Of all the world "only +Jerusalem" had experienced worse horrors, so a pious Lorrain chronicler +affirms. Oh, how the Lorrains of that day--and long after--hated and +detested the French! When in November, 1714, those habitual invaders at +length evacuated Nancy, the mob dressed up a straw figure in a French +uniform, and led it forth amid jeers and execrations to an _auto-da-fe_. +Even after annexation, a Nancy housewife declared herself most grossly +"insulted" by a French officer, who simply explained the benefits which he +thought that annexation must bring with it, and in anger she threw the +_friture_, just frizzling in her pan, straight in his face. + +Lorraine had been sadly afflicted indeed with long years of warfare. But +in 1713 things were beginning to mend. Leopold, restored by the Treaty of +Ryswick to his duchy--in which, as duke, his father had never set +foot--had been on the throne getting on for sixteen years. And what with +the excellent counsels of that best of Chancellors, Irish Earl +Carlingford, and his own intuitive judgment and enlightened and paternal +despotism, Lorraine was becoming populous and prosperous, happy and +contented, once more. Leopold earned himself a name for a shrewd and +prudent ruler. His brother-in-law, Philip of Orleans (the Regent), said of +him, that of all rulers of Europe he did not know one who was his superior +"_en experience, en sagesse, et en politique_." And Voltaire has +immortalised his virtues by saying: "_Il est a souhaiter que la derniere +posterite apprenne qu'un des plus petits souverains de l'Europe a ete +celui qui fit le plus de bien a son peuple_." In fact, he was the very +ruler whom Lorraine at that juncture wanted. Autocratic he was, and vain, +and self-important, notwithstanding the homely _bourgeoisie_ of his +manner. But he knew exactly where the shoe pinched, and how to devise a +remedy. He it was who first conceived the idea, which has helped to make +France prosperous, of a wide network of canals. He it was, who, in 1724, +set Europe an example, which at the time made him famous, of covering his +country with a network of model roads. And though he again and again +proposed, for the benefit of his own family, to "swap" poor little +Lorraine--for the Milanais, for a bit of the Low Countries, or for other +valuable possessions--while he was duke, he managed to make himself +popular, and he was resolved to do his duty. "_Je quitterais demain ma +souverainete si je ne pouvais faire du bien_," so he said. Under his +father, that brilliant general, Charles V., he had given proof of his +pluck and prowess at Temeswar, of his military ability before Ebersburg. +But in Lorraine, he knew, the one thing needful was peace. And with a +dogged determination which was bound to overcome all difficulties, though +the stars in their courses seemed to be fighting against him, that peace +he managed to maintain, in the midst of a raging sea of war all round, +which had drawn all neighbouring countries into its whirl. He did it--it +is worth recording, because it materially affected James's position at his +Court--by as adroit balancing between the two great belligerent Powers of +the Continent as ever diplomatist managed to achieve. Born and bred in +Austria, allied to the Imperial family by the closest ties of blood--his +mother was an archduchess--trained in Austrian etiquette, an officer in +the Austrian army, beholden to Austria for many past favours--and keenly +alive to the fact that for any favours which might yet be to come he must +look exclusively to the Court of Vienna--in his leanings and +prepossessions he was entirely Austrian. But under his father and +great-uncle history had taught his country the severe lesson, that without +observing the best, though they be the most obsequious, relations towards +France, at whose mercy the country lay, no Lorraine was possible. +Accordingly, almost Leopold's very first act as Duke was to send M. de +Couvange to Paris, to solicit on his behalf the hand of "Mademoiselle," +the Princess of Orleans. Her hand was gladly accorded. There was a +tradition--with a very obvious object--at Paris in favour of Lorrain +marriages. This was the thirty-third, and there remained a thirty-fourth +to conclude--the ill-starred marriage of Marie Antoinette. King James II. +and his Queen attended the wedding at Fontainebleau, and Elizabeth +Charlotte became one of the best of wives, and best and most popular of +Lorraine duchesses, bearing her husband no less than fourteen children. +Balancing between Austria and France, maintaining his private relations +with the one, giving way in everything to the other, was Leopold's prudent +maxim throughout his reign. So long as he adhered to that he felt himself +safe. Whenever he departed from it, he found himself getting into +mischief. + +Leopold has been much abused by our writers and politicians, as if he had +been a deliberate anti-English plotter and Jacobite accomplice. It is but +fair to him to explain why he afforded our Pretender such liberal +hospitality. The real fact is, that he could not help himself. He was +bound to. France demanded it, and he _could not_ refuse--nor yet refuse to +make his hospitality generous and lavish. There was the additional +attraction, indeed, of a show of importance, of a little implication in +diplomatic negotiations and playing a part in European high politics, +which to Leopold must have been strongly seductive. A good deal is also +said about religious motives, the suggestion of which must have helped +Leopold equally with the Curia and the Imperial Court, with both of whom +he was anxious to stand well. The Pope--it is true, under pressure from +James--subsequently thanked Leopold in a special brief, "_ample et bien +exprime_," for the proof of attachment which he had rendered to the Church +by his reception of the English Pretender, the emblem to all Europe of the +Church of Rome under persecution. Leopold was an exceptionally devout +Roman Catholic. He heard mass religiously every day, spent an hour in +prayer after dinner, and "adored the Sacrament" every evening. He had +revived Charles III.'s stringent provisions against Protestants, +interdicting all public worship and, in theory at any rate, declaring +Protestantism a crime deserving of hanging. In his excessive zeal he would +not even allow the Cistercian monks of Beaupre to retain in their service +a Protestant shepherd, though they pleaded hard that he was the best +shepherd whom they had ever had. So zealous a believer was of course a man +after the very heart of the widow and son of that "_fort bon homme_," as +Archbishop Le Tellier scoffingly termed James II., who had "sacrificed +three kingdoms for a mass." To himself, on the other hand, it seemed +something of a sacred act to open his house to the "Woman persecuted by +the dragon." However, all this was but as dust in the balance by the side +of the compelling necessity of French dictation, doubly compelling at that +particular period. For Leopold had of late been playing his own little +game. Things had gone against France in the field, and he had put his +money on the other horse. He was always after a fashion a gambling and +speculative ruler, willing to stake almost his very existence on the +_roulette_ of high politics. At that moment he was flattering himself with +hopes that the Congress of Utrecht would do something for him. Both +Austria and England had privately promised--at least some of their +statesmen had--that he was to have a seat at the Congress table. That +would add immensely to his dignity and prestige. Then he was to have a +slice of the Low Countries. To ensure this result, he was "casting his +bread upon the waters" with a vengeance--spending money wholesale, bribing +English, and Dutch, and Austrian statesmen with the most profuse +generosity--more particularly Marlborough, in whom he appears to have +retained a belief throughout, who most faithlessly "sold" him, and who +cost him a fortune. At the very time here spoken of our great general had +been favoured with a fresh mark of favour from Leopold--a magnificent +_carosse_, horsed with six splendid dapple-greys (Leopold was a great +horse-fancier), hung with most costly trappings. All this--which proved in +the event to have been entirely thrown away--very naturally gave umbrage +to France. And Louis XIV. had not missed his opportunity of letting +Leopold know that a score was being marked up against him at Versailles. +France had never stood on much ceremony with Lorraine, from Henry II. +downward. Louis XIV., more particularly, had done his best to equal his +grandfather's notorious and most capricious hostility. In 1702, in the +teeth of international law and of Leopold's protests, as well as Elizabeth +Charlotte's prayers, he had marched his troops into Lorraine. They were +still there, indeed, in larger numbers than before. When 1709 brought its +"_grand hiver_"--still remembered as a time of grievous tribulation--when +the crops froze in the fields, the vines in the vineyards, the children in +the nursery, the sacramental wine in the chalice, the water by the fire, +when Dearth and Famine once more laid their grim hand upon all +Lorraine--Louis XIV. had given Leopold a little additional cut with his +tyrant's whip, seizing some of the provisions providently laid up for the +relief of his subjects, and appropriating them to the use of his own +armies, which moreover, he reinforced by a fresh contingent of 20,000 men, +sent with orders to live "_a discretion_." Louis was quite ready to do +something of the same sort again. Therefore, when Louis said: Receive +James, Leopold had no choice but to receive him. His letters and +despatches make this perfectly clear. There is a good deal of talk about +the Pretender's "estimable qualities," how the Duke and Duchess admire +him, how happy they are that he has not gone to Aix-la-Chapelle. And no +doubt the two managed to be for a time excellent friends. But every now +and then, through all this polite buncombe, out comes the frank admission +that all is done "to please the king." And we know how promptly and +unhesitatingly Leopold's hospitality was withdrawn, once French pressure +ceased, in 1716. To ourselves, by receiving an exiled Pretender into his +neutral realm, as we have received many such, Leopold never dreamt that he +was giving cause for legitimate umbrage. No one could be more surprised +than he seems to have been when our Parliament took up the matter as a +grievance. + +And, to be fair, he never appears to have afforded to James the slightest +encouragement for a forcible assertion of his claims. His counsel was all +the other way. It was the French, it was the Pretender's own followers at +home, it was Roman Cardinal Gualterio, who countenanced, and occasionally +urged, warlike measures. Cardinal Gualterio, more in particular, prodded +the Catholic prince very vigorously, in the interest of his Church, +arguing that "_il falloit hazarder quelque chose et meme affronter le +sort, ce qui ne se fait pas sans risque_." Leopold, on the other hand, +was all dissuasion. He wanted James to keep _near_ England, in order to be +handy in the event of his being recalled--which he seems to have thought a +likely contingency. When James began to talk of armaments and invasions, +Leopold dwelt upon the difficulties, the all-but-hopelessness of such a +move. When, in June, 1714, shortly before Queen Anne's death, James wrote +from Plombieres, that he _must_ go into England, since he learnt that his +rival, the Electoral Prince of Hanover, had gone there, Leopold, who was +admirably informed from Hanover, through his brother, the +Elector-Archbishop of Treves, sent a message back post-haste with the +trustworthy tidings that George was neither gone nor going. The reasons +which led George's father to forbid his visit read a little strange at the +present day. In the first place, there was that Hanoverian economy--which, +it is true, was ostensibly disclaimed. In the second, the Prince was not +to be received in England as heir-presumptive--so that he would not really +better his chances by going. Moreover, the Elector, "_connoissant l'humeur +brusque et fort emportee de son fils, apprehendoit beaucoup qu'il ne se +rendit odieux aux anglais_." Lastly, and mainly, he was afraid of dropping +between two stools, if he were to stake his son's chances too decidedly on +the English succession. It was quite on the cards, he thought, that "_par +un effet des resolutions que l'inconstance de la nation y a rendues si +ordinaire_," the British nation would _chasser_ its next sovereign as it +had _chasse_ its last-but-one. And then, where would his son be? For if +his son went to England, it was much to be feared that his brother, who +had been not quite rightfully excluded from the succession, might make +good his claim to Hanover. And there would George be, out in the cold! So +his father was resolved to play a waiting game. + +The first difficulty which James found himself confronted with, and which +Leopold had to overcome for him--for French good offices were obviously +out of the question--was the procuring of a passport. Such credential was +at the time indispensable, for Europe was swarming with bad characters. +Besides, there was nominally war still; and public roads and even walled +towns were altogether insecure. In the Foreign Office papers we come +across correspondence relating to the robbing of the public coach running +between Strassburg and Paris, at Benameny, in Lorrain territory, by +Palatine soldiers, who had come over from Caub. And even in carefully +locked and watched Bar-le-Duc, Leopold advises King Louis that, with "a +fourth company of his regiment of guards" added to the local force, +besides twenty-five _chevaux-legers_ and twenty-five _gardes-du-corps_ to +act as escort, he can answer for the Pretender's safety only against +attacking parties of not more than fifty or a hundred at the outside, +which, he says, ought to be borne in mind, "_si armees se mettoient en +campagne_." Queen Mary only expresses what everyone felt when she says +that it is to be apprehended "_que quelque mechant en se servissent de +l'occasion pour faire un mechant coup_." She accordingly begs the +"_commnote_" of Chaillot to pray for "the king's" safety. + +In 1714 the Emperor, who was the principal sovereign to be petitioned, +would not make out a passport for James, to enable him to move into +Germany--though professedly willing to give the Stuart his niece in +marriage, and avowedly not a little put out with England, but yet desirous +of avoiding offence to King George. In 1713 he raised no difficulty. +Indeed, at Leopold's instance he was obliging enough to supplement his +passport with a special letter of commendation very kindly worded. And he +carefully avoided treading on corns either way by not naming James in the +document--for all of which Leopold takes great credit. But it appears that +plenty more potentates besides the Emperor had to be solicited. And the +two Electors, of Hanover and of Brandenburg, were obdurate in their +refusal--in agreement for once. It was a ticklish matter; for without +their safe-conduct James could scarcely be counted secure. On the other +hand, if their safe-conducts were to be waited for, the Emperor would of a +surety take offence, as if his own passport were judged insufficient. +Leopold, being great on etiquette, took the last-named to be the more +serious danger, and advised running the risk--more particularly since he +had been advised by his envoy in London, Baron Foerstner, that Queen Anne +had privately granted what amounted to a passport to her brother for going +into Lorraine. That was taken to settle the matter, and James put himself +_en route_. + +It was on the 22d of February, 1713, that he reached Bar, closely guarded +and travelling _incognito_, on which account an official reception in Bar +was dispensed with, though the French artillery at Toul had fired a +salute. The council were under strict injunctions to omit nothing which +might conduce to their visitor's safety, or minister to his comfort, or +that was conventionally due to a crowned head. Accordingly, we find them +in their next sitting, on the 25th February, passing a whole string of +votes and resolutions having reference to his arrival and his safety in +the town. The police and _chasse-coquins_ are forthwith put on the alert, +sentries are placed at all corners, and, to accommodate them, a whole +number of new sentry-boxes are put up. The authorities are directed to +question every stranger coming into the town carefully, and, if there +should appear to be anything suspicious about any one, rigorously to +detain him and report the case at once by express courier to Luneville. +Iron _grilles_ are put up. All the postern-gates are walled up, so is one +of the principal entrances, and so is--in spite of sanitary +considerations--a main sewer passing through the wall. Soldiers were a +good deal less squeamish in those days than they are now, and sewers had +served for many a surprise in the Thirty Years' War. The remaining ten +gates are to be carefully watched, and never opened before 5 A.M., nor +left open after 8 P.M. Billets are issued for the overflow of James's +suite, which appears to have been numerous, and stable-room is bespoken +for his horses. James evidently was an inconvenient visitor to house. For +he would have all his large apparatus of Court and Household close to +him--chamberlains, kitchen, kennel, and all. Mrs Strickland praises his +habitual economy. His doings in Lorraine do not bear out that praise. From +the Nairne MSS. in the British Museum (which give a full list) we know +that in 1709 and 1710 his household comprised above 120 persons, from the +secretaries down to the grooms' helper, drawing salaries of from 12 to 675 +livres _per mensem_. There was the Comptroller, Mr. Bous, who retailed +the anecdotes of the Court to Lady Middleton; a clerk of the green cloth, +a yeoman baker, a yeoman confectioner, a yeoman of the chaundry, Jeremiah +Browne, "Esq.," master-cook, a water-carrier, and a scourer. There were +yeomen's scullery assistants, confessors and chaplains, a doctor, a +"chyrurgien," and an apothecary, a "rideing purveyor," and a "chaiseman," +"Lady Maclane, laundress," pursuivants, and necessary women--all that +belongs to a royal household. And the whole establishment cost "19,412 +lstrs. _per mensem_." All these people did not go to Bar, but a good many +did. And there were a crowd more, for whom the town had to provide. For we +read in the Macpherson Papers that all "Peacock's family"--_i.e._, all +Protestant refugees who had been at "Stanley," _i.e._, at St. +Germains--had followed the Chevalier to Bar. There was not one of them +left. So writes the Queen. And the Duke states, quite independently of +this, that the Pretender is surrounded with Protestant exiles. Altogether +James's Court ran up a goodly bill, which it was disappointing to the town +afterwards to find that, though incurred by express order of the Duke, the +burgesses were expected to meet out of their own funds. To enable them to +do so, Leopold allowed the council to appropriate the _deniers_ of the +_octroi_ to their involuntary hospitality. + +The more or less Protestant colouring given to the refugee establishment +was scarcely palatable to the very orthodox population of Bar. But James +was playing, not to the Bar pit, but to the English gallery. "Downs or +Leslie should at once go there," so we find O'Rourke writing to Middleton +early in 1713. Leslie did go soon after, and the Chevalier, as his +advocates take credit, prevailed upon the Duke to relax his rigid rule in +one instance, and allow Protestant service in an upper room in James's +house. That was in the "Rue Neve." The upper room, which, we read, was +just over James's own apartment, cannot have been large. So it is to be +feared that the service was not over well attended. But it was enough to +save appearances, and to give the Jacobites of England a shadow of reason +for declaring, as they did, that James really was a Protestant. James +himself spoke a very different language. "He would rather abandon all than +act against his conscience and his honour." He protested over and over +again that "all the crowns in the world would not make him change his +religion." + +Thanks to King Louis's perpetual ordering and countermanding, when James +got to Bar, the chateau was once more as bare and uninhabitable as ever it +had been, and for a few days the Pretender had to be content with the same +rather humble house which he was destined subsequently to occupy for a +considerable time, in the "Rue des Tanneurs"--Number 22, Rue Neve, it is +now--a plain, square, three-storeyed building (counting the upper range of +rooms, which is very low, as a storey). This is described as at the time +"the principal house" in the town, the property of one of the most +distinguished residents, Councillor of State M. Marchal. It has eight +windows frontage, facing severally the Rue Neve and the Rue des Pressoirs, +and abutting width-ways on the very narrow passage Rue St. Antoine. A few +days later, however, we find the Pretender safely established in the +chateau, and there on the 9th of March he receives the Duke of Lorraine +and his brother Francois, Abbe of Stavelot, with an amount of circumstance +and scrupulous weighing of precedences which is described with rather +amusing minuteness in the 'Gazette de France.' Not to hurt James's +feelings--to whom royal honours could not be openly shown, out of +consideration for Queen Anne--Leopold ordered that he himself should not +be received with the usual ceremonial, troops under arms, and councillors +presenting addresses. But the Lorrains were a devotedly loyal population. +They would not be forbidden. The whole population of the town and of all +the surrounding district crowded into the streets, to receive the ruler of +the land with shouts of welcome. James, being the resident, played the +host at Bar. There was, a dinner, a supper, and a long private talk in the +chateau, with the result, we read, that the two princes at once became +fast friends. James, we know, though wanting in most of the qualities +which are regarded as specifically manly, was a good-looking and agreeable +fellow enough. As for Leopold, with his experience of Courts, and his kind +and considerate disposition, he could not very well prove otherwise than a +pleasant companion and a kind patron. We have plenty of portraits of him +left, limned both with pen and with brush. Short and stumpy, +round-bellied, red-faced, with a free allowance of pimples, and, moreover, +with those abnormally stout legs which remained his most striking outward +characteristic to his dying day, he must have looked a veritable _Jacques +Bonhomme_ put into a full-bottomed wig and court-dress. There is a tale to +those legs. Leopold came into the world about two months before his time, +_very_ sickly and _very_ delicate. More particularly his legs were very +spindles. Under a special treatment designed to remedy this defect, they +grew just as much too big as previously they had been too thin. Terrible +stickler for etiquette that Leopold was, and intent upon lavish display, +when occasion seemed to demand it, both himself and his wife were +simplicity itself when such occasion was withdrawn. They could talk to a +peasant in the peasant's brogue about his _ouiettes_ and his hemp. One of +the princesses thought nothing of accepting a lift home in a market-cart, +and, as the driver commendingly related, showed herself "_bien sage_." +"_Cousine_," said the Duchess to the Duchess of Elboeuf, "_restez chez +nous, nous avons un bon gigot_." This simplicity and familiarity with +humble ways as a matter of course made the Duke and Duchess popular. But +what helped them more than anything to gain their people's hearts was +their remarkable readiness to enter into all those local _fetes_ which +long custom had sanctioned as common to both high and low. The French +occupation had made a long break in the observance of those _fetes_. How +should the Lorrains "sing songs" in what had become to them practically "a +strange land?" For something like thirty years their harps remained hung +up upon the willow-trees. Great, however, was the joy when at the first +_Fete de la Veille des Rois_--kept in commemoration of the brilliant +victory achieved over Charles the Bold in 1476--and at the _Brandons_ or +_Faschinottes_,[3] following that _fete_, the Duke and Duchess appeared +in person among the merry-makers, entering most good-humouredly and, +indeed, jovially into all their doings. Of the many local customs which +Lorraine boasts, the _Brandons_ was at that time still the particular +favourite. It had been handed down from hoary antiquity. Every couple +married since the last _Brandons_ was expected to join. The husband had to +provide himself with a faggot or log of wood, and carry it in procession +through the town, accompanied by his wife, along a roundabout route +prescribed by custom, to the Duke's palace, march three times past the +Duke's window, and then deposit the piece of fuel on a huge pyramidal pyre +built up in the ducal courtyard. Some couples went on foot, others rode on +horseback. All were dressed in their best, and the procession must have +looked exceedingly picturesque. Every lady was expected to wear some +little ornament--generally made of silver--specially devised to indicate +either her calling or her station in life: a coronet, or a sickle, or +whatever it might be. The streets were lined with people, who freely +expended their wit--a pretty ready one--in chaff pointed at the new +victims to matrimony, who in their turn were expected to put on a most +dejected look, as if seriously repenting the allegiance rashly entered +into to Hymen. In the evening the pyre was lighted, and round this huge +bonfire people made mildly merry with gambols and dances. Tables were +spread, at the Duke's cost, richly laden with viands and native wine. In +1698, at the first revival of the _Brandons_ after a long pause, the file +of matrimonial victims was, of course, quite exceptionally long. It was a +delightful surprise to the crowd to see at its head the Duke and Duchess +themselves, newly married as they were--the Duchess, being slightly +_enceinte_ with her first-born, wearing at her girdle a little silver +cradle. That was not all. In the evening Leopold mixed freely with the +revellers, stopped at table after table, drank here and drank there, +proposing a toast or responding to one,--with the result that the people +went half-mad with enthusiasm. Not a tumbler had the Duke drunk out of, +which was not religiously treasured as a relic. And long after the French +had forced their yoke firmly home upon the shrinking neck of unwilling +Lorraine, those tumblers were still shown to growing children as memorials +of the "good old time." At the carnival, which followed the _Brandons_, +Leopold and Elizabeth Charlotte were again to the fore. They did not mind +figuring in public--even sometimes on an amateur stage. Leopold once +appeared masked as Sultan--his consort, not quite appropriately, as an +Odalisk; but the loyal Lorrains saw nothing incongruous in that dress. + +The striking difference very apparent in the characters severally of host +and guest in our little chapter of history, may have helped to draw them +together all the more closely. James was in his ordinary mood anything but +mirthful. References to him are frequent in the correspondence as being +"terribly sad," or else "very pensive, which is his ordinary humour," +"_tres serieux et reserve_," so much so that "_rien ne l'auoit pu tirer de +la profonde melancolie ou il etoit_," and so on. Yet he could be merry, +too, and more in particular he loved a dance. At one ball, given in the +Palace at Luneville, we read that he managed particularly to ingratiate +himself with the ladies who were past their first bloom, by an act of +undoubted chivalry. They wanted badly to dance, but dared not, while the +Duchess was sitting. And the Duchess considered herself too much of a +matron to foot it with the young ones. James, however, made her. He would +take no refusal. The dead room became reanimated once more, and many an +aging heart in its night-thoughts blessed the gallant _pretendant_. James, +we are told, was a prominent figure in the Nancy _Brandons_ and Carnival, +kept with peculiar _eclat_ in 1715, after a fresh break of thirteen years, +due to French occupation. Court chroniclers seem to consider that the +presence of "_Le Roi d'Angleterre_" added peculiar lustre to that +performance. + +Reporting himself after his visit to Bar, as in duty bound, to King Louis, +Leopold declares himself "_charme de l'esprit, de la sagesse, de la +douceur et des manieres gracieuses de M. le Chevalier de Saint Georges_." +The 'Journal de Verdun,' drawing its information, of course, from official +sources, announces that after their first encounter the two princes "_se +separerent extremement satisfaits l'un de l'autre_" in "_parfaite amitie +bien cimentee_." Of James it will have it that he is "_d'un caractere si +doux, si affable, et si populair, qu'il s'est bientot acquis, de tous ceux +qui ont eu l'honneur de le voir, le respect et la veneration dus a sa +vertu et a sa naissance_." + +Leopold gone, the time passed, on the whole, quietly at Bar. There were +occasional alarms, when some suspicious stranger had been seized. On one +occasion, again, there is some talk of a "poisoned letter," sent in an +ingenious fashion. To Louis, we find, the Duke appeared a little too +forward in warning James of these dangers, as if he wanted to frighten his +guest into quitting Lorraine. To vary the little episodes, there was the +famous _coequre_, who so much amused Queen Mary Beatrice's companions with +his odd manners and his "thou"-ing. "The Spirit had moved him," as we +know, to inform James that he was to rule over England, in which country +there were plenty of well-wishers to support him. Were money wanted, he +said that his friends would readily combine to raise some millions. They +did not, welcome as the money would have been to James, whom we find +continually complaining of want of funds. In the cipher despatches the +common burden is, that "Mr. Parton" will not "deliver the goods." There is +another prophetic person to encourage the Pretender, a nun of the +"Monastere de Sainte Marie del Roma," near Montevallo--accredited by her +superior, who writes to the Marquis Spada that her prophecies have never +failed to come true. If he escapes the many traps set for him in 1715, so +the nun says, James will certainly become King of England. Occasionally +also there are little tiffs between English visitors and Barisien +residents. What English, Scotch, and Irish there were there, we do not +know for certain, but there were a goodly number, and not all of the best +manners. Noel, who is a good historian on Lorrain things, but a little at +fault on English, will have it that among these people was "_Lord Chatham, +qui devint plus tard si celebre_." Occasionally there was a visitor coming +on the sly with news--such as the Duke of Berwick, whose visits were at +one time frequent--or, towards the end of the sojourn, the banished Lord +Bolingbroke, and "Le Comte de Peterborough" travelling under the pseudonym +of "Schmit." Marlborough did not come himself, but he sent an aide-de-camp +on a confidential mission to Luneville, overflowing with pleasant words, +and through him be begged particularly to be well and promptly advised on +the Chevalier's movements, since "_Le salut d'Angleterre_" might depend +upon this. The Duke of Lorraine was not particularly impressed with +James's followers, especially after Lord Middleton was gone. "_Ce ne sont +que des gens d'un caractere fort mediocre_," he writes. They talk about +things which affect their chief with the utmost freedom. In Mr Higgons, +who had succeeded Lord Middleton, he could discern no merit whatever. As +for Lord Middleton, he found him "_fort reserve et voulant dominer seul_." +He gives him credit for capacity and zeal, but censures him as being +"_timide et irresolu_." All the rest, he says, are "_de jeunes gens qui ne +pouuoint souffrir ce Milord, et qui auoint eu l'imprudence de dire a +Luneville qu'il etoit si fort hay en Angleterre que les plus zelez +partisans de leur Maitre auoint temoigne qu'ils ne feroint jamais rien +pour ces interests tant qu'il l'auroit au-prez de luy_." All these men +evidently have very little knowledge of what is going on at home, he says. +There is no one in whose judgment the Pretender might repose any faith +except it be the Earl of Oxford or Lord Bolingbroke. + +On the whole, the Pretender's life at Bar, though perhaps a little +monotonous, can scarcely have been unpleasant. He made friends with the +local _haute volee_, asking them to dinner, and being asked back--and +borrowed money from them whenever he could. His especial friends were the +Marquis de Bassompierre, from whom he borrowed 15,000 livres, which the +Duke repaid in 1719, and M. de Rousselle. A good deal of time the +Chevalier spent in his closet, with Nairne, or Higgons, or Middleton, +concocting plans and dictating long memorials to the Pope, or else to +Cardinal Gualterio, advocating the canonisation of Bellarmine, +recommending _proteges_ for places which they never got, and insisting on +his right to nominate bishops to Irish sees, the names of which he could +not spell. At off-times he played _reversi_, _boston_, and _ombre_, and +occasionally _petit palet_, which is an aristocratic form of +chuck-farthing. Then there was the pleasure of the chase, of which we know +from Father Leslie that James was a tolerably keen votary. In Lorraine the +diversion of _venerie_ was held in high estimation, though reserved only +for very great magnates, and guarded by a ring-fence of the strictest +enactments against vulgar intrusion. Poaching accordingly came to be a +very common offence. "Ground game," indeed--at any rate rabbits--it was +open to all to shoot. "High game"--_i.e._, deer--on the other hand, was +reserved within certain limits exclusively for the Duke. Within about +eight miles of the Duke's palaces, in what were called the ducal +_plaisirs_, not even nobles of the highest rank were permitted to shoot or +hunt. No dogs belonging to private persons were allowed in the fields near +those _plaisirs_, on any pretence whatever, be the deer, and boars, and +wolves, ever so troublesome. Even shepherds' dogs and watch-dogs must have +their hamstrings cut, or else a log tied round their necks. And in some +districts every Parish was required by law to provide a _louviere_ or +wolf's pit, 20 feet deep, 18 feet wide at its bottom, and 12 at its +opening. From "_le haut puissant messire_" Jean de Ligniville's most +amusing disquisitions on "_La Meutte et Venerie_" we learn that the +district about Bar was "_tres boise_" and well stocked with game of every +description, which, local chroniclers tell us, James was frequently +occupied in hunting. Lorrain and English hunting were not then as far +apart in their general features as one might be tempted to assume. English +kings had more than once sent presents of English hounds to Lorrain +dukes--Charles III. received from James I. a present of eighty harriers at +a time. And more than one Lorrain grandee came over to hunt and shoot +here. Ligniville himself, the Duke's _Grand Veneur_ (under Charles IV.), +had frequently hunted in England, and expressed himself especially +delighted with the sport in which he had joined in Yorkshire. On the +whole, he appears to have considered English hounds superior to +French--less eager at first, but with more stay in them--and he was proud +of having received presents of some from the Prince of Wales of his time +(Charles I.), "Milord de Hee," and from "Milord Howard." But a cross +between English and French hounds he seems to have regarded as the _ne +plus ultra_ of excellence. "Puss" was very much persecuted in the valley +of the Meuse, furnishing by its exceptional swiftness and skill in +swimming almost too good sport, "_contre montant l'eauee tellement viste +que les chiens ne les pouuoint pas aborder_." James's hunting sometimes +led him into adventures, and on one occasion nearly saddled his host with +a diplomatic difficulty. Riding hard, he once got to the little town of +Ligny at nightfall, some eight miles from Bar, in a vassal territory +belonging, under the Duke of Lorraine, to Montmorency, Duke of Luxemburg. +The Duke of Luxemburg, being rather a big vassal, was in consequence also +a very troublesome one, and the Lorrain Court and his officers frequently +found themselves at loggerheads. To James, coming from Bar, with fifty +Lorrain _gens d'armes_, besides his own suite, the _maire_ resolutely +refused to open the gates and furnish lodgings for the night, grounding +his refusal upon a decision of the Parliament of Paris passed in the year +1661. The Lorrains were quite prepared for a siege and an assault. +However, James deemed it wiser to leave things alone, and so the company +rode half a mile further, to a little village called Velaine, where they +spent a most uncomfortable night. Soon we have Montmorency complaining to +King Louis of the assumed "_nouuelles entreprises de M. le Duc de Lorrain +sur mon comte de Ligny_." Leopold revenged himself by imprisoning about a +dozen _maires_ of the Ligny county, on the plea of their having failed to +furnish the requisite waggons, and in the end bought Montmorency out with +the sum of 2,600,000 francs. + +All this, however, was not enough excitement for James. In one of his +letters he plaintively calls Bar his "Todis"--by which of course he means +"Tomis." "Tomis," by a natural train of thought suggested--besides the +_tristia_, of which we have plenty--the _ars amatoria_. And to it the +Chevalier devoted not a few of his unoccupied hours. If local tradition +speaks true, he differed very materially in his prosecution of this art +from his father, of whom Catherine Sedley said that on what principle he +selected the ladies of his heart she could never make out. None of them +were good-looking, and if any of them had wit, he had not the wit to find +it out. And Mary of Modena, his wife, added that, although he was willing +to give up his crown for his faith, he could never muster sufficient +resolution to discard a mistress. His son was in both respects far more of +a man of the world. + +It was in the green bosquets of those Paquis, his favourite +lounging-place, that James first discovered his human jewel. To house her +suitably, he took--at somebody else's cost--a cottage on the brow of the +hill, where the view is delightful and the air magnificent. You can still +approximately trace the site, high up in the Rue de l'Horloge, above the +Rue St. Jean, a little below the neglected terrace in the Rue +Chavee--which is well worth visiting for its prospect. As the house stood +with its back to the hill and facing only the open space, there must have +been absolute privacy. But, after moving down to the Lower Town, James +found the ascent by those _Quatre-vingt Degres_--which Oudinot rode up on +horseback--a trifle laborious. The steps lead almost straight up from his +house to the cottage, describing just enough of an angle to take in the +humble building, now marked by a tablet, in which Marshal Oudinot was +born. A more convenient arrangement could scarcely have been desired. But +the steps were sadly "_sales et delabres_." Not to inconvenience James in +his amours, the town council readily voted the requisite sum for putting +them into proper repair. + +When September came on, James found the air on the castle-hill "_trop +vif_." Although his mother generally reports that "_il se porte bien_," it +is to be feared that his constitution was none of the strongest. We read +in one of D'Audriffet's despatches, "_que sa sante estoit toujours fort +delicate_." He has had a "_fluxion_" in the eye. He has "weak lungs." "He +is evidently very poorly," writes D'Audriffet to Louis. He finds himself +"_altere par l'intemperie du tems_." He takes the waters of Plombieres +four times "for his health," and wants to take those of Aix-la-Chapelle. +He talks of going to a warmer climate--Spain or Italy, or, more +specifically, Venice. But he can now obtain no fresh passport from the +Emperor. Then he goes to have a look at Saint Mihiel, likewise in the +Barrois, only a few miles from Koeurs, in which another Prince of Wales, +young Edward--the same whom Edward IV. meanly struck with his gauntlet, +and Richard of Gloucester despatched with a stab, to stop his +"sprawling"--spent his young years of exile in company with his mother, +Queen Margaret, from 1464 to 1471. But he does not like the idea of living +in the Benedictine Abbey. So the Duke orders the town council to get ready +once more M. Marchal's convenient house below, to which the Chevalier +insists that a second house adjoining shall be added, belonging to M. de +Romecourt, besides a portion of one belonging to M. Lepaige, with a +kitchen specially built, and a "gardemanger," a new door, and sundry other +conveniences, to say nothing of the hiring of further accommodation for +his horses, his kennel, his _gens de venerie_, his guards, some of his +suite--all of whom and all of which he wants very near him, and all of +which consequently, costs the town a good deal of money. M. de +Romecourt's house is a complete match to M. Marchal's, but smaller, +bringing up the frontage to thirteen windows. + +However, James was not always at Bar, nor yet always, when away, at +Plombieres. Duke Leopold was constantly inviting him to Luneville, and +sometimes to Nancy, and arranging most magnificent _fetes_ in his honour. +Leopold could do things handsomely when he chose. Even when James stayed +three whole weeks, there was something new provided every day to amuse +him--"_les plaisirs de la Cour etoint entremele de repas, de collations, +de bals, de concerts, de Comedie, de promenades, de chasse, de feux +d'artifice, etc., mais chaque jour tout etoit nouveau_." Leopold's palace +at Luneville--the same in allusion to which Louis XV. said to King +Stanislas, "_Mon pere, vous etes mieux loge que moi_"--was specially laid +out for the gaiety and the varied succession of amusements for which the +Lorrain Court was famous. It was at the Lorrain Court that the _cotillon_, +that universal favourite on the Continent, was first invented. And in +Leopold's theatre it was that Adrienne Lecouvreur made her first +appearance. + +To give James a right royal reception, Leopold spared neither pains nor +money. He always made a point of going to meet his guest--to Batelemont, +to Houdemont, or to Gondrecourt. To enable the Court to enter with proper +spirit into all the magnificence prepared, we read in the official +despatches, that in April, 1713, on the occasion of James's first visit, +the Duke directed that two quarters' salaries, in arrear since 1711, +should be paid to the officers of his household. D'Audriffet makes merry +over this. But in France things were no better. The Court of Versailles, +we know, was always behindhand in its payments to Queen Mary. Mrs +Strickland makes this a matter of reproach to Desmarets, as if purely the +result of his negligence. But the Court had not got the money. In 1715 we +have D'Audriffet himself sending in his little account, which shows five +years' salary to be owing, in addition to 24,800 livres of disbursements, +the whole debt amounting to 84,800 livres. + +Even more brilliant than the _fetes_ given at Luneville, were those to +which James was invited at the Chateau of Commercy, the seat of the Prince +de Vaudemont. Vaudemont was rich and generous. He had occupied high +positions in the army and the administrative services both of Austria and +of Spain. He was a man pre-eminently prudent in council. Our William III. +had discovered that, and had frequently sought his opinion, more +particularly while the Treaty of Ryswick was under consideration. To James +the Prince became a most valuable friend and confidant--more especially at +that critical juncture when the Pretender's great aim was to get away +unobserved form Lorraine. In his splendid castle of Commercy, set off by +magnificent cent gardens and sheets of water throwing Versailles into the +shade, the "Damoiseau" of Commercy gave _fetes_ the description of which +baffled Court chroniclers of the period, and after which, in the words of +the "Gazette de Hollande," James found himself constrained to go back to +Bar in self-defence, "_pour s'y delasser, pour ainsi dire, de la fatigue +des plaisirs continuels_." There was such a _fete_ in June, 1713, arranged +on a peculiarly lordly scale, in which a chorus of _Pelerins de Saint +Jacques_ were brought in--appropriately hailing from "L'Isle de Cythere," +and provided with passports from the goddess Venus--whose special object +seems to be to say pretty things to James:-- + + "Vous gagnez tous les coeurs, tout le monde gemit + De voir un Roy d'une bonte si rare, + Et brillant de l'eclat de toutes les vertus + Loin des Etats qui lui sont dus + Mais nous verrons un jour cette triple couronne + Qu'ont porte si longtems vos Illustres Ayeux, + Sur votre chef tomber des Cieux. + Le merite, le sang, les Loix, tout vous la donne; + Laissez le soin de soutenir ces droits + Au Dieu qui dans ses mains porte les coeurs des Rois." + +Then a curious supper was given. The twenty-four most illustrious guests +present sat down at two tables, the ladies at one, the gentlemen at the +other. Each person was served with an equal portion, "_tous en vaisselle +de fayance, jusqu'aux manches des couteaux_." + + "Et dans ce sobre repas + Chacun n'eut que vingt-sept plats." + +In all, to these twenty-four people 648 _plats_ were served. The great +joke of the meal was, that strict silence was enjoined. "_Mais on avoit +oublie d'en bannir les Ris._" So people soon began to laugh, and then the +men accused the ladies of breaking the rule, and the ladies retorted, and +that put an end to Trappism. On another occasion, in July, 1714, when +James spent a fortnight at Commercy--while his sister was slowly +dying--the Prince, in the course of an even more brilliant _fete_, +entertained his guests with sham-fights, the siege of a castle, and other +incidents of military operations, for which the services of a French +army-corps stationed in the neighbourhood, at Troussay, under the command +of M. de Ruffey, were impressed. + +Mary of Modena must have felt the removal of her only son--her only child, +since the Princess Louise, "_la Consolatrice_," was dead--very keenly. She +declared that she had no one left to open her heart to. This was not to be +understood quite literally, for we find the Queen-Dowager pouring out her +confidences very effusively to her _chere mere_ and the sisters at +Chaillot, whose journals, in fact, supply the main records of Mary's +doings. But, no doubt, she missed James much. Once after his banishment, +in July, 1714--when James rushed secretly to Paris, to consult with the +king about the steps to be taken in view of Queen Anne's impending death, +and was sent away "_fort peu satisfait_"--she had seen him for an hour or +two in the night. Very naturally, she wished to visit him at Bar, more +particularly as her doctors had advised her to try the waters of +Plombieres. It is not altogether impossible, also, although the Queen was +kept in rather tight leading-strings by Dr. Beaulieu, that, plagued as she +was with cancer in the breast, she may have wished to take the advice of a +specialist at Bar with whose fame at the time the world was ringing. +Bar-le-Duc had become strangely identified with cures for cancer. In 1663 +Pierre Alliot first discovered the value of cauterising as a corrective +treatment. And early in 1714 M. le sieur Moat, another Bar doctor, +astonished the world with quite a novel method, which was probably humbug, +since it is said to have effected perfectly incredible recoveries. Some +months later we find Queen Mary preparing to set out for Bar and also for +Plombieres. Her bad health and an abnormally wet summer put a stop to the +project. This was just about the time of the death of Queen Anne, when +Leopold felt as if he were politically walking on eggs. He had given so +much umbrage in England already, that every further offence was to be +carefully avoided. If the Queen, as was to be anticipated, in going to +Plombieres, were also to visit Luneville, that must of a certainty give +rise to misunderstandings. So he sends officers and messengers to inquire +and dissuade, as diplomatically as he can. The Queen had been so ill as to +be given up, and he did not wish to pain her. But above all things he had +to think of himself. + +On very different grounds the tidings of the Queen's impending visit also +fluttered the good people of Bar not a little. They had never entertained +a queen. So on the 13th of July we find the heads of the town council +carefully inquiring of the Marquis de Gerbevillers, the governor of the +district, what is the proper ceremonial to be observed. Thereupon a +deputation is named, and a present of 16 lb. of _dragees_ and forty-eight +_pots de confitures_ is voted, besides a _feuillade_ of wine for +distribution, and a special _vin d'honneur_, to be presented to the royal +visitor by the Marquis de Bassompierre, on behalf of the town. The +Barisiens are very proud both of their _confitures_ and of their wine. +Both may be had now, presumably, in the same quality in which they were +tendered to Queen Mary. The _confitures_ consist of currants, red and +white, preserved whole, in a syrup made sweet to excess. But the flavour +is good. The _vins de Bar_ have long been reckoned a delicacy, more +particularly the _clairet_--a variety having a colour half-way between red +and white. The wine is highly praised by patriotic writers as being +"_excellent, delicat, leger, et bien-faisant_," and more than any other +"_ami de l'homme_." And if you only stick to that wine alone, and take +care not to mix, you can drink, they protest, absolutely whatever quantity +you like, without feeling one whit the worse next day. To an English +palate, I am bound to say, the wine is apt to present itself as +intolerably sour. + +After all, the Queen's visit did not come off till spring, 1715. That was, +again, a most inconvenient time for the Duke of Lorraine, on much the same +grounds as before. He had just made up that nasty tiff with the English +Court, arising out of the publication of the Pretender's manifesto. King +George was at length going to receive his envoy, M. de Lambertye. At such +a juncture the classical "pig among roses" would have been ten times more +welcome to nervous Leopold than Mary of Modena and her son at his Court. +So he writes to Louis, begging him for heaven's sake to stop the Queen +from coming, and despatches Baron Foerstner post-haste to Bar to +remonstrate with the Pretender. Neither attempt proved successful--but the +Queen's visit did not do much harm. Her ill-health again came in as a +special providence, detaining her till after Whitsuntide. She set out +incognita with what is represented as a very modest train--namely, four +coaches-and-six, one _littiere_, and _quelques chaises_. The Duke had the +good grace to receive her with a most hearty welcome. He sent the Marquis +de Bassompierre, her son's great friend, to meet her at Chalons. Her son +met her at Moutiers, on the border of the Barrois. For safety the forests +were once more stocked with soldiers. On the 22d of June, Mary made her +entry into Bar, putting up in James's house in the Rue des Tanneurs. The +local grandees and the town council turned out in force to receive her, +the Marquis de Bassompierre presenting the _dragees_ and the _vin +d'honneur_, while the _bailli_, M. de Gerbevillers, did the honours on +behalf of the Duke, whose Great Chamberlain he was. On the 25th Mary and +James proceed to Commercy, where everybody expresses himself and herself +delighted with _cette sainte Reine_. On the 18th of July the Queen arrives +at Nancy, where the Duke and Duchess are staying. James was at that time +in the midst of plotting. "Milord Drummond" had come from England to +confer with him. Ferrari put in one of his suspicious appearances, to the +bewilderment and annoyance of the French envoy. An Irish priest who talked +indiscreetly about a _grand coup a faire_ was seized and kept under +arrest. Couriers were rushing frantically to and fro. Something was "up." +And Lord Stair, at Paris, we find, knew of it. But the Queen did not +seemingly take a very hopeful view of things. She thanked the Duke very +pathetically for his kindness to James. It needed generosity, she avowed, +to interest one's self on behalf of a Prince "forsaken by all the world." +Her gratitude would be "eternal." The Duchess was most attentive. Both +days that the Queen was at Nancy she forestalled her in calling, +surprising her at her toilet. At Luneville, the Duchess had offered to +make the Chevalier's bed with her own hands. From Nancy Mary Beatrice +proceeded to Plombieres _via_ Bar, returning to St Germains on the 22d of +August. The waters had not done her much good. + +A brief space is due to those rather curious negotiations which were +carried on while James was at Bar, to find the Pretender a suitable wife. +According to Mrs Strickland this was rather a romantic affair. James was +dying to marry his cousin, the Princess d'Este, while, on the other hand, +the Princess Sobieska and Mademoiselle de Valois were both dying to marry +him. In truth, there was no dying on either side, and the wooing +originated, not in James's feeble affections--which were probably occupied +to the full extent of their capacity with that young lady on the hill--but +in the fertile brain of his scheming and restless host. Mrs Strickland, I +ought to say, rather overrates the position of the Princess Sobieska, who +eventually _did_ marry the Chevalier; and if there was any romance in her +affection, she lived to be cured of it. Being the daughter only of an +elective king, a _parvenu_ among royal personages, she was looked upon as +a princess rather by courtesy than of right. Even to James, down in the +world as he was, Leopold--in a manner her kinsman--did not dare to propose +her except as a _pis aller_, when all hopes elsewhere were extinguished. +His first proposal was an Austrian archduchess. He evidently thought the +suggestion one which would do him credit. It would be a downright good +"Catholic" match. It was bound to help the Pretender, and it might be +agreeable to the Emperor, and so secure him, Leopold, very much on the +look-out for favours as he was, gratitude in two influential quarters. +The mere moral effect, he says, of an alliance entered into by the premier +dynasty of Europe with the outcast Stuart prince must prove immensely to +James's advantage. But there was money, too--which James particularly +wanted--much money, heaped up in the Hofburg. James assented--though with +nothing seemingly of eagerness; for it took him some months to grasp the +full meaning of the idea. The proposal was made in March, 1714--long +before the Princess Sobieska was thought of; and, as Leopold reports with +unmistakable satisfaction, it was _assez goute_ at Vienna. Only, the +Princess asked for--the younger daughter of the late Emperor--was very +young, in fact, a child in the nursery, and the marriage could not +possibly take place for some considerable time. So, the Emperor thought, +the matter had best be kept quiet. Nothing daunted, rather encouraged, +Leopold, with James's approval, returned to the charge in June. If the +younger archduchess was too young--very well, let it be the elder, +Elizabeth, who was at that time heir-presumptive to the crown. (For Maria +Theresa, the reigning Emperor's daughter, was not yet born.) Vienna took +time to consider. James's appetite grew keen, and in July we find him +plying the Emperor with two memorials, drawn up with the help of Nairne. +So elated did he grow over his supposed brilliant prospects, that he +returned very cold answers indeed to Cardinal Gualterio's well-meant +representations in favour of a union with another lady--was it the +Princess d'Este, Gualterio's own countrywoman? There was no money in that +quarter. Accordingly James haughtily pronounces the marriage "_pas +faisable_." But he pushes his suit at Vienna. It must be, he urges in his +first memorial, altogether to the Emperor's interest that the Archduchess +Elizabeth should be married to "_une personne qui ait asses de naissance +et d'autres bonnes qualites personelles pour estre choisi apres lui a +remplir sa place_." Such a person James considers himself to be. And he +puts his case in this way. Either the English crown will fall to him or it +will not. If it does, well, then, there he is, a most desirable, wealthy, +and influential nephew-in-law. If it does not, there he is, again, the +fittest person in the world to succeed to the Imperial crown. In the +second memorial, issued shortly after, he presses some further points. +Hanover must not be allowed to grow too powerful. Indeed, as a Protestant +Power, it is too "_formidable_" already, and the "_Duc d'Hannovre_" is +"_un redoutable Rival_." But, "_il est certain qu'il (l'empereur) a moins +a apprehender de l'Angleterre sans le Duc d'Hannovre que de le Duc +d'Hannovre sans l'Angleterre_." Therefore--the reasoning does not seem +quite clear--James ought to be supported; or else, certainly, the Duc +d'Hannovre should be made to forego one of the two crowns--either Hanover +or England, a proposal which James pronounces perfectly "_juste et +nullement impracticable_." The proposal does not, however, "fetch" the +Emperor, who goes on procrastinating. But, on the other hand, Louis XIV, +gets wind of it, though he was not meant to, through D'Audriffet, and +grows uneasy, throwing all the cold water that he can upon the scheme. +Meanwhile in England things go against the Pretender. Queen Anne dies, +King George succeeds, and, in spite of James's solemn protest, addressed +to the Powers in English, French, and Latin, England seems perfectly +content. After this it is not surprising to find Leopold, when James +returns to the subject of his marriage, shaking his head discouragingly, +and pointing out that the Pretender's matrimonial value has fallen +appreciably in the market. He must no longer look "so high." Besides, the +Emperor will not care to embroil himself by such a marriage with the +Government of King George, with which he has struck up a friendship which, +in Louis XIV.'s words, promises to prove alike "_solide et sincere_." Now, +there is the Princess Sobieska! Leopold thinks that he could manage that. +Through her mother she is a niece of the Empress Eleanor. Therefore, to a +certain extent, James will still secure the Hapsburg interest. As for +marrying the Archduchess, that is out of the question. James does not see +it. He goes on harping upon the Archduchess Elizabeth, and worrying poor +Leopold to resume negotiations. + +Leopold found worry of a more serious sort besetting him, on account of +James, in a different quarter. To satisfy France was all very well. But +what in this matter satisfied France offended England. Now, England itself +was very little to the Duke of Lorraine. Louis XIV. kept assuring him that +English complaints and remonstrances should have "_point de suite_," and +that he would see him through the business. He had "nothing to fear." +Accordingly, when the English Houses of Parliament began, very +unreasonably, to memorialise Queen Anne in favour of moving for James's +expulsion from "ungrateful" Lorraine, though the Court of St Germains +showed itself, as we are told, "_fort picquee de ses addresses_," Leopold +simply smiled, and assured James that he would see that those addresses +remained "_inutiles_." He did not quite like it when Baron Foerstner, his +envoy in London, reported the two parties in England, both "Thoris" and +"Wighs," to be unanimous on the point. James himself, whom he consulted +without any result, confessed himself in an "_embarras de prendre le +meilleur party_." However, Bolingbroke had advised Foerstner that no notice +should be taken; the English nation "_se portoit tantot a une chose et +tantot a une autre_;" Parliament was about to be dissolved, and in the new +House the whole thing might be forgotten. King Louis explained the +resolution as a Whig dodge, a shibboleth, designed to make it clear who +were the Pretender's supporters. However, the remonstrances went on. Two +bishops made themselves ridiculous by very indiscreet and officious +interference. The Duke judges that this "_n'estoit qu'une grimace de la +Cour d'Angleterre_." But after a time he grows irritable, and recalls his +envoy--quite as much in disgust as for economy. That does not mend +matters--no more does the Duke's letter, written at the French king's +suggestion for communication to Prior. D'Audriffet's despatch of 3d May, +1714, shows that Leopold at that time quite expected that he might be made +to give effect to the English demand. Meanwhile Queen Anne dies. James +issues his proclamation, at which George and our Parliament take +needlessly great offence, and an icy coldness springs up between the two +Courts--just under circumstances under which coldness is least acceptable +to Leopold. For, however little Queen Anne might have had it in her power +to cross him, her successor is Elector of Hanover as well as King of +England, fast friends with the Emperor, and has a great say in the +bestowal of ecclesiastical patronage in Germany, for which Leopold, on +behalf of his "near and dear relations" has an insatiable appetite. +Accordingly he grows uncomfortable. He notices with alarm, so the letters +show, that George takes an unusually long time advising him of the late +Queen's death, and when the advice comes, it says nothing about his own +accession. Anxious to make up the breach, Leopold at once despatches a +special envoy, Lambertye, to present his congratulations. To the Duke's +dismay George will not receive him. Leopold, however, bids him stay where +he is, and addresses to the king his well-known memorial, which must +certainly be pronounced dignified in tone and just in substance. James's +proclamation, Leopold shows, was issued without any knowledge or consent +on his part. Privately, he causes it to be explained that he is simply +obeying dictatorial orders from Versailles. But--"_on a beau leur dire_," +writes de Bosque, D'Audriffet's substitute, on the 31st of October, "_que +la France a vn pouuoir arbitraire sur le Duc de Lorrain et ses Etats, cela +no les contente plus_." The poor Duke grows most uncomfortable. However, +in January the matter is made up, and King George consents to receive +Lambertye at last--at the very time when Queen Mary Beatrice threatens +once more to trouble relations just settling down again, with her visit to +Luneville. In any case Lambertye's mission did not bring Lorraine any +good--except, says Noel, it be the importation of a new variety of potato, +which he carried home from England, and which proved much superior to the +old Lorrain sort. + +If our statesmen had little right to call upon Leopold to expel James, +they had of course every reason to be vigilant. And they do not appear to +have failed often in that duty. To be quite fair, James's followers, on +the whole, made the task pretty easy for them. They were always plotting, +but at the same time also always letting out their secret--a tippler +talking in his cups; an officer confiding intelligence to his sweetheart; +a bungling conspirator boasting in very big words. Long before October, +1715, when the great "invasion" at length took place, we have references +to some intended move. All is promptly reported to England, and to Paris, +where, after his arrival at his post, Stair, when not engaged in smuggling +goods for his friends,--"_poil de chevre_ stockings of different colours +of grey, and long enough of the feet and legs" for the Duke of Argyll, +besides knives, spoons, and forks of the St. Cloud pattern, all with +"chiney" handles to them; a "bodyes," a "monto," and a "peticoate" for +Lady Harriet Godolphin, to oblige the Duchess of Marlborough; moreover, +silk gowns for the Countess of Loudoun--spares neither pains nor money to +obtain the very best and most prompt intelligence. On the whole, he is +admirably served, though occasionally he finds himself on a wrong scent, +and even at the critical time, notwithstanding Mrs. Strickland's statement +as to Mademoiselle du Chatelet's jealous peaching, it seems as if +Bolingbroke were after all right, and our Ambassador had been put upon the +right tack too late. + +At length, after much posting backwards and forwards of trusted but +untrustworthy messengers and confidants, after more than one false alarm, +and one very provoking act of treachery (on the part of a bankrupt +banker), after much dissuasion from the Duke of Lorraine, who seems to +have exhausted all his powers of reasonable argument in vain, after +stealthy visits said to have been paid by Bolingbroke and Ormonde to Bar, +and by Mar to Commercy, the great move takes place. To the end Leopold +appears to have considered James's recall by the spontaneous act of the +English nation a probable contingency. Now he warns him that a Hanoverian +king on the English throne will play his game far more effectually than he +himself possibly can by taking up arms--that, in the face of the +unpopularity which the foreign ruler is sure to bring upon himself, if +left alone, James will, by raising the flag of rebellion, only be cutting +his own throat. However, James will pay no heed. Learning prudence, at any +rate, as the time for action draws nearer, both the Chevalier and his +friends grow close and uncommunicative, so as to extract complaints even +from D'Audriffet, who, having been previously let into all the harmless +little secrets of the plot at first hand, now finds himself reduced to +coaxing intelligence out of "_une personne attachee au Chevalier de St. +Georges, qui est de mes amies_." However, in October, just before the +departure actually takes place, Leopold confides to him that James has +expressed himself resolved to take his fortune into his own hand. He has +been advised from England and Scotland that circumstances will never be +more favourable. If he misses this chance, he will have no other. "_C'est +tout gagner ou tout perdre._" + +At this time it is that James addresses to his friend Cardinal Gualterio +at Rome a curious "_Memoire sur un Lit_," which seems worth recording. He +begs Gualterio to purchase, at once, as if for himself, "_un grand bois de +lit a la francoise propre a coucher deux personnes, avec un dossier, mais +point des pilliers. Le fond du lit de bon coutil--renforce avec sangles_." +Also, "_deux bons mattelas de bonne laine d'Ang{re.} proportionnes a la +grandeur du lit_." His Eminence, James adds, will easily guess the purpose +for which the bed is designed--a purpose depending upon "_un certain cas +qu'on espere pouuoir arriver bientot, mais qui doit etre tres secret +jusqu'a ce qu'il soit asseure_." He adds that he wants "_ni couuertures, +ni tour de lit, ni ciel de lit, parcequ'on a tout cela ici_." The whole +thing reminds one of that famous musical armchair which was ordered on +behalf of Napoleon III., to be delivered at Berlin in 1870. + +The final escape of James was, on the whole, managed with secresy and some +skill, though things went a little untowardly. Stair, who was sparing no +pains to keep the Pretender watched to his every step, was a little +deceived, partly by that false information which Bolingbroke says that he +purposely gave him, partly by the equivocal bearing of the Regent and +Torcy, who were both secretly befriending the Chevalier. Certainly Stair +got his correct intelligence too late to be of much use, and so sent to +Chateau Thierry to have James seized after the bird had flown. Cadogan in +Brussels was better informed. He had stationed a "gentleman from +Mecklenburgh," M. de Pless, at Nancy, ostensibly to attend the Academy, +really to play the spy upon the Pretender. A letter from the Regent to +D'Audriffet shows that the object of his mission was perfectly understood +in the French capital. The news of the Chevalier's departure comes out +through the indiscretion of some one in the secret arriving from +Commercy--and immediately Pless takes formal leave of the Duke, and +hurries without a moment's delay off to Brussels, where Cadogan has a +courier ready, who, but for provokingly prolonged contrary winds, would +have reached England in excellent time. + +Finding the Chevalier's mind made up, Leopold, wishing to be kind to the +last, sends his _protege_ as a parting gift, along with an affectionate +valedictory letter, the acceptable present of 27,000 louis in gold, which +James at once stows away in his private strong-box. This, we read, he was +in the habit of always carrying about with him, placing it under his bed +at night, and allowing no one to come near it. How he managed to transport +it when riding on horseback from St Malo to Dunkirk, we are not told. + +It is well known that James started from Commercy on the 28th of October, +1715, in disguise. But the precise manner of his escape is not generally +quite correctly related. It explains why, for a full fortnight after +James's disappearance, newspapers still go on reporting his supposed +doings in Lorraine. The escape was of course abetted by the Prince de +Vaudemont, who, to make it possible, invited a large company to Commercy +for the day appointed, to hunt in his forests. James went out to hunt, and +James apparently came back in the evening. But the James who returned was +not the James who had gone out with the Pretender, but a follower of his, +who bore a striking resemblance to his master, and had more than once been +mistaken for him. Who this gentleman was I have not been able to trace. +With this man James had exchanged clothes, unseen by any one, out in the +forest. And so, as the Duc de Villeroy writes to Madame de Maintenon (the +letter is in the Paris MSS), "_Il partit misterieusement de Commerci en +chaise roulante, vestu du violet en Ecclesiastique, avec un petit colet, +malgre la vigilance des Espions, sans qu'ils ayent pu auoir ni vent ni +nouvelles de son depart, que deux ou trois jours apres sa sortie_." The +Pretender pursued his journey, carefully avoiding highroads, reaching +Peterhead safely in the end, though only after much travelling backwards +and forwards, taking pains to elude Stair's spies, who were placed at all +important points. At Nonancourt he narrowly missed being caught, as we +know, by Captain Douglas and two other emissaries, evidently what Bunyan +calls "ill-favoured ones." For the impression became general in +France--over which the editor of 'The Annals of the Earls of Stair,' Mr +Murray Graham, grows exceedingly indignant--that these men were assassins +retained to destroy the Pretender by Lord Stair, whose passports they +carried, and who promptly came to their rescue when they were brought +before the Grand Prevot de la Haute Normandie. Very probably they looked +cut-throats. One of them was armed. And as cut-throats, not spies, the +_maitresse de la poste_ cautioned James against them, helping him off, to +save his life, in a disguise and with a guide provided by herself. As +supposed cut-throats they were seized by the police, and as cut-throats +they were brought before the judge. Stair's interference probably it was +that saved their lives. But all his explanations and all his protestations +could not for a long time remove from the mind of the French people the +impression that the men were assassins. The Regent, we hear, released them +without inquiry, simply to avoid scandal. + +How the Pretender's enterprise ended we all know. He does not appear to +have been particularly attentive to his late host, the Duke of Lorraine. +On the 24th of October he sent him a formal farewell; but on the 7th +November we have the Duke stating as a grievance that he is without news. +During November we find people in Paris growing remarkably confident. On +the 2d of December Lord Stair complains that "_les plus sages a la Cour_" +are just again beginning to treat the Chevalier as Pretender. Until two +days before he was "King of England" to every one in Paris, "_et tout le +monde avoit leve le masque_." There was not a single Frenchman, having any +connection with the Court, who so much as set foot in Stair's house. +Everybody thought that the Stuart cause was about to triumph. But the 11th +of January, 1716, saw James back at Gravelines, "_d'ou il repassa en +Lorraine_," say the MSS. in the _Archives Nationales_. Mrs Strickland will +have it that he went to Paris, where Bollingbroke advised him to go +straight into Lorraine, without first asking leave of the Duke--which +advice he did not follow. Independent Lorrain sources state that he passed +through Lorraine, "_courant la poste a 9 chevaux_." As he had left all his +goods and chattels at Bar-le-Duc, that seems the more likely version. +Before his departure Duke Leopold had assured the Pretender that his +dominions would always be open to him, and that he "_pourroit compter sur +luy en tout ce qui en pourroit dependre_." In March, however, under +altered circumstances, we find him advising Queen Mary Beatrice "for the +second time," that he cannot again receive her son into his duchy. The +Pretender himself seems to have taken the first warning. For we read in +the 'Gazette de Hollande' that his _Domestiques et Equipages_ were removed +from Bar to Paris in February. According to M. Konarski (I have not +verified the entry in the archives, but it is doubtless correct) James +left Bar on the 9th of February, "_sans adresser ses remerciments et ses +adieux au duc Leopold_," says Noel; "_comme un escroc vulgaire_," says M. +Konarski. "_Ne se contentant pas de largent que Leopold lui donnait il +emprunta des sommes assez fortes aux seigneurs et partit sans les +rembourser._" The sum of 15,000 francs paid to his friend M. de +Bassompierre, which appears in the official accounts, is only one such +debt. "_Cette ingratitude de la part du Chevalier de Saint Georges_," adds +Noel, "_indignait toute la Cour_." People spoke to Leopold about it. +"Gentlemen," said the Duke, "you forget that this Prince is in misfortune, +and that he was a king." On another occasion he remarked to M. +Bardin:--"He has done me justice; he has thought that I have simply +performed my duty in assisting an unfortunate." + +If the direct benefits which the hospitality extended to James brought to +Lorraine were less than nil, the indirect were scarcely more valuable. No +doubt, the Pretender having set the example, not a few Roman Catholics +from the United Kingdom, so Noel relates, sought the same hospitable +refuge. Others came--among them both Noel and Marchal name the elder +Pitt--to take advantage of the new Academy opened by Leopold, and rapidly +blossoming into greatness under such distinguished masters as Duval and +Vayringe. Some of these men brought plenty of money with them, and their +liberal fees went to swell acceptably the new professors' receipts. But +the number of impecunious persons, more particularly Irish, who flowed to +the Lorrain Court to prey upon Leopold's generosity, seems to have been +even larger. "_Nous regorgeons d'Irlandais_," writes the Duke's friend +Bardin in 1719--_Irlandais_ who evidently boasted but little money and +less gratitude. Bardin complains of an exceptionally bad case of the +latter sort. Leopold mildly replies. "I helped him, not for his sake, but +for my own." + + * * * * * + +In 1749, when the Duc faineant, Stanislas Leszinski, "_simple gentilhomme +lithuanien_," was holding his gay little Court at Luneville, with Voltaire +and Madame du Chatelet to lend brilliancy to it, and Madame de Boufflers +to preside as elderly Venus, we read that the whole company were deeply +touched when the great French writer, as was his wont, read out aloud his +just completed chapter on the Stuarts, in the 'Siecle de Louis XV.' +Everybody had a regret for the hardly used dynasty. Scarcely had Voltaire +closed his book, when in rushed a messenger, bringing the tidings that +James's son, Charles Edward, doubly an exile after the failure of his +rebellion of 1745, had, on the demand of the English Government, been +seized at Paris on leaving the Opera. "Oh heaven!" exclaimed Voltaire, +"is it possible that the king can suffer such an indignity, and that his +glory can have been tarnished by a stain which all the water of the Seine +will not wash away!" The whole company was moved. Voltaire retired +gloomily into his own room, threw down his MS. into a corner, and did not +take the work up again till he found himself amid the more prosaic +surroundings of Berlin. Very shortly after Charles Edward himself knocked +at Stanislas' door. What he did during the nearly three years that he was +a refugee at Luneville, it seems impossible to ascertain. The French State +Papers are silent--at Luneville not a tradition has survived. His doings +evidently were not considered worth recording. The drama of Stuart +kingship was played out. The dream had come to an end. And so Courts grew +cold. + + * * * * * + +A fate not so very dissimilar--except for one brilliant saving +incident--awaited those very Dukes who had shown hospitality so freely to +the Stuarts. The Stuart Pretendership and the Lorrain Dukedom came to an +end at pretty nearly the same time. Hanover elbowed out the one, France +the other. The Stuarts went down for good. The Lorrains found themselves +transplanted to Vienna, and crowned with the Imperial diadem. They brought +their new country good qualities and manners insuring popularity. But they +brought it no luck. For once the old Austrian distich spoke wrong:-- + + "Bella gerunt alii, tu, felix Austria, nube! + Nam quae Mars aliis, dat tibi regna Venus." + +Under the Lorrain Emperors came the Seven Years' War, which lost Austria +Silesia; the Napoleonic wars, which lost much territory in the west; +1859, which lost part of her Italian possessions; 1866, which tore away +the rest, and, moreover, turned Austria out of Germany. But the Lorrain +Emperors have not forgotten their old virtue of hospitality. It may seem a +strange whim of fate that at the present time the principal among those +dispossessed sovereigns and unrecognised Pretenders who have flocked for +protection under the hospitable "Double Cross," now carried back almost to +its Eastern birthplace, should be the direct descendant and +representative, six generations down, of the relentless and troublesome +rival of that same Stuart James, whom, with not a little risk and cost to +himself, the last really Lorrain Duke generously sheltered in the years +from 1713 to 1716. + + + + +II.--RICHARD DE LA POLE, "WHITE ROSE."[4] + + +English visitors at Metz--there ought to be more, for there is not a +little that is interesting to be seen in and around the old imperial +city--are likely to have pointed out to them some venerable house or +other, which, their guides will tell them, was nearly four hundred years +ago the residence of a great English noble, a pretender to the crown, and +the terror of Henry VIII.--the "Duke of Suffolk." Some guides may even +style him "The King of England," since their distinguished townsman, +Philippe de Vigneulles, gives him that title. In all probability the house +shown will be the wrong one. For there is a great deal of loose and +inaccurate archaeology prevalent in these parts, and one old house is very +apt to be confounded with another. I myself have had a leading French +archaeologist in Metz indicating to me an old Merovingian palace--highly +interesting, to be sure--as the "Duc de Sciffort's" quarters. Once the +building was plainly ancient, the trifling difference of eight hundred or +a thousand years in the several dates made no odds to him. With the kind +assistance, however, of the present archivist, Dr. Wolfram, my friend M. +des Robert and the help of some old documents preserved in the local +library--which in spite of repeated pilferings for the enrichment of +Paris, still contains many valuable old manuscripts, I have been able +pretty clearly to trace the movements in Metz of our distinguished +countryman--who was indeed a claimant to the English crown, and over whose +death in the battle of Pavia, in 1525, Henry VIII. exulted with such +exuberance of gratitude to Providence, that he ordered a second public +thanksgiving to be held "with great joy" on the 16th of March, the triumph +proper for the victory of Pavia having--somewhat rashly, as it afterwards +turned out--been celebrated on the 9th day of that month. + +The story of this Englishman's exploits abroad affords some features of +interest. It is a rather curious tale of adventure, love and war, strange +escapades, intrigues, and ambition. And it may be worth telling, because I +find that in English historical writings there is a gaping hiatus on the +subject--which is not a little remarkable. For, considering what an +ever-present weight Richard evidently was on the minds of the two last +Henrys, to what all but incredible lengths those kings carried their +unscrupulous persecution of him--how they offered bribes to kings to +deliver him up, and to meaner men to assassinate him--how not a treaty was +proposed to foreign potentates but contained a special clause forbidding +the harbouring of this dangerous character--one might have supposed that +our chroniclers of the time would have deemed it expedient to tell +posterity something about him. Their silence is explained by a strange +want of materials. So little turns out to have been known in this country +about the great marpeace, that Mr. Burton, in his 'History of Scotland,' +actually assigns to him the wrong christian name, calling him "Reginald." +Mr Gairdner in his interesting preface to one of the volumes of +'Chronicles and Memorials' goes at some length into the history of +Richard's brother Edmund. What became of Richard himself--except that he +fell at Pavia--he confesses that he "cannot trace at all accurately." +Napier in his 'Notices of Swyncombe and Ewelme' supplies fuller +information than any other English writer. But he, too, is evidently at +fault for materials. It is practically only foreign sources, very little +studied in this country, to which we have to look for information on the +subject of how "White Rose" employed the time of his exile, be it +self-imposed or involuntary, which made up the main portion of his life. + +The chief of such writers is Philippe de Vigneulles, a contemporary of +Richard's, and a citizen of Metz, who has left rather curious and pretty +full memoirs written in that strange-sounding, uncouth Lorrain French, +which was at his time spoken at Metz. The original manuscript, formerly in +the possession of Count Emmery, was some time ago purchased at a sale by +M. Prost, the well-known Lorrain archaeologist. From it M. des Robert, +another well-known writer, specifically connected with the ancient city of +Metz--which only patriotic considerations have led him to desert--has +drawn the information which some years ago he incorporated in a little +monograph. Even this monograph leaves some gaps. And the author falls into +one or two odd mistakes--which are no doubt excusable in a foreigner. For +instance, he confounds the "rebel and traitor" Richard de la Pole with one +of the most faithful followers of the Tudor kings, Sir Richard Pole, of +Lordington, in ascribing to his hero, first, the office of Chamberlain to +Prince Arthur, and later on the fatherhood of Reginald Pole the cardinal. +But his pamphlet is decidedly useful, as supplying clues, which I have +been able to follow up successfully on the spot. + +Richard de la Pole was the last member of a family which, within the space +of about a century of strange vicissitudes, ran through all the stages of +rapid rise, almost to the height of the throne, and no less sudden, +humiliating descent, to attainder, execution, confiscation, and dishonour. +I cannot stop here to tell their history at length. Genealogists have been +careful to point out that the French prefix _de la_ proves no Norman +descent. There is no "de la Pole," nor any name resembling it, to be met +with in the Battle Roll. The De la Poles' origin was, in fact, so humble, +that their first distinguished member, Michael, the prosperous +merchant--to whom his native town, Hull, raised a monument in +1871--afterwards Lord Chancellor of England and Knight of the Garter, is +described in Camden as "basely born." His "base birth," it is true, has +been disproved. But that only makes a difference of two or three +generations. When Richard and his brothers came into the world, the family +had had five generations of titled distinction and notoriety--partly of +honour and partly of disgrace. Only one Suffolk of this +creation--Richard's father--seems to have died at home and in his bed. And +even his death was caused by "grief for the ruin of his family." The Lord +Chancellor expired almost exactly a century before of "a broken heart" in +exile. His son fell a victim to "dissentery" before Harfleur. The next +Earl was honourably killed at Agincourt. His son, again, the "Duke of +Suffolk" denounced in early ballads, lived to disgrace that dukedom which +he had first obtained, and to die by lynch law under the form of a trial, +for having had a hand in the murder of Humphrey, the "good" Duke of +Gloucester, and in the surrender of Normandy and Aquitaine to France. This +"bad" Duke's son rose once more to high distinction. King Edward IV. +actually conferred upon him the hand of his sister Elizabeth; and Richard +III., on the death of his own only son, appointed his eldest son +John--created Earl of Lincoln--next heir to the throne. That appointment +proved in after-time a rather questionable boon to the family. For it +involved both John and his brothers in perils, and intrigues, and +persecution. The Earl of Lincoln fell in the battle of Stoke, fighting for +Simnel, the pretending Earl of Warwick, and by his treason and disgrace +caused the death of his father. Of course his estates and titles were held +to be forfeited. That forfeiture notwithstanding, the Earl of Lincoln's +next brother was admitted to some part of the succession, both of estate +and of title, by amicable arrangement with King Henry VII. These peerage +cases were dealt with in those days in a very different manner from what +they are now, as appears from the fact, that only some eight years +previously, in Edward IV.'s reign, the De la Poles' rather distant cousin, +the then Duke of Bedford--a Neville, not a Russell--had been deprived of +his peerage by Act of Parliament on the score of poverty. + +Edmund de la Pole bargained with Henry VII., and recovered part of his +brother's possessions and also the humbler of his titles in the peerage, +by sacrificing the higher. He was admitted to the peerage as "Earl of +Suffolk." Notwithstanding his renunciation, he, later on, when in exile, +again claimed the dukedom. Edmund had in his youth been reported by the +University of Oxford in a letter addressed to his uncle, King Edward IV., +"a penetrating, eloquent, and brilliant genius"--anything but which he +proved himself to be. His letters read like the writing of a man of very +poor education, even judged by the standard of those unlettered days. And +at Court he played his cards so unskilfully, that he soon became, from a +rather petted hanger-on, a declared "rebel and traitor," persecuted with +all the unrelenting meanness and malice that the two first Tudor +kings--the first, at any rate, not feeling very secure on his throne--were +masters of. That almost necessarily involved his younger brother Richard +in a like fate--which Richard did nothing to evade. Edmund, we read, had +the misfortune to kill a "mean" person, whom he presumed to chastise for +insulting him. For this he was brought before the King's Bench and +adjudged guilty. The king readily granted a pardon. But the Earl took the +indignity of his mere trial so much to heart, that he very unwisely fled +die country. People said that he had taken refuge at the Court of his aunt +Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, which was then notoriously the +gathering-place of malcontent Yorkists. This turned out incorrect. But the +rumour may have helped to prejudice Henry against him. Edmund returned +home for Prince Arthur's wedding in 1501, and appears to have been at +pains to make his loyalty know, and to have been outwardly well received. +But almost immediately afterwards he ran away a second time. And as he +forthwith proclaimed himself a pretender to the throne, and obtained from +the Emperor Maximilian a promise of material help--the loan of 4000 of his +troops, wherewith to make good his pretention--it is not surprising that +Henry should have set all his ample apparatus of crafty persecution at +work against a man become so dangerous a foe. But it is surprising to find +him stooping so very low in his recourse to dirty expedients. The State +Papers show that bribes were offered all round--to the Emperor, to the +King of France, Louis XII., to Philip of Castile and Burgundy--as much as +twelve thousand crowns in gold--for Edmund's surrender or despatch. At +length, in 1506, Fortune put Philip into Henry's power--a storm driving +him on our coast. And Henry meanly took advantage of that opportunity to +extort from the Spaniard an undertaking to surrender Edmund--then detained +at Namur--agreeing, in return, to Philip's stipulation, that the +prisoner's life should be spared. That promise he kept to the letter. +Edmund was detained in the Tower until Henry's death--and then executed on +Tower Hill by Henry VIII., in obedience to a direction set down with +incredible rancour in his father's will. Dugdale suggests that, Edmund +being so popular as a pretender, Henry VIII. did not like to leave the +kingdom for a war projected in France, with his rival remaining in England +alive. Another report says, that he was beheaded on the ground of +correspondence proved to have taken place between himself and his brother, +then a general in the French army. + +Richard had taken service under the King of France as early as 1492. +Charles VIII. detecting in him even then that brilliant capacity which +made him in after-life one of the foremost generals of his day, intrusted +to him the command of 6000 _lansquenets_, at whose head he mastered the +difficult but valuable art of maintaining discipline among a most unruly, +but at the same time most serviceable host, and qualified himself for that +peculiar kind of warfare in which he subsequently gathered splendid +laurels. By this early favour Charles linked to his Court an officer who, +as Gaillard says, became one of "_cette pleiade de grands Capitaines qui +illustrerent les regnes de Louis XII. et Francois I., et porterent si haut +l'honneur de nos armes--Bayard, la Palisse, la Tremouille, duc de +Gueldres, Robert de la Marck_ [better known as Fleurange, "Le Jeune +Aventureux"], _et la famille de Rohan_." Of all these famous +captains--and, moreover, of Francis of Angouleme himself--Richard was a +comrade-in-arms and familiar friend. And nobody seemed to be able to +manage the wild and "_indociles_" mercenaries, who were ready to place +themselves at the service of any sovereign who would pay them, like +himself. Dreaded foes--and to the people scarcely less dreaded +allies--were those "bandes noires" of Northern Germany, who, like the +modern Prussians, bore on their banner the colours of black and white. +Before Pampeluna--of gloomy memory--they mutinied even against Bayard, +"striking"--according to the most approved notions of nineteenth-century +trades-unionism--at the most critical juncture for the concession of +double pay. Bayard and Suffolk between them, however, soon reduced them to +obedience. Brantome relates that it was said of the _lansquenets_ that +after St. Peter had refused them entrance into heaven, their troubled +souls could not even obtain admission into hell. The very devils were +afraid of this wild company. With these rough warriors did Richard fight +his battles, and fought them so well, that there was not one of the three +French kings whom he served, who did not feel moved to reward his services +with a substantial pension, in addition to his open thanks. Ever foremost +in battle, Richard's company "receveyd," as John Stile reports to Henry +VIII., "most hurte and los of men then any other of that party." And on +that fateful day which cost Richard his life, and Francis I. "_tout fors +l'honneur_," the king declared that, if all his troops had but done their +duty like Richard's _lansquenets_, the victory would have been his. +Francis was especially beholden to these rough soldiers, because, by +winning for him the battle of Marignano, when his crown was still young +and unsettled upon his head, they raised him to high prestige, and +completely altered his position in Europe. "_Ce gros garcon gatera tout_," +Louis XII. had said--leaving 1800 livres of debts for the "_gros garcon_" +to pay. The prediction proved wrong. + +When Richard de la Pole took service under Charles VIII., his father was +recently dead "of grief," and his family were under a cloud, owing to +Lincoln's rising in 1487. The "affable" king was much pleased with his +captain, and after the siege of Boulogne assigned to him a pension of 7000 +_ecus_. At the conclusion of the treaty of Etaples, Henry VII. began his +shabby course of persecution against Richard, from which he and his son +never desisted while Richard was alive, demanding from Charles the +surrender of his foe. Charles, however, flatly refused the demand. King +Charles's pension, it is sadly to be feared, lapsed with his life in 1498; +for in 1505, and thereabouts, we find Richard in absolute +destitution--left, indeed, in pawn by his brother Edmund for that +brother's debts with the citizens of Aix-la-Chapelle. (Sir Henry Ellis, +with a little too much knowledge of German geography, places Richard at +"Aken on the Elbe." It is, however, perfectly clear that the place of his +detention was Aachen--that is, what we generally call Aix-la-Chapelle, but +for which both Edmund and Richard adopted various fancy spellings, as, +indeed, they did for most of their words, from the simple article upward.) + +As Richard's fate is so closely bound up with Edmund's, it may be +convenient to review at one rapid glance the fortunes of that poor +nobleman after his flight in 1501. He first repaired to Imst, in the +Tyrol, to seek help from the Emperor Maximilian. The Emperor Maximilian +gave him ample encouragement, drew up an agreement, kept his confidential +agent as representative at his own Court, and sent him with letters of +recommendation to Aix-la-Chapelle, where, hoping to obtain further +succour, Edmund managed to outrun the constable, and was fain to leave his +brother as pledge. In spring 1502 it was proposed that Edmund, to make +good his claim, should land in England from Denmark. In that same year, +however, Henry talked over the Emperor, and concluded a treaty with him, +by which Maximilian bound himself not to allow any English rebels to +reside in his dominions, "even though they be of the rank of dukes." That +was, there can be no doubt, specially aimed at Edmund and Richard. Edmund +now despaired of help in the quarter appealed to, and transferred his +attentions to the Court of the Count Palatine. In 1504 he entered +Guelders, with a view to proceeding to Frisia and obtaining pecuniary +assistance--so he writes to his pawned brother at Aachen--from Duke George +of Saxony. The Duke of Guelders, greedy to secure--as Archduke Philip, his +cousin, writes to Henry--the reward which he is likely to receive from +Henry, plays the traitor and enters into an intrigue with Philip of +Burgundy--it is always the same Philip--who eventually "interns" Edmund at +Namur. + +Poor Richard was in sore straits all the time. "Here I ly," he writes to +his brother in very curious English, "in gret peyne and pouerte for your +Grace, and no manner of comffort I have of your Grace.... Sir, be my +trothe ye dele ffery hardly with me." "Sir," he writes again another time, +"I beseche your Grace, send me some what to help me with all." He reports +that--while Edmund was at Namur--the indignant "bourgoys of Aix" have sent +a deputation to Philip to see what redress they could obtain. And coming +back empty-handed they had denounced Edmund to Richard as "_le pluis false +homme que oncques fuyt de sa parole_," and threatened to expose him at all +the courts of Europe. At the same time Richard is made uncomfortable by +the fact that he knows that Henry has offered the burgesses of Aix +bribes--as much as 5000 crowns in gold--if they will deliver him "three +lieuwes out of the town of Aix"--"and he will pay them," he significantly +adds. + +From Namur, Edmund, with a mixture of rather too ingenuous prudence and +folly, as a last shift, offers a reconciliation to Henry, but fixes his +own terms exorbitantly high. This offer, as has been already related, +sealed his doom. He died by the executioner in 1513. + +His death left Richard the more or less recognised "White Rose" claimant +to the throne of England. (What became of his two elder brothers, Humphrey +and Edward--both of whom took orders, and one of whom was Archdeacon of +Richmond--we are not told.) Somehow or other he had managed to get away +from Aix in 1506. For in that year we find the Emperor reporting to Henry +that he had seized the French "orators," who had proceeded to Hungary by +way of Venice. He had looked out, as desired, for Richard, but had not +been able to find him among the company. In April, 1507, however, Richard +writes, dating his letter "Budae," to the Bishop of Liege--one of the De +la Marcks with whom at Metz he was to become intimate--in Latin, which is +very much better than his English, though that is not saying much. + +King Henry having, in 1509, given proofs of his peculiar goodwill towards +the De la Poles, by excepting them in distinct terms from a general +pardon, we cannot be surprised to learn that Richard--"Blanche Rose" they +called him in France--had grown busy scheming against his sovereign. Louis +XII. was then at war with Henry, and it served Louis's purpose to turn to +account the "_instrument de trouble que le roi dans l'occassion pouvait +faire agir en Angleterre--une etincelle qui pouvait y rallumer les +anciennes incendies_." In 1512 we have John Stile reporting to Henry, that +"your sayd rebel was mayde a Capytan of the Almaynys that went you to +Navar, where many of the Almaynys now of late be slayne." "The Almaynys" +were Richard's _lansquenets_, who indeed suffered great "hurte and los" in +that ill-starred campaign. Richard fought there side by side with Bayard, +and half starved with him on bread made of millet; and though their defeat +meant disaster to the King of Navarre, the army were not altogether sorry +to be called back to Artois, invaded by the English. Richard's command of +the "French fleet for a rising in England," recorded by Peter Martyr, was +probably only of brief duration. For we find him again at the head of his +6000 _lansquenets_ at Therouenne, besieged by the English, and taking part +in the inglorious "battle of the Spurs"--so named because the French, +taken by surprise while riding, not their war-horses, but their +"hackneys," trusted more to their spurs than to their swords. That day of +Guinegate helped to bring peace to England and France--and to send Richard +to Metz. The Duc de Longueville, taken prisoner on that day, turned his +captivity to account for negotiating a treaty of peace--one condition of +which was that the Princess Mary, Henry VIII.'s sister, should be married +to the all but dying Louis XII.--as the clerics of the Basoche said, "_Une +hacquenee pour le porter bientost et plus doucement en enfer ou en +paradis_." Another condition was, that Richard should be given up. To this +Louis would not agree, but answered in almost the same terms which his +cousin had used, "_Qu'il aimait mieux perdre tout ce qu'il possedait que +de le conserver en violant l'hospitalite_." Some people say that this was +mere bounce. But it had its effect. + +A compromise was arranged, in pursuance of which Richard was banished to +Metz. That was rather a cool proceeding on the part of the two monarchs, +considering that Metz was then a city of the Empire, in no sort of +dependence upon either Henry or Louis. The thirteen Jurats of Metz were +accordingly a little taken aback when they received Louis's letter to +"_mes bons amis_," begging that his _protege_ might be "_bien recu et bien +advenu_"--as well they might, in view of the treaty concluded between +England and their master, the Emperor, in 1502, with special reference to +this self-styled "duke." However, they got over the difficulty by granting +Richard a _laissezpasser_ for eight days, to be indefinitely renewed, +while that should prove practicable. So De la Pole went to Metz, England +and France got their peace for a time, and Mary--"_bien polie, mignoinne, +gente et belle_" as she was--married Louis, "_fort gouteux vies et +caducque_," as a brief prelude to her clandestine marriage with the new +Duke of Suffolk, Brandon. + +On the 2d of September, 1514, one Saturday, we read in Vigneulles, +"Blanche Rose" entered Metz, escorted by sixty "_chevaliers_," several +French "_gentilhommes_," and a guard of honour furnished by the Duke of +Lorraine, Rene II. That was making his entry in good style; and such +style, on the whole, he managed to maintain whilst in Metz. It is true +that at times he was very short of money, and paid his servants, dressed +"in grey and blue," their wages most irregularly; and that even his +chaplain could wring his "wages" from him only "a crown at a time." But +that was because, what with keeping open house, and entertaining the +_honoratiores_ of Metz, betting, gambling, and making love to other men's +wives, "the Duke" spent his money faster than he got it. King Louis had +allowed him a pension of 6000 _ecus_ per annum. King Francis made very +much of him, and from time to time "augmented his stipend." The Messins, +always inclined to hospitality, took delight in honouring their guest, +whose chivalrous manners and easy amiability made him popular. And they +never ceased to look upon him as "_le vray heritier d'Angleterre qui +devoit mieulx estre roy que celui qui l'estoit_." + +Metz was then in a semi-independent state, which, in the present day, it +is interesting to study. Its nationality was German, its language was a +curious sort of early French. Its sympathies were French, too. Its +seigneurs served in the French army; and at the famous "sacres" of French +kings, representatives of the leading families of Metz--the Serrieres, the +Gournays, the De Heus, the Baudoches, &c.--attended, and considered it an +honour to be dubbed knights. To complete the mixture of nationalities, the +city was surrounded by Lorraine, then an independent dukedom. The +government of the city was in principle the same as that of other great +German free towns--Strassburg, Bale, Cologne, Mayence, &c. There was +nothing at all similar in France. It was divided into six (originally only +five) "paraiges." Its head was a _maitre echevin_, at that time appointed +afresh every year. It was administered by a council of thirteen Jurats, +representing, for the most part, the patrician families. From the judgment +of the Thirteen there was no appeal. The larger Council consisted of the +Thirteen, with the addition of an indefinite number of "prudhommes" or +"wardours"; and for purposes of taxation and similar business, the whole +mass of citizens were called together. There were, moreover, standing +committees of seven each, appointed to deal severally with matters of war, +gates and walls, the collection of taxes, the treasury, and paving. There +were also three mayors under the _maitre echevin_ and a number of "amans" +or amanuenses, answering to modern notaries. The whole city was a +thoroughly self-contained little republic. + +Among these people Richard de la Pole had come to take up his abode. As a +welcome, the Thirteen presented him with two demi-cuves of wine, one red +the other "clairet," and, moreover, with twenty-five quarters of oats for +his horses. The question of housing so distinguished a guest presented +some difficulties. On the advice of Michel Chaverson, the _maitre echevin_ +for the year, the Thirteen committed Richard to the care of Vigneulles, +the writer of the Memoirs, then already a citizen of note and substance. +For the first three nights he put Richard up at "la Court St Mairtin," +which was presumably near the Church of St Martin still existing. The +Duke of Lorraine's Guard were quartered in what was then the leading +hotel, "a l'Ange," which has now disappeared. Nothing suitable offering +for a longer residence, Vigneulles prevailed upon his fellow-citizen, +Chevalier Claude Baudoche, one of the foremost men in the place, and +"Seigneur of Moulins"--the prettily situated village or almost suburb +which you pass on your way to the battle-fields of 1870--to lend him for +an indefinite period his magnificent mansion called "Paisse Temps," +situated on the bank of one arm of the Moselle. The site may still easily +be traced. It adjoined the Abbey of St Vincent, of which the church still +stands--a beautiful church inside, though insignificant without. Its +architectural lines are perfect, and there is some fine stained glass from +the famous works of Champigneulles, of Metz, which were in 1875 removed to +Bar-le-Duc. The Baudoches were at that time a wealthy and highly +influential family in Metz. To-day, such is the instability of things +terrestrial, the city knows them no more. About fifty years ago, their +last remaining representative was a small watchmaker plying his trade in +an insignificant shop in the Rue Fournirue. Of the suitableness of the +house secured there could be no question; for in it Pierre Baudoche, +Claude's father, had entertained several crowned heads, including the +Emperor Maximilian. Here Richard found a lordly home, which he maintained +in a lordly style, receiving in turn all the leading personages of Metz +and dispensing a princely hospitality. + +On New Year's Day, 1515, precisely at midnight, Louis XII. died, not +twelve weeks after his marriage with Mary, who--rather uncomfortable under +the attentions paid her by Francis, French historians say--very soon left +the Court, to marry the new Duke of Suffolk. The "gros garcon" could not +keep quiet long. With an army including no less than 26,000 _lansquenets_ +he marched into Italy, to claim his succession to the Milanais, and won +the battle of Marignano. In this campaign Richard appears to have found no +employment, though his old corps, the _lansquenets_, covered themselves +with glory. The treaty with England, forbidding his employment in France, +was still too recent for him to be allowed to lend the aid of his sword. +Truth to tell, Henry gained mighty little by Richard's ostensible +inaction. Being at Metz, plotting and scheming, he made the king far more +uncomfortable than he could possibly have done had he been fighting at +Marignano. He was reported to be planning all sorts of enterprises. +Evidently he was much feared at home. Wolsey complains that malcontents +and men out of work threaten that they will join De la Pole and take part +in the impending invasion. On Henry's side it is all treachery and +scheming. Richard is to be waylaid, to be murdered, and so on. Lord +Worcester writes that he "knows of a gentleman who will take that matter +in hand." He is to be seized "when he goes into the field either to course +the hares or to see his horses" (_i.e._, to take exercise). The Emperor, +on the other hand, had grown so careless in the observance of his treaty +with England, that the Messins had plucked up courage formally to present +Richard with the freedom of their city. And a "paper of intelligence" to +the English Court describes him as "in his glory." + +In 1516 "Blanche Rose" could remain quiet no longer. He must see Francis, +and ask for military employment. So on the 22d February, without telling +any one a word, we find him mounting horse, taking with him only his cook +and a page, and trotting off to Paris, covering a hundred miles in +twenty-four hours. But there was no employment for him yet. He returned on +the 3rd of April. On Christmas Eve he repeats his ride, again secretly, +accompanied by the Duke of Guelders, who had come to Metz in disguise. He +returned, as he had come, in strict privacy, on the 17th February. After +his return Claude Baudoche found that he could no longer spare "Paisse +Temps," and politely turned out his guest. But he placed another house at +his disposal, which may still be seen, at the crossing of the Rue de +l'Esplanade and the Rue des Prisons Militaires (I give the French names, +having forgotten the German). In the old chronicles the house, previously +occupied by Jean or Jehan de Vy, is described as "_apres le grant maison +de coste de St Esprit_." Just opposite it is the Church of St Martin, a +rather interesting building, exhibiting a curious medley of architectural +styles. A rather remarkable feature in the church is a row of curious +sculptures. "Blanche Rose's" house, dwindled terribly in size, and shorn +of its ancient splendour, though still exhibiting some small remnants of +former grandeur, such as zigzag mouldings and Gothic labels, directly +faces this church on one side, and on the other side a public building, +which is, if I recollect right, the military prison, and in front of which +a Prussian sentry paces solemnly up and down. + +At this house it was that Richard conceived the curious idea of treating +his fellow-burgesses to what must have infallibly endeared him to English +neighbours--namely, the spectacle of a horse-race. Such a thing as that +was, it appears, previously quite unknown in Metz. And accordingly it +occasioned not a little stir. Richard and "_aultres seigneurs_," we read, +were much given to exciting pastimes, including gambling and betting. And +Richard, being the owner of a horse of which--like other owners of +horses--he had an exceedingly high opinion, was rash enough one day to +offer a bet against any one who might maintain that within ten "_lues_" +round there was another horse running equally well. Nicolle Dex (whose +name was pronounced Desh) readily took the bet, offering, to run his own +horse against Richard's. All the particulars of the arrangements for the +race are minutely recorded by Vigneulles. The two men were to ride their +own horses. The course was to be from the Orme at Aubigny (a village five +miles from Metz) to the gate of the Abbey of St. Clement (which abbey was +destroyed in 1552, when the Duc de Guise held Metz against Charles V.). +The bet was for eighty "_escus d'or au solleil_," which was to be paid +beforehand to a stakeholder. The race came off on the appointed day, +Saturday the 2nd of May--the day on which "_l'awaine et le bacon_" were, +by regulation of the authorities, first sold. That would enable the +competitors to get easily out of the gate of St. Thibault--which was +conveniently near Richard's house, but which had to be opened on purpose. +The Chevalier Dex, with an amount of cunning of which Vigneulles does not +altogether approve, had for some days before subjected both himself and +his horse to preparatory treatment--"_dieu scet comment_." "_Comme il me +fut dit et certifie_," that treatment consisted in his drinking nothing +but white wine--which is the more sour of the two, and therefore is +supposed rather strongly to contract the human frame--and giving his horse +no hay whatever. Moreover, he had his horse shod with very light steel +shoes. And himself he made as light as possible, riding "_tout en +pourpoint, avec un petit bonnet en sa teste_," without shoes and without a +saddle, having merely a light saddle-cloth laid over the horse's back. +"Blanche Rose," however, rode in a saddle, and booted and spurred as for +ordinary exercise. When the signal was given, Vigneulles says, the +horsemen started with such terrible impetuosity that the bystanders +thought the earth was going to open under them. "Blanche Rose" kept the +lead most part of the way. But when the two reached St. Laidre--a +_leproserie_ near Montigny (the name of which still survives in a hamlet +situated between Montigny and Aubigny) famed for its asparagus and +fruit--Dex's artifices began to tell. Richard's horse was found to puff +and to pant, and could not keep pace with its rival. Nicolle outstripped +him. And though Richard spurred his horse till "_le cler sanc en sailloit +de tout couste_," it availed him nothing. Nicolle, having husbanded his +horse's powers, came in first at the post. Richard was terribly annoyed, +but he "_ne dedaignait de risquer un peu de honte contre beaucoup de +plaisir_," like a good many other people. Very naturally, however, he +would have his revenge. So the next St. Clement's Day saw the two horses +running against one another once more; but it seems that their masters did +not this time act as their own jockeys. Ill luck would have it that +"Blanche Rose's" jockey, one of his pages, was thrown whilst riding, by +which mishap his master lost his bet a second time. After that he did not +tempt fortune again on the turf. + +A month after the first race, Richard made a second attempt to obtain a +command under Francis. Accompanied by several "_de nos jonnes seigneurs_," +he proceeded to Milan and other places in Italy. "_Dieu les conduie_," +piously ejaculates Vigneulles. They arrived, as it turned out, a day after +the fair. Peace had been concluded, and the _seigneurs_ returned to Metz +without having had occasion to draw their swords. + +In this year, Henry, through one of his emissaries, tempted Richard with a +proposal that he should endeavour to make his peace with the king, and +write him a letter in that sense. The king, explained Alamire, the +emissary in question, "had the character of being most clement." "So I +have heard," replied Richard, scenting the mischief; "and how well I +should stand with my present protector, the King of France, if King Henry +were to show him my letter!" + +In the following year Richard once more rode to Paris, seeking employment. +This time he was rewarded with a secret mission, on which he was sent into +Normandy. It was about this time that Giustiniani learnt from the legate, +Campeggio, that Francis favoured "Blanche Rose" more than ever, and Henry +and his ministers again began to feel acutely uncomfortable. They had +heard, so the State Papers show, that Francis and Richard were plotting +mischief: Francis was favouring the Duke of Albany and trying to stir up +disturbances in Scotland. There was a scheme on foot, Sir Richard +Jernegan reports, according to which the Duke of Albany was to sail from +Brittany to Scotland, "there to make business against the king," while +"Blanche Rose" was to invade England from Denmark, abetted by the king of +that country, and accompanied by that king's uncle, the Duke of Ulske; and +Monsieur de Bourbon and the Duke of Vendome were at the same time to +besiege Tournay, which, in the peace of 1514, England had managed to +retain. We cannot be altogether surprised, knowing in what systematic +manner the Henrys persecuted the De la Poles, to learn that a man was said +to have been taken in Champagne, paid by Henry to kill Richard. Indeed the +thought of getting rid of Richard by assassination appears to have been +habitually uppermost in Henry's mind. + +However, the threatened invasion did not take place yet. Francis had other +work to turn his thoughts to. On the 12th of January, 1519, Emperor +Maximilian of Germany died, and the question arose, who was to be the next +Emperor. Charles, the youthful King of Spain, was a candidate, and Francis +of France resolved to enter the lists against him. He considered himself +to have a fair chance. He seems to have counted even on Henry's support; +but Henry, it turned out, cherished ill-founded hopes of being himself +elected, and fought in a half-hearted way for his own hand. Francis, +however, spared no pains in his canvass. He bribed and coaxed and promised +all round, and indeed only very narrowly missed the election. At the last +moment the Elector of Saxony left him in the lurch, just as, nearly three +centuries after, that Elector's successor failed Napoleon at Leipzig, +going over to the other side. But for that defection Francis would of a +surety have been elected Emperor. One of the promises which Francis had +rashly made, was this: "_Si je suis elu, trois ans apres l'election, je +jure que je serai a Constantinople ou je serai mort_." At the very last +stage of the proceedings he despatched Richard de la Pole as a +confidential envoy to Prague, where the Electoral College was sitting, to +further his candidature. In the National Library at Paris a manuscript +letter is still preserved containing the king's instructions. However, +Richard arrived too late. + +In the same year--1519--"Blanche Rose" found himself compelled to change +his quarters a second time. Claude Baudoche "_vouloit r'avoir ses +maisons_." The dean and chapter of Metz signalised their goodwill towards +the guest of their city by making over to him for life, at a nominal rent +of 10 _sols messins_ per annum, their old mansion, called "la Haulte +Pierre," occupying the commanding site on which now stands the Palais de +Justice. In all probability, the handsome esplanade now leading up to that +building did not at that time exist, nor yet perhaps the splendid terrace +facing the Moselle and St. Quentin. But at all times the situation must +have been unique. The reason why the house was let so cheap was, that it +was then in an utterly dilapidated condition, and the tenant undertook +thoroughly to repair it. He did better, as the chapter remembered to his +credit after his death. At a heavy cost--he spent 2000 gold florins upon +it in one year--he rebuilt it from top to bottom in magnificent style. +That mansion does not now survive. It was pulled down in 1776 to make +room for the present structure, more useful though less showy, in which +are housed the provincial law-courts. + +While still in "la Rue de la Grande Maison"--the Rue de +l'Esplanade--Richard de la Pole got entangled in a little love intrigue, +which caused a tremendous commotion in the town, and led him into serious +trouble. Metz was rather famed in those days for its goldsmiths. The Rue +Fournirue--still interesting--was full of them. One of these artisans, +named Nicolas Sebille, had a young wife, whom Vigneulles describes as +"_une des belles jonnes femmes, qui fut point en la cite de Metz, haulte, +droite et elancee et blanche comme la neige_." To this beautiful young +woman's heart Richard successfully laid siege. She came to see him at his +house, which was conveniently near. The conquest does not appear to have +cost him much persuasion. Evidently Madame Sebille was as hotly smitten +with him as he was with her. To be able to carry on his little amour with +the greater freedom, he gave the unsuspecting husband an order for some +very costly and elaborate goldsmith's work, necessitating one or two +journeys to Paris, the expense of which Richard was quite content to pay. +While the husband was away "_celle belle Sebille_" went "_aulcunes fois +bancqueter et faire la bonne chiere en l'ostel du dit duc_," so much so +that the city began to talk. The duke, for the safety of his lady-love, +employed a certain hosier named Mangenat to escort her and watch the +streets. Mangenat was in one sense admirably fitted for this office--for +he was a stalwart bully, who soon became the terror of all the +neighbourhood. Like the German and French police in these days, he +suspected a spy or an enemy in every person he met, and struck and mauled +a good many harmless creatures. That caused additional scandal; and as +there was no police to maintain peace and order, the neighbours, after +complaining a good deal, took the law into their own hand, and one fine +night, early in September, turned out in force to lynch Mangenat. Richard +had by that time removed to "Haulte Pierre," and there was therefore a +considerable distance to cover between his house and the Rue Fournirue. +The neighbours were firmly resolved to turn Mangenat into a "_corps sans +ame_." Mangenat, however, managed to elude them. The neighbours then laid +their plaint before the Thirteen. Madame Sebille, fearing her husband's +wrath, resolutely packed up her clothes and jewels and other belongings, +and with them also her husband's money, and transferred herself with these +possessions to the "Haulte Pierre." This made matters still worse, +especially when Nicolas returned home and set a-clamouring for his money +and his wife. Watching for "Blanche Rose," he caught him one day in the +Rue Fournirue, and very nearly did for him. On Sunday, the 16th of +September, he demonstratively took up his position, fully armed with sword +and hallebarde, at the cathedral door, intending to knock Richard's life +out of him in the sacred place. Richard was warned, and wisely kept out of +the way. However, as Nicolas tried to raise a popular tumult, on the +ground that an outraged plebeian could obtain no legal redress from the +patrician court--"_l'aristocratie_," says M. des Robert, "_fut tout +puissante_"--the Thirteen could ignore the case no longer. With some +difficulty they persuaded "the duke" to let Madame Sebille go. He agreed +to this only on the distinct understanding that Nicolas "_ne lui_ [that +is, his wife] _ne reprochait en rien sa conduite, ni ne la baittroit, ni +ne lui diroit parole qui l'en puist desplaire, si non que leur debast ou +huttin vint pour aultre chose_." This undertaking having been given--by +the Thirteen--Madame Sebille was brought before the court under protection +of a strong armed escort, consisting of notable chevaliers. Of course +Nicolas would in no wise agree to the terms proposed. And so the +Thirteen--it is interesting to learn how these cases were dealt with in +those early days--kept his wife in their own charge, lodging her very +fitly in the council-room of the "Seven of War," and supplying her with +good food and drink at the expense of the town. Thereupon Nicolas, as he +could not obtain redress as a citizen of Metz, migrated to Thionville, +became a burgess of that town and then--as he was entitled to do in those +days--levied war in person on the man who had wronged him. He bribed "_Des +Allemans_" to waylay and kidnap or kill Richard, just as the two English +Henrys had done. Richard, being a little bit frightened, sought refuge in +the chateau of Ennery, belonging to Signor Nicolle de Heu. (This fact was +promptly reported to Henry.) Here, Vigneulles says, Richard meant to +"_passer melancolie et passer son dueil_." However, Sebille's "_Allemans_" +found him out, and one day very nearly captured him. So "Blanche Rose" +thought it prudent to seek safer quarters. He found them at Toul. Nicolas +does not appear to have followed him so far, nor to have troubled himself +much further about his faithless wife. This put the Thirteen in a fix. +They had the lady on their hands, and were sorely puzzled what to do with +her. Nicolas would not have her on any account, and could not at +Thionville be made to take her; and restore her to Richard they in +propriety could not. After much deliberation, having detained her a full +fortnight at public expense, they cut the knot to their own satisfaction +by handing Madame Sebille over to her brother, one Gaudin, a butcher, who +was to take care of her. Gaudin gave her in charge to an old woman selling +wax candles. Madame Sebille was under strict injunction not to leave the +city. But who could expect her to observe that command? Anyhow, one fire +morning, pretending that she had a pilgrimage to perform to "St. Trottin," +she made her way outside the city gates disguised as a _vendangeresse_, +with a basket by her side and a sickle in her hand. Outside the walls she +was met by friends who at once put her into a page's clothes, in which, of +course, she marched as straight as she could to Toul, and joined "Blanche +Rose," to her swain's delight as well as her own. Richard had once more +"_ne dedaigne de risquer un peu de honte contre beaucoup de plaisir_." He +and his lady-love were now outside the jurisdiction of the Thirteen, and +might therefore consider themselves safe. But upon the abettors of the +lady's flight the magistrates visited their share in the offence with all +the greater rigour. Notwithstanding Richard's earnest interposition, they +heavily fined and banished them. Thus ends the story of Richard's amour; +for what became of Madame Sebille afterwards, neither history nor +tradition records. She was not allowed to enjoy the company of her knight +long; for stirring events were in train, which required his presence +elsewhere. + +In 1521 a powerful alliance of European States was formed against Francis +I., designed to humble the victor of Marignano. It comprised the Emperor, +the Pope, the King of England, Florence, Venice, and Genoa. In 1522 +England invaded Picardy and Flanders. That put an end to the treaty +engagements of 1514, and made Richard's services allowable as well as +needful to the French king. Indeed "Blanche Rose" did not wait to be +summoned. The State papers and other official publications of that period +relate how busy he was plotting against England and Scotland. King Francis +took a delight in parading his partiality for the Duke of Albany and the +"Duke of Suffolk." He rode in public with one of them on one side and one +on the other. He slapped Richard on the back and said in the hearing of +the Court: "My Lord of Suffolk, I will set you in England with 40,000 men +within few days." He proposed a marriage for Richard with the daughter of +the Duke of Holstein, and planned sundry invasions of England which, +happily, did not come off. But Richard joined the French army under Guise +and Vendome, and fought against his countrymen in Picardy. There he raised +a corps of 2,000 men on his own authority, and led this welcome +reinforcement to Francis at St. Jean de Moustiers. In 1524 he accompanied +Albany into Scotland, without, however, doing much hurt. But he greatly +frightened Henry's officers. We find Fitzwilliam writing to Wolsey, urging +him, in face of "his wretched traitor" being in the field, to "hasten over +some men to give courage to the Flemings." + +Then came the campaign which led to the catastrophe of Pavia. Richard +joined the French army at Marseilles, and was, in company with Francis of +Lorraine, placed at the head of his old corps the German _lansquenets_, +who were delighted to fight under so practised and trusted a leader. They +were 6,000 at the beginning of the campaign, pitted against a larger +number of their own brethren under Frundsberg, in the Emperor's service. +On St. Matthias Day, in 1525, the battle of Pavia was fought, which lost +Francis his liberty. Francis, as usual, showed no want of dash, but a +lamentable lack of prudence. Mistaking the enemy's retreat, under the fire +of his guns, for a settled defeat, he sent his infantry after them, +placing the bulk of his army between the foe and his own artillery. The +allies were not slow to turn this false move to account. Charging back +upon their foes, they overwhelmed them with superior numbers. That lost +the French the day. Richard's _lansquenets_ did their best to retrieve the +error. Having knelt down, as their manner was, and thrown dust behind +them, they rushed, singing their familiar war-songs, into the fray with an +impetus which promised to break the hostile ranks. "Had but the Switzers +fought like the _lansquenets_," Francis said after the battle, "the day +would have been ours." But the odds were too many against them. They were +met by their own fellow-_lansquenets_--each side being furious with the +other. The German men were wroth at seeing their comrades on the other +side, fighting against their own country--the French at seeing their +brother-soldiers desert so faithful an employer as Francis. So no quarter +was given on either side. And the French _lansquenets_--they had lost +one-fourth of their number before the charge began--being wedged in +between a superior force of Germans closing in on either side, were simply +crushed as between two millstones. The list of killed was long--and +brilliant. Among the slain were the two captains of the _lansquenets_, +Francis of Lorraine and Richard de la Pole. The latter had--as a painting +preserved in the Ashmolean Museum indicates--died protecting Francis with +his sword. He was found buried under "_un monceau_" of dead enemies +against whom he had fought. There was loud rejoicing in the camp of the +allies. It was given out that "three kings" had been taken or +killed--Francis, the unfortunate King of Navarre, and, "to make up the +trinity of kings," says a despatch addressed to Wolsey, "La Rose Blanche, +whom they call the King of Scots." Appended to the curious despatch which +Frundsberg forwarded to the Emperor, giving a report of the battle--the +oldest record extant--is a drawing, showing three crowned knights, fancy +portraits of the "kings." + +One is prepared to find Henry VIII. ordering a triumph, and congratulating +himself upon his happy riddance from a rival who had been more of a thorn +in his side than the present generation is probably aware. But it does +seem small to read, in the State Papers, of one of Henry's tools begging +from Wolsey the king's authority for seizing "some goods of no great +amount" that Richard had left at Metz. + +The French were far more chivalrous in their treatment of the dead +warrior. We read in Camden that "for his singular valour" his very enemy, +the Duke of Bourbon, "honoured his remains with splendid obsequies, and +attended in person as one of the chief mourners." Francis expressed his +attachment to the fallen, and his indebtedness to him for brilliant +services. "_La France_," says Gaillard, "_perdit en lui un allie utile, +qui la servit efficacement et sans rien exiger d'elle_." Considering that +he was an English subject, that may sound questionable praise. But though +he may have shown too great willingness to avail himself of the excuse, it +should be borne in mind that it was England's kings who first drove him +into treason. + +The chapter of Metz, grateful for Richard's liberality, passed the +following "resolution"--as we should say--founding a mass for the repose +of their benefactor's soul: "Aprilis anno Domini 1525 in conflictu apud +Paviensem civitatem quo tunc Franciscus Gallorum rex per exercitum +Romanorum imperatoris captus et Hispaniam captivus ductus extituit, +habito, obiit quondam illuster Richardus dux de Suffolk qui domum nostram +dictam a la Haute Pierre sibi ante per nos ad vitam locatam obtinens valde +somptuose restauravit, unde statuimus nunc anniversarium quotannum +Ecclesia nostra pro salute animae suae perpetuo celebrari." + +That mass ought, of course, to be read still. However, deans and chapters +have as little respect for "pious founders"--though these be their own +predecessors--as British Parliaments in democratic days. Consequently, the +ecclesiastical function has long since been discontinued. + +Apart from Richard's death, Henry did not find himself much of a gainer by +the victory of Pavia. He had contributed nothing directly to the battle, +and Charles V. accordingly would concede him none of the spoils. On the +contrary, grasping monarch that he was, under cover of a marriage-portion +to be given to Henry's daughter, he asked for a subsidy of 600,000 ducats. +We need not be surprised to find Henry shortly after concluding a treaty +with France, which secured him two millions of crowns. + +One more notice we have of Richard de la Pole, the last of his race. +Describing Pavia, as he found it in 1594, Fynes Moryson says: "Neere that +(the castle) is the Church of St. Austine; there I did reade this +inscription, written in Latin upon another sepulchre:--The French King +Francis I. being taken by Caesar's army neere Pavia, the 24th of February, +in the yeere 1525, among other lords, these were slaine: Francis Duke of +Lorayne, Richard de la Pole, Englishman and Duke of Suffolk, banished by +his tyrant King Henry VIII. At last Charles Parker of Morley, kinseman of +the said Richard, banished out of England for the Catholike faith by +Queene Elizabeth, and made Bishop here by the bounty of Philip, King of +Spain, did out of his small means erect this monument to him." + +This is the last memorial of a life which created not a little stir in its +day, and might under more favourable circumstances have been made signally +serviceable to Richard's own country. Even that last memorial has probably +now disappeared. But still "White Rose" may fairly claim a place at any +rate in the lighter records of English history. + + + + +III.--THE EARLY ANCESTORS OF OUR QUEEN.[5] + + +Thanks to Cook, thanks to our all-reporting newspaper-press, and thanks, +not least, to our truly Athenian craving continually for "some new thing," +Ammergau has become almost a household word among us. Everybody has heard +of its "Passion Play." Every tenth year sees Britons rushing in shoals to +the picturesque banks of the Ammer, to witness there, while it may be +witnessed, the last surviving specimen of that popular religious drama +which in bygone times helped the Church so materially, and over so wide an +area, to impress her truths upon men's minds. But I question, if among all +those thousands of sight-seeing Britons, who gather as interested +spectators, there are many who realize in what very close relation that +same little valley stands to the early fortunes of the ancient House whose +Head now occupies our Throne. How many, indeed, among us can be said to +know very much at all about that family? And yet the history of that race +ought to be of some interest to us. In these latter days it has become +intertwined with the history of our own nation. It is marked by striking +contrasts of ups and downs, at one time leading the Guelphs on a rapid +triumphal progress up to the very steps of the Imperial Throne, then again +dropping them down to the obscure level of paltry insignificance. It tells +of a race endowed with a strong individuality--manly, chivalrous, +generous; but generally also headstrong and reckless. It is interwoven +with pathetic legend. Its early beginnings are lost in the dim haze of a +prehistoric age. Its latter end has not yet come. There is no dynasty now +surviving equally ancient--there is but one which can join in the boast +which up to a few decades ago the Guelphs could make:--that on the throne +on which it was planted centuries ago it has retained its hold to the +present generation. That other dynasty is the family, Slav by descent, of +the Obotrite Grand Dukes of Mecklenburg--the same race whom our Alfred the +Great speaks of as "Apdrede." The present grand dukes are the direct +descendants of that terrible Prince Niklot, of the twelfth century, whom +among German princes only the Guelph, Henry the Lion, was found strong +enough to subdue. But before Bodrician Niklot had mounted his barbarian +throne, Henry the Generous had already been installed as chief over +Lueneburg--the principality over which his family continued to rule down to +1866, when the cruel Fortune of War decided against its last Guelph chief. +In the adjoining Duchy of Brunswick, over which, as forming part of +ancient Saxony, the Guelphs were set as heads in 1127, the family +continued to hold sway till 1884, when Death removed the last scion of +their older line, in the person of the late Duke of Brunswick. The Guelph +pedigree, however, goes very much farther back than the time of Henry. +Long even before Guelph Odoacer, at the head of his Teuton hordes, +dethroned that caricature of an Emperor, Romulus Augustulus, there were +Guelph "Agilolfings" leading to battle, as trusted chiefs, their own +Scyrian tribes. What the later history of the family might have been, if +to its constitutional valour and generosity had been joined the less +showy, but far more useful, qualities of prudence and judgment, we may +now, by the light of past events, readily conjecture. The Guelphs were in +Henry's day by far the strongest dynasty in Germany--at a period when for +the Imperial throne above all things a strong dynasty was needed. Had +Germany elected Henry the Generous as Emperor, as everybody expected that +she would, the Guelphs might still be wearing the crown of Charlemagne, +and Germany might have a different tale to tell, both of her past +experiences and of her present position. For it deserves to be noticed +that all the troubles which came upon the Empire, by minute subdivision of +its territory, and by the setting up of "opposition emperors," sprang +directly and demonstrably from contests provoked with the Guelphs. It was +Henry IV.'s resistance to Welf IV. that led to the multiplication of +vassal crowns, which subsequently became a curse to Germany. It was the +Powers pledged to the support of the Guelphs--most notably the Popes and +our Coeur-de-Lion--who put forward those troublesome "opposition +emperors," the forerunners and direct cause of the ruinous +Interregnum--"die kaiserlose, die schreckliche Zeit"--and by such means of +the political prostration of the country enduring through centuries. + +But our interest, in England, lies more with the Guelphs than with +Germany. One cannot help sympathizing with a race which, being evidently +designed for greatness, advanced towards it with giant strides, only to +find the prize at which it ambitiously grasped snatched from its hand in +the very moment of seeming attainment. + +Of the very early history of the Guelphs we have fairly definite, but only +very fragmentary, information. They were leaders of the Scyri, we learn--a +Teuton race of the Semnone family, mentioned by Pliny, by Zosimus, and by +Jornandes--who poured over Germany, in the days of Valentinian, along with +hosts of other German tribes, and who, having been all but exterminated by +the Goths, united with some other septs of the same family, the Rugii, the +Heruli, the Turcilingi, to form a composite nation which, for convenience, +adopted the common name of Bajuvarii. Bavarians accordingly the Guelphs +originally were, as the historian Theganus is careful to point out--not +Swabians, as German historians have often named them; Bavarians, as seems +to be evidenced, among other things, by the dark features and black hair +which for a long time distinguished them--more especially from their +opponents of a full century, the fair-haired and light-complexioned +Hohenstaufens. Of the confederate Bajuvarii, the Agilolfings or Guelphs +still continued chiefs. Under a Guelph, Eticho--whom Priscus Rhetor +praises as a man of exceptional capacity and high character--we find the +nation attaching themselves as auxiliaries to the host of Attila, and +rendering the Hunnish king signal service. Eticho was by no means a mere +rough warrior. He fully appreciated Roman culture and civilization--which +led the eunuch, Chrysaphas, to propose to him the murder of his chief. The +honest Guelph rejected such suggestion with scorn. From the midst of the +Bajuvarii went forth the Guelph Odoacer on his march to Rome. The +Bajuvarii were then settled on the banks of the Danube--roughly speaking +in what is now Austria, _plus_ Bavaria and the Tyrol. Hence we find the +earliest known seats of the Guelphs in the Bavarian Highlands. Ammergau +was theirs, and Hohenschwangau was one of their earliest castles, founded, +indeed, by a Guelph. When, after a revolt of the Rugii--which was +successfully suppressed by Odoacer--some of the allied tribes dispersed, +to seek new homes in the tempting districts on the banks of the Ens and +around the lake of Constance--both at the time sorely devastated and +depopulated by the Goths--the Guelphs, without giving up their old seats, +accompanied their men. And thus it came about that the earliest castle +which we hear of as having been built by the Guelphs is supposed to have +stood in Thurgau, of which country the Guelphs subsequently became Counts. +This is all mere inference; but as such it seems legitimate. For the +monastery of Rheinau is known to have been founded by a Guelph. And such +monasteries were never built far away from the founder's stronghold. Hence +the Guelphs' connection with the Black Forest, of which the Guelph St. +Conrad is the venerated patron saint; and hence their connection with +Alsace, of which they were long Counts--such powerful Counts that Pepin +the Short judged it advisable to reduce them to the position of removable +governors--_missi camerae_. [S. Odilia, the patron saint of Alsace, whose +name is a household word among her own countrymen, and about whom Goethe +grew enthusiastic, was an undoubted Guelph.] Hence, also, their connection +with the whilom country of the Burgundians, among the nobles of which land +we find a Guelph chief, in 605, standing up manfully against the +aggressive usurpations of Protadius, a Frankish major-domo, and acting as +spokesman. + +As _missi camerae_ the Guelphs had a serious brush with the Church--the +only tiff, practically speaking, which ever occurred between them and +Rome. Of this quarrel, in which the Guelphs were probably in the right, we +find a tradition kept up for some centuries. The Abbot of St. Gall figured +in those days in Germany as the exact counterpart to the rich and grasping +"Abbot of Canterbury" of our ballad. For some pilfering of crown lands the +Guelph Warin, as a conscientious _missus camerae_, had Abbot Othmar +imprisoned, which brought about the Abbot's death. Rome at once canonized +her "martyr," and exacted heavy retribution from his "persecutors," not +merely in the shape of severe penances and the foundation of masses, but +by the more substantial satisfaction of large transfers of landed estates +to the injured abbey--Affeltangen and Wiesendangen, and I know not how +many properties more, till even to the pious Guelphs the demands appeared +to grow beyond all measure of reason. It is true, they recouped themselves +elsewhere--_quod si cui minus credibile videatur_, say the monkish +chroniclers--"which, if to any it appear a little incredible, let him read +the ancient histories, and he will find nearly all their territories to +have been violently taken and held by them of others." + +It is with Warin's son Isembart, living in the time of Charlemagne, that +the better known history of the Guelphs begins. He was the hero of that +ridiculous fable about the "pups," which has been invented to explain +their adoption of their peculiar name. Isembart's wife Irmentrude, it is +said, having uncharitably reproached a poor beggarwoman for having borne +triplets--which she held to be a proof of unfaithful conduct towards her +husband--was punished for her gratuitous accusation by being herself made +to bear at one birth, not three sons, but twelve. To screen herself from +the same reproach which she had unkindly fastened upon the beggar, she hit +upon the rather inept device of having eleven of those newly-born sons +drowned as supposed "whelps." The twelfth she kept--and he is said to have +become "Welf," the founder of the race. The other eleven were happily +rescued by their father, who came up just in time to save them. Ten of +them lived to become founders of princely houses. The eleventh became a +bishop. One of them is said to have been Thassilo, the reputed ancestor of +the Hohenzollerns. The real meaning of all this legend obviously is that, +by survival and intermarriage with other illustrious families of Europe, +the Guelphs have in course of time become, in a sense, the parent of most +reigning lines--Zaehringens, Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns, Capets, Bourbons, +and the rest of them. + +The fable of children being sent to be drowned as "whelps"--and in every +instance happily rescued--is, as it happens, by no means peculiar to the +Guelphs. It occurs in the Black Forest, in connection with a family +bearing the name of "Hund." It occurs in Lower Lorraine in that pretty +_trouvere_ legend recording the doings of "Helias," the "Chevalier au +Cygne," whom we moderns know as "Lohengrin." It is interesting to note +that, along with that fable, Guelph tradition in Bavaria shares with the +tradition of Lorraine the far more attractive and poetical myth of an +enchanted swan--the swan, in fact, of "Lohengrin"--a bird specifically +emblematizing purity--whence the extinct "Order of the Swan" of the +Margraves of Brandenburg. That order was an aristocratic "Social Purity +League," which Frederick William IV. would gladly have revived, could he +but have found sufficient candidates for it among his nobility. But his +proposal met with very scanty support. Hence, also, the equally ancient +"Order of the Swan" of Cleves, having a like object. + +As regards the "whelps" of the Guelphs, the existence of very different +and contradictory versions helps to show what a made-up story the whole +legend is. The only authority for it is the monk Bucelinus, who himself +quotes no more ancient source. And he is said to have invented it for the +mere purpose of showing off his monkish Latin, in order to deduce from the +Latin word for "whelp"--_catulus_--an imaginary descent, supposed to be +complimentary, from a fabulous Roman senator "Catilina," and through him +from the ancient Trojan kings. In opposition to this, it is a fact that +there were "Welfs" long before Isembart. The name Guelph, therefore, could +not have been first suggested by Irmentrude's unsuccessful stratagem. +Isembart lived in the ninth century. But, as early as the fifth, Odoacer +had a brother named "Welf." "Welf" and "Eticho" were, in fact, the two +traditional names of the family, from prehistoric days downward. Sir +Andrew Halliday's suggestion, that the name may have been first taken from +an ensign which the Guelphs are supposed to have borne in battle, is +equally wide of the mark. For that ensign, we know, from the Agilolfings +down to the Hanovers, never was a "whelp" at all, but a "lion." In truth +the name "Welf" has nothing whatever to do with "whelp," but is derived +from "hwelpe," "huelfe"--help. As Eticho means "hero," so Welf means +"helper"--_auxiliator_. The popular Latin rendering for it in olden days +was "Bonifacius." "Salvator" would be a more exact rendering, but would +obviously be liable to misinterpretation. In confirmation of this theory, +we find that, migrating into Italy about Charlemagne's time, a Guelph, on +becoming Count of Lucca, as a matter of course assumes the name of +"Bonifacius." And in his line, for further confirmation, we observe the +same peculiarity which marks the Guelphs, that is, the naming of all sons +of the family, without distinction, by the style of "Count"--a practice +altogether unknown in those days among other families. + +So much for the name and origin of the Guelphs. Now I must ask the reader +to return with me to Ammergau, which is peculiarly sacred to the memory of +Eticho, styled the Second, who was probably the son of Isembart. Eticho +lived in the days of Emperor Lewis the Pious, who in second nuptials +married the Guelph's sister Judith. The birth, by Judith, of little +Charles--who became "Charles the Bald"--gave rise to that unnatural war +between Lewis and his three elder sons, in the course of which alike +Judith and two of her brothers were imprisoned in Tortona, from which +place of confinement Bonifacius II. of Lucca, marching to their relief, +avowedly as a kinsman, loyally rescued them. Eticho's daughter, Lucardis, +again married an emperor, Arnulf of Carinthia--of whom Carlyle need not +have spoken quite so unkindly, as of a "Carolingian Bastard," seeing that +he made a far better ruler than any of his legitimate kinsmen of his own +time. Thanks to Lucardis it was that Eticho was driven to seek a refuge, +as a hermit, in the wild seclusion of Ammergau. He went there to mourn, +with twelve chosen companions, the loss of Guelph independence, which his +son Henry, so he thought, had at the instigation of his sister +ingloriously bartered away for a "mess of pottage"--a pretty substantial +one, it must be owned. In truth, Henry did exceedingly well for his house. +This is how the Saxon Annalist relates the story:--Henry, ambitious for +wealth and power, agreed to swear fealty to the Emperor, if in return, in +addition to his own lands, he were given in fee as much territory as he +could drive around with a car, or else with a plough--on that point the +versions differ--in the time between sunrise and the conclusion of the +Emperor's afternoon nap. Arnulf thought the bargain a cheap one for +himself. However, Henry had stationed relays of the swiftest horses that +he could procure at various points, and with their help he raced round the +coveted territory with such marvellous speed that--having started from the +Lech--by the time when the Emperor awoke he had actually reached the Isar. +The Emperor was just beginning to move restlessly in his chair and to show +signs of returning consciousness, when Henry arrived at the foot of a +mountain which he had designed as the extreme limit of his new +possessions. If his mare would but last out the journey, one brisk gallop +would carry him to the appointed goal. Unfortunately, the mare refused--in +consequence of which, for many centuries the Guelphs would not mount a +mare. The hill which Henry thus narrowly failed to obtain still goes by +the name of Maehrenberg, the "Mare's mountain." Arnulf considered that he +had been "done." But, having pledged his word, he held himself bound. +Eticho, grieved, mourned out his life in his hermit's cell in Ammergau. +Henry--who was after his adventure named _Heinricus cum aureo curru_--does +not appear to have made any particular effort to propitiate his father. +But when the old man was dead, he carried his remains with great pomp and +show to the monastery of Altomuenster, very near his own new seat of +Altorf, where he raised a gorgeous tomb to Eticho's memory, at which +Guelph chiefs made it a practice to kneel for generations after, thus +evidencing their respect for an ancestor who came to be looked upon as +specifically the champion of independence. The homage paid became a cult; +and in Ammergau shortly after rose up, where Eticho's cell had stood, a +wooden memorial church, to be replaced, in 1350, by a much larger +monastery, built at the expense of Emperor Lewis the Bavarian, a +descendant of Eticho. The monastery is still known as "Ettal"--that is, +"Eticho's Thal," "Etichonis vallis." + +Altomuenster, I may mention in passing, was the "Minster" supposed to have +been founded by S. Alto, a Scottish saint, the companion and disciple of +S. Boniface, who managed, like Moses, to make a hard rock give forth a +spring of rushing water by striking it with his staff. The spring still +flows; and, as it was specially blessed by S. Boniface, its water is no +doubt entitled to the peculiar veneration in which it is held to the +present day. + +From their new seat at Altorf, up to the death of Welf III., the Guelphs +continued to take their name. They were specifically "the Guelphs of +Altorf." While there, they managed to better their fortune not a little. +It was a rough neighbourhood then, with nothing but forest all round, +forest spreading out for miles, stocked with wolves, and bears, and all +manner of game. To the present day some thirteen thousand acres remain +under timber. There are plenty of dales, and caves, and peaks, and the +like, in the district, which have given rise to an innumerable host of +legends. One of Henry's sons was that excellent Bishop Conrad, who became +the family saint _par excellence_, and who first inaugurated the +traditional friendship with Rome. Welf II., feeling his power growing, +ventured to break a lance with the Emperor, in support of his friend +Ernest of Swabia, whose Burgundian possessions--very large ones--the +Emperor had wrongfully seized. It did no good to Ernest. But it taught the +Emperor that the Guelphs had become a power to be reckoned with--a power +with whom it was advisable to stand well. And accordingly we find the next +Emperor, Henry III., with a view to propitiating the succeeding Guelph, +Welf III., preferring him to the dukedom of Carinthia, which was a very +important office in those days--Carinthia being a frontier march, and +embracing Verona and part of Venetia. So great was the importance attached +to this position that for seven years Henry had, for want of a +sufficiently strong candidate, advisedly kept it open. Welf took the +Duchy--and then pursued his own course, defying the Emperor at Roncaglia, +and refusing to render him service--which was politic and, according to +the notions of his day, not dishonest. + +Welf III. was the last Guelph of the male line. After him we find the +Guelphs of the female branch succeeding to the family honours--the +"Guelphs of Ravensburg," as they were fond of styling themselves. These +are the Guelphs from whom our Queen is descended. To what extent the +family had added to their estate while settled at Altorf came to be seen +when, in 1055, Welf III. died. The possessions which he left embraced a +good bit of Alemannia, the greater half of Bavaria (which then included +the present Austria), the larger part of the Tyrol, and a tidy slice of +Northern Italy. It is no wonder that "Mother Church," always alive to +temporal opportunities, cast her eyes a little longingly on so fair an +estate, and, in default of a male heir, demanded it for herself. But there +was a Guelph beforehand with her--Welf IV., the son of Chuniza, the sister +of Welf III., by her marriage with Azzo (a direct descendant of the Guelph +Bonifacius). Welf IV. proved himself a particularly strong and able +ruler--_vir armis strenuus, concilio providus, sapientia tam forensi quam +civili praeditus_, the monkish chroniclers style him. Hence his surname, +which he well deserved--"the Strong." By his accession he added to the +family territories those valuable estates in Italy which for a long period +made his family one of the most wealthy in Europe. For Azzo was reputed +the richest and one of the most powerful _marchiones_ of Italy. Welf's +younger brother was Hugo, the first of the family to take the name of +Este, who became the founder of a race which has been held particularly +noble. Welf IV. secured his family other gains. Man of war that he was, +the Emperor Henry IV. was thankful to have him for a supporter in his +struggles with the rebellious Saxons, before whom the Swabian companies +had recoiled. At the battle of the Unstrut Welf completely shattered their +power, and thereby secured to Henry for a time the peaceful possession of +his purple--and for himself, as a reward, the Dukedom of Bavaria. That +office was worth even more than the Dukedom of Carinthia. For at that time +Germany owned but four regular dukes, representing severally the four +principal tribes which made up the nation. And with those four dukes, +under the Emperor, rested, in the main, the power in the Empire. + +Following in the footsteps of his uncle, we find Welf IV. drawing closer +the links which connected him with Swabia, while correspondingly loosening +his proprietary relations with Bavaria, and in token of such policy fixing +his residence in pretty Ravensburg. The reason evidently was, that the +laws of Swabia conceded to vassal lords more extensive rights than did the +laws of Bavaria. Accordingly, we find Henry the Generous, when +dispossessed of his duchy by Conrad III., appealing specifically to the +laws of Swabia against the Emperor's monstrously unfair judgment. But, +apart from that political reason, Ravensburg was also no doubt more +attractive on the score of its pleasant situation and its delightful +surroundings. You may identify both sites, when sailing down the lake of +Constance, among that picturesquely outlined cluster of hills, on which +your eye is sure to rest instinctively--the hills rising on the northern +bank, in the very face of the tall Alps of Appenzell, among which the +lopsided Saentis is particularly conspicuous. From Ravensburg both the lake +and the Alps are clearly visible, and, moreover, a charming landscape +nearer than either, with that pretty Schussenthal right in front, and a +multitude of rocky peaks dotted about the forest, alternating with shady +dales, smiling fields, and lush meadows. Of the castle there is now but a +crumbling weather-worn old gateway left. The town still exists, and +flourishes after a fashion--consisting of a group of quaint, picturesque, +out-of-date houses, looking for all the world like a piece of grey +antiquity recalled to life. At Ravensburg used to be stored the Archives +of the Guelph family. A valuable and interesting collection they must have +been. What has become of them nobody knows. They may have been destroyed +by fire. They may, with heaps of other precious material for history, have +been carried to greedy Vienna, to be there preserved as so much lumber. + +During Welf IV.'s reign happened that historic conflict between Church and +State, Pope Hildebrand and Henry IV. of Germany, for his share in which +Henry has been censured a good deal more than in justice he deserves. +Really, in going to Canossa, the Emperor did--so far as his intention was +concerned--a very prudent thing. The German princes had bluntly informed +him that while he remained at feud with the Pope, he would look for their +obedience in vain. With the Pope, accordingly, Henry strove to set himself +right. Could he certainly foresee that, urged on by the malignant Countess +Matilda, Gregory would take advantage of his duress, while he was +literally hemmed in between two outer walls of the castle, to force upon +him so bitter a cup of humiliation? Matilda was a Guelph--destined to play +a very important part in Guelph history. Welf IV. was her near kinsman, +and had, moreover, become a zealous supporter of the Pope. Therefore we +can scarcely wonder at finding him with Hildebrand and Matilda at Canossa, +witnessing his chief's degradation. We can not wonder, either, at finding +Welf, when Henry had once more fallen out with the Pope, commanding the +rebel forces raised to support the "opposition Emperor," Rudolph of +Swabia. And, being a Guelph, it is no wonder that he should have taken +advantage of the opportunity of his victory, to extort from the Emperor +terms materially benefiting his own house--namely, the recognition of his +private property in Swabia as held directly from the Emperor, and--which +was more important--the recognition of his Bavarian dukedom as hereditary +in his family. How great was the power wielded at that period in Germany +by this early Guelph prince, is evident from the fact that after his +conclusion of a separate peace with the Emperor the opposition practically +collapsed, and Hermann, the new "opposition emperor," found himself almost +without support. Welf IV., I ought to mention, was the first Guelph to +connect his family in a manner with our island. He married Judith, the +daughter of Count Baldwin of Flanders, and the widow of Tostig, King of +Northumberland, the son of Earl Godwine, of Kent, and brother of the +unfortunate King Harold. Leaving Judith at home with the two sons whom she +had borne him, Welf and Henry, Welf IV. started in 1098, at an advanced +age, on a crusade to the Holy Land, which he successfully accomplished. +But on his return home he was struck down by a fatal illness, which +overtook him in the island of Cyprus. + +This brings us down to the time of a tragic little incident which has +furnished the subject for the favourite family legend of the Guelphs. At +the time of their father's death both Welf and Henry were mere boys, left +in charge of a good monk, Kuno, a Benedictine of Weingarten. Considering +how important a part Weingarten has played in Guelph history--that its +monks have become the carefully minute but provokingly inaccurate +chroniclers of the Guelph family--and that, thanks to the pious liberality +of the late King of Hanover, in the Abbey church of Weingarten the +gathered bones of most of the early Guelph lords have found an honoured +resting-place, perhaps I ought to say just a word about that monastery. It +was Welf the Third's foundation, set up at a short distance only from +Ravensburg, on a site commanding a magnificent view of the country all +around, and was intended to provide accommodation for those pious monks, +originally of Altomuenster, who had been twice, at very short intervals, +burnt out of Altorf. It still stands; its three towers form a conspicuous +landmark in the Schussengau; and to its shrine still are undertaken +pilgrimages from a wide circuit--a survival that from a worship of olden +days which was one of the great spectacles of the mediaeval Church. Before +setting out for the Holy Land, Welf IV. entrusted to the monks of +Weingarten for safe keeping, a relic which was at the time held in far +more than ordinary esteem. It consisted of some drops of the Saviour's +blood, believed to be thoroughly genuine, and preserved, enclosed in a +costly vessel made of pure gold of Arabia and valued at three thousand +florins. There was a history to those drops. Pious inquirers have +ascertained that the name of the centurion who was present at the +Saviour's crucifixion, as the Gospel relates, was Longinus, and that he +was a native of Mantua. Seeing the precious drops trickling down, it is +said, he caught them up in a vessel, and, becoming converted by what he +witnessed, returned home to Mantua, still reverently carrying them with +him. He was in due time baptized, and became a missionary and a martyr. +For something like eight hundred years the Holy Blood remained buried in +his garden at Mantua. Then it was discovered by accident, only to be once +more concealed somewhere or other. But in 1049, when Pope Leo IX. happened +to be at Mantua, once more it came to light, to be instantly claimed by +the Pope on behalf of the Supreme See. The Mantuans objected; but in the +end Leo obtained, at any rate, part of the precious treasure. Of his share +he kept half. The other half he gave away to his friend the Emperor Henry +III., who, on his death, bequeathed it to Baldwin of Flanders, from whom, +in her turn, Judith got it--carrying it with her to Northumberland, and +then on to Ravensburg, where she dutifully made it over to her husband. +And when Welf started on his crusade, he, as observed, entrusted the relic +to the monastery of Weingarten. The monks knew well how to turn so +valuable a possession to account. The Good Friday ceremony of "Worshipping +the Sacred Blood" became one of the most frequented, most impressive, and +most honoured ceremonies of the Church. As many as thirty thousand people +have been known to flock to the place from all quarters, turning the +hillside into a huge pilgrim's camp, and contributing not a little to the +prosperity of the religious house. Under the circumstances, the monks +decided to restrict the attendance at the procession--which was the main +part of the ceremony--to horsemen only, whence the whole function came to +be popularly named "Der Blutritt." As many as fifteen thousand horsemen +are known to have joined in the monster cavalcade. At the head rode the +_Custos_ of the relic, a monk, holding up the Blood for adoration. He was +followed by a horseman doing duty for Longinus, clad as a Roman warrior, +bearing in his hand the supposed "sacred spear." After him marched a small +squad of other horsemen, representing Roman legionaries. Next followed a +goodly muster of Princes and Counts and Lords. And the rear was brought up +by a long file of mounted soldiers, contributed by the surrounding dozen +or so of petty principalities, all gay in their best uniforms, reflecting +in the variety of their dress the unhappy division of the Empire, and +joining lustily in the sacred song _Salvator Mundi_. + +But we must now return to Ravensburg and young Welf. Not far off from +Ravensburg still stands, conspicuous upon its lofty hill, the old castle +of Waldburg, the cradle of the noble race of the Truchsesses of Waldburg, +who were at times rather a rough set. There is a story of one particularly +brusque Count who, having rallied the Abbot of Weingarten upon his +sumptuous living and soft raiment, and having been told in reply that such +things were far more creditable than riding about the country robbing and +stealing, promptly retorted with a vigorous box on the Abbot's ear--at the +Abbot's own table. The Count thereupon withdrew, but shortly after paid +the monastery an even more hostile visit, setting fire to the village and +burning it down to the ground. In punishment he was sentenced by the +Emperor to abstain for life from wearing a helmet. Hence the bare head and +flowing locks of the Knight of Waldburg, always to be seen in the thick of +the fray, which became a valued feature in the family escutcheon. But at +the time of which I am speaking the Waldburgs were thoroughly peaceable +folk. The particular knight of Welf's day had, as it happened, a lovely +daughter, just about two years younger than young Welf, who, of course, +fell desperately in love with Bertha, as in return Bertha did with him. +Hundreds of innocent little amatory interviews took place between the two, +either at Waldburg or else in the forest, with the full acquiescence of +Kuno, who saw nothing to object to in the proposed match. However, Kuno +died, and was in his guardianship replaced by a monk of a very different +character--Anthony, a schemer and intriguer--who would without doubt have +been a Jesuit, if the Order had been then established. To Welf's utter +dismay, this Anthony, one fine morning, informed his young charge that in +the interest alike of the Guelph family and of the Church he, a youth of +eighteen, must forthwith marry Gregory VIIth's friend, Matilda of Canossa, +Spoleto, &c., the persecutress of Henry IV., a Guelph herself, the widow +of Godfrey the Hunchback of Lorraine, very rich and very +powerful--_nobilissimi ac ditissimi marchionis Bonifacii filia_--but +mannish--_femina virilis animi_--accustomed to leading her own men in +battle, scheming, ugly, ill-tempered, and forty-three to boot. Hers were +splendid possessions--Parma, and Mantua, and Ferrara, and Spoleto, and +Reggio, and Lucca, and Tuscany. But all these riches were as nothing in +the eyes of Welf, who had made up his mind that he must marry Bertha, aged +sixteen, or no one. A little plot was quickly concocted, and one fine +night Welf, in disguise, might be seen slyly escorting Bertha, likewise in +disguise, and accompanied only by her private maid, Francisca, through the +forest down to Lindau, on the border of the lake, where a boat was in +readiness to bear the fugitives across to Constance. From that place, Welf +said--probably thinking of his mother's connections with our country--"we +will make our way straight to England, where a Guelph's arm and sword are +sure to be welcome and to find employment." The lake was reached, and the +oars splashed briskly over the smooth surface--when all of a sudden, at +half-way, over goes the boat, capsizing, and Bertha sinks down to the +bottom, to be seen no more. Diving, and swimming, and calling proved all +in vain. Thoroughly unhappy, indifferent to anything that might happen, +Welf consents to wed the elderly Matilda, with whom he settles down to +live at Spoleto, sullenly resigning himself to his fate. One day a nun +begs to be allowed to see him. She turns out to be Francisca, the maid, +driven by qualms of conscience to make a frank confession of a horrid +crime committed. Bribed by Monk Anthony, she said, she had on that +disastrous night drugged poor Bertha with a handkerchief--then, when she +was thoroughly drowsy, on the sly tied a stone to her feet--whereupon +Anthony, disguised as a boatman, had overturned the boat. Anthony had +told her that there was no sin in all this, it was an act _ad majorem Dei +gloriam_; but her conscience would leave her no peace. Next day, at her +own wish, Francisca was executed as a murderess, and Welf left his +wife--who turned out to have been a party to the conspiracy--in anger and +disgust, vowing to see her no more, and formally repudiating her before +long--_nescio quo interveniente divorcio_, says the monkish chronicler. + +We have now reached the very eve of that brilliant period when the Guelphs +appeared to have risen, rapidly, high above other dynasties--only to sink +even more suddenly to a humble level of prosaic obscurity, on which they +were destined to continue for centuries. The records of that brief spell +of meteoric greatness read like a romance. The Guelphs were giants, +visibly overtopping all their contemporaries. Henry "the Great," Henry +"the Generous," Henry "the Lion"--their very names tell of vigour and +influence, of strength of character and striking individuality. Their +domains came to stretch from sea to sea, from the Northern Ocean, which we +call the German, to the Mediterranean--and breadthways across the whole +Continent of Germany, eastward into those still only half-explored Slav +regions in which dwelt the uncultured Bodricians and Luticzians, backed by +the Russians and the Poles. Even Denmark was in a state of dependence upon +them. And the Guelph Duchies represented a power almost superior to that +of the Empire. Had not Frederick Barbarossa been so very great a ruler, it +is said, Henry the Lion's realm would infallibly have either swallowed up +the rest of Germany or else have constituted itself a separate Empire. +Under Henry the Generous the Imperial Crown seemed to lie actually at the +feet of the Guelph dynasty. They need but have stooped a little to pick it +up. But stooping was the one thing which they could not bring themselves +to do. As a result they were jockeyed out of this prize just as their late +successor was the other day jockeyed out of his kingdom of Hanover. +Germany, it is to be feared, lost more by that shabby trick than did the +Guelphs. Under a race of heroes like those Henrys, with plenty of power of +their own at their back to support them against rivals and malcontents, it +did not seem too much to expect that something like the halcyon days of +the Saxon emperors might have been brought back. All ended in smoke. There +was that family quarrel between Guelphs and Ghibellines, which ruined both +houses--unfortunately, the Guelphs first. It seems a strange coincidence +that the two rival cousins, Frederick Barbarossa and Henry the Lion, +should both have been born at Ravensburg. It seems odd, also, that after +being long the warmest of friends, the two houses should have become such +implacable foes. The Hohenstaufens had no one but Welf IV. to thank for +the Swabian crown. It was he who had extorted it from Henry IV. And it +seems more than strange, it seems hard, cruel, and unjust, that not only +should the Guelphs a second time have been punished in their private +capacity for what they had done in the service of the Empire, but that, +moreover, the Emperor's persecution, which led to their fall, should have +been, as I shall show, the direct consequence of loyal service rendered to +the Imperial Crown. + +Welf the Fifth's was a brief reign--and about the only pacific one in that +early period. A staunch friend to the Pope, but at the same time strictly +loyal to the Emperor, he managed to overcome resistance, say the monks of +Weingarten, "by liberality and graciousness rather than by cruelty and +force." His brother, Henry, surnamed variously "the Black," and "the +Great," was a man of entirely different mould. He it was who about 1100 +first acquired by marriage with Wulfhilde, the daughter of Magnus, Duke of +Saxony, the valuable "allodium" of Lueneburg, which up to 1866 formed the +nucleus of Guelph possessions in Northern Germany. Henry's son, Henry the +Generous, bettered that example by obtaining the Saxon Dukedom. He was a +staunch friend to Lothair of Saxony, the Emperor of his time--married his +daughter Gertrude--and in his support made war upon the Hohenstaufens, who +had seized, without claim or title, Imperial territory, more especially +the city of Nuremberg. In 1126 his troops carried Nuremberg by storm, and +as a reward Lothair conferred the Dukedom of Saxony upon his son-in-law, +who thereby came to hold two dukedoms at the same time. The victory over +the Hohenstaufens was completed a few years later by Henry's capture (on +behalf of the Empire) of Ulm. Clearly Henry was altogether in the right. +But the Hohenstaufens, smarting under deserved defeat, seized the +opportunity of his absence--in Italy, where he was, to attend the +Emperor's coronation--to ravage his lands in revenge. Of course, he +retaliated. And thus was begun that memorable great feud which rent +Germany in two and brought it down to the very brink of ruin and +disintegration. The sad result might still have been averted if the +general expectation had been fulfilled, and Henry the Generous had been +elected to the Imperial throne. So confident was Lothair of his succession +that at his death he entrusted the Imperial insignia--those precious +_clenodia_ of Trifels--to him for keeping. But the Hohenstaufens baulked +him by a clever election trick. Summoning the Electing Princes--a very +indeterminate body at that time--with the exception only of the Bavarians +and the Saxons, privately to Coblenz--not by any means a proper place for +the purpose--they easily secured the choice of Conrad, in which the Saxons +weakly acquiesced--being then still new to the rule of their Duke--and +which the Pope, just as weakly, confirmed. Little he knew what a scourge +he was binding for the punishment of his successors. Those two +confirmations practically decided the issue. Nevertheless, so little +assured did Conrad feel of his position that he fled from Augsburg by +night, fearing an attack from the Guelphists. Arrived at Wuerzburg, +contrary to all law and justice, he condemned Henry unheard, proclaimed +against him the sentence of proscription (_reichsacht_), and declared him +to have forfeited both his Duchies. A furious contest ensued, Welf VI. +fighting in Bavaria, Henry in Saxony. In Germany the two factions are +commonly spoken of as "Welf" and "Waiblingen." But it is by no means +certain that the latter name is correct. It is quite as possible that +"Ghibelline" may be intended to stand for "Giebelingen," the name of the +castle in which Frederick Barbarossa was brought up, and near which the +Hohenstaufens gained one of their first decisive victories over the +Guelphs. In the south things went for the most part against the latter. +Welf VI. had been christened "the German Achilles." He tried to justify +that name--being seconded, rather feebly, by the Kings of Hungary and of +Sicily. But in spite of all his fighting, as the Bavarians showed +themselves lukewarm, his efforts fell short of adequate success. In the +north things went better. The Saxons, holding strong views in favour of +what we should term State rights, manfully stood by their Duke, who +pressed the Hohenstaufen Emperor so hard, that before long Conrad was +almost compelled to ask for an armistice. The armistice was granted; and +before it came to an end Henry died at Quedlinburg--it is said by poison. +That left the Guelphs at a serious disadvantage. For Welf VI. had quite as +much to do as he could manage, to maintain himself as a belligerent in the +south. And in the north, besides the Duchess Gertrude and her mother, the +Empress Richenza, there was only Henry the Lion, a boy of ten, to head the +rebel tribe. Conrad skilfully disarmed Gertrude by persuading her, still +quite a young woman, to marry Leopold of Austria, the new Duke of Bavaria, +and to assent, as a condition of that marriage, to her son's waiver of his +rights in the south. In the north we find Berlin stretching out its hands +eagerly for the Guelph Duchy--just as in 1866--but without success. The +covetous Margrave of Brandenburg, I ought to explain, was not a +Hohenzollern, but Albert the Bear. The Hohenzollerns were at that time +still very small folk--so small that some years later, when Welf VI., +disgusted with affairs of state, and grieving over the loss of his son, +gave himself up to a life of reckless pleasure, and held a private court +at Zurich, in ostentatious magnificence, we find the Count of Zollern of +those days in attendance upon him, as a sort of noble retainer. Once Henry +attained his majority, he quickly made his power felt. He must have been a +character whom one could not help admiring. Brave, chivalrous, frank, +generous to a fault, and zealously solicitous for the welfare of his +subjects, for the extension of commerce, the improvement of agriculture, +the development of self-government, a friend and supporter to every kind +of progress--but, at the same time, headstrong, rash, impetuous--he seemed +the very beau-ideal of knighthood, a man morally as well as physically of +the colossal stature that the sculptor has attributed to him at +Brunswick--a fit companion for his brother-in-law and staunch ally, +Richard Coeur-de-Lion. For a time fortune favoured Henry. The Wends were +constantly making incursions into German territory, keeping the border +provinces in a state of perpetual disturbance. The Emperor alone was no +match for them. Henry was sent for; and, like a German Charles Martel, he +struck down Prince Niklot and his host with crushing blows. The result was +a short-lived reconciliation with the Emperor, and Henry's reinstatement, +for a brief period, in both his Duchies--Bavaria having, however, +previously been reduced in size by the cutting off of what is now Austria. +Had Henry but had the prudence to use his opportunities, all might still +have been well. For Welf VI. made him an offer of his Italian +possessions--Spoleto, Tuscany and Sardinia--a valuable _point d'appui_, +which must have helped Henry to maintain his balance in Germany, or at the +very least to save more than he did out of the subsequent wreck. In the +course of a life of lavish prodigality, Welf had come to an end of his +available resources. He wanted money. Now, would Henry buy those Italian +possessions of him? Henry declined, calculating a little too securely upon +an unbought inheritance at Welf's death. In that calculation he made a +great mistake. Welf, angry at his refusal, repeated the offer to his other +nephew, Frederick Barbarossa, who as a matter of course jumped at it. And +so the opportunity was lost. Fresh contests ensued, fresh proscriptions, +banishments, outlawry. As an exile Henry was driven to seek the protection +of his ally Richard, taking refuge repeatedly in Normandy and in England. +Then he managed to renew the fight--and at last, by the Emperor's grace, +he received back, of all his vast dominions, those little principalities +of Brunswick and Lueneburg, which to almost the present day have remained +specifically identified with Guelph rule, and in which the Guelph Counts +and Dukes--subsequently Electors and Kings--managed to live on in their +prosaic, humdrum, humble way, powerless and uninteresting princelets of +the great German family of little sovereigns--till an accident, lucky for +them, called them across to England. + +One brief flickering-up there was, before their candle finally went out on +the larger scene of continental politics. But it was a very poor +flickering indeed, and no credit to any one concerned. A Guelph became +Emperor at last. But no thanks to his own prowess or his own merit, or to +a _bona-fide_ popular choice. It was our Coeur-de-Lion who, at the Pope's +partisan instigation, to avenge his own humiliation at Hagenau--with the +help of his "_multa pecunia_," as chroniclers relate--forced his nephew, +Otto IV., on the throne which, according to strict law, had already young +Frederick II. for an occupant. It was a poor, weak travesty of a reign. +Had not Philip of Swabia opportunely died, it would have been no reign at +all. + +For many a century the star of the Guelphs seemed set. The "viri nobiles, +egregiae libertatis" of ancient times counted for little in the game of +European politics. Early in the present century the elder line, that of +Wolfenbuettel, brought forth one more hero of the old Guelph type--that +brave Brunswicker who, in the great war of German liberation, by his +brilliant gallantry quickened all Young Germany to a more fiery +patriotism. The younger line, that of Lueneburg, found a new sphere of +action opened to it in this country, and now lives to perpetuate, on a +Throne even greater than that which "the Generous" and "the Lion" had +filled, that + + "Dynastia Guelphicorum + Inter Flores lilium, + Inter Illustres Illustrissimus + Eorum memoria in Benedictione." + +Under the new aspect of things, if, fortunately, Henry the Lion's bold +bent for war be wanting, his characteristic care for the welfare of his +subjects has been retained; and it is a satisfaction to know, in a reign +that has happily outlived its Jubilee, that there is no longer occasion +for that sorrowful plaint to which, in the warlike days of the race, +Countess Itha gave expression--the wife of the great-grandson of Eticho +II., of Ammergau--that "No Guelph was ever known to live to a great age." + + + + +IV.--ABOUT A PORTRAIT AT WINDSOR.[6] + + +In Windsor Castle, in the Vandyke Room, there is a portrait which has +puzzled a good many visitors. It is an undoubted Vandyke; it shows a +pretty face--a trifle sensual, perhaps--but who the lady may have been +whose features it immortalises, nobody seems to be able to tell. +"Somebody"--"Somebody connected with Charles II."--"Some French lady"--are +guesses rather than information offered. "Murray" used to call the lady by +her right name. But lately, for some reason or other, she has in his +description become transformed into "Madame de St. Croix," which probably +sounds "safer." Formerly she figured as "Beatrix de Cusance, Princesse de +Cantecroix," which was correct--unless the more illustrious title be given +her which for a few brief hours she legitimately bore, though never +actually crowned, that of "Duchess of Lorraine." + +There is a good deal of history graven in those smiling features--curious, +changeful history of their bearer's own life--and history, more important, +of nations, on which she exercised a decisive influence. It was thinking +of her, not least, that Richelieu penned those truthfully reproachful +words:--"Les plus grandes et les plus importantes menees qui se fassent en +ce royaume sont ordinairement commencees et conduites par des femmes." +Without her and Madame de Chevreuse--perhaps, it would be too much to say +that France might still be without that Lorraine of which she felt it so +great a hardship to lose a portion in 1871; but certainly the tide of +events during the past three centuries would have taken a very different +course from that which it actually did--different, probably, for the +better. + +Beatrix was "somebody connected with our Charles II."--it is quite true. +Without that link with our own Court her portrait would scarcely have +found a place in Windsor Castle, and the sorry poet Flecknoe--Dryden's +"MacFlecknoe"--would certainly not have rhymed upon her beauty and +"vertue" in most halting and unmelodious lines, now long forgotten even by +students of literature. But her connection with our "gay monarch" was of +the briefest, a mere sly nibbling at forbidden fruit while the real +good-man was away, closely watched by Spanish guards in the dark tower of +Toledo--that same martial and romantic duke, to whom our Charles I. +addressed urgent prayers to become his saviour, and on whom he conferred +the proud title of "Protector of Ireland." It seems odd now--to us, with +our modern notions of Lorraine, as a small and very helpless province of +France--to think, that on the wayward ruler of that petty duchy, himself +at the time an exile, should our Charles have built up hopes of his own +preservation in the storms of the Great Rebellion. There can, however, be +no doubt about the fact. In June, 1651,[7] Viscount Taaffe, Sir Nicholas +Plunket, and Geffrey Browne, by order of the Marquis of Clanricarde, King +Charles's deputy, formally waited upon Duke Charles IV. of Lorraine at +Brussels, "to solicit his aid in favour of the unhappy kingdom of +Ireland." The mission was considered of such pressing importance that Lord +Taaffe, in order not to delay it, put off the call which in duty he owed +to the Duke of York, then residing at Antwerp. Charles IV. rather rashly +undertook the office pressed upon him, formally accepted the style and +title of "Protector of Ireland," fitted out--though not owning an inch of +seaboard--a man-of-war, which he christened "Esperance de Lorraine"--and +there the matter ended. + +With this adventurous Charles IV. was the life of the beautiful Beatrix +bound up from girlhood to death. It was a romantic affair--in some of its +episodes a little sadly comical--and, since we have constituted ourselves +guardians of her effigy, her story may be worth telling. + +The Cusances were an old, distinguished, and very wealthy family in the +Franche Comte, when the Comte was still a province, not of France, but of +the Empire. At the present time the "Almanach de Gotha" knows them no +more, nor any French or German "Peerage." But in their own day they ranked +among the best of bloods; the strains of the Hapsburghs and the +Granvelles mingled in their veins. "Gentillesse de Cusance" had in whilom +Burgundy become a proverbial saying. The family owned a wide tract of +territory in the mountainous country through which flows the Doubs, and +among those hills, forming part of the Jura, stood, twenty miles from +Besancon, their Castle Belvoir. Of this proud family Beatrix was, with two +sisters--one of whom became a nun, while the other married a cousin on the +mother's side, a Count de Berghes, of the Low Countries--left the last +offspring. There was no male to perpetuate the name. At twenty she was +known as "la personne la plus belle et la plus accomplie de la province." +People raved about her. Abbe Hugo, the Lorrain Duke's father-confessor, in +his MS. History (which has never been published, for fear of giving +offence to the French), describes her as "of a little more than middle +height, and exquisitely proportioned." "She possessed," he said, "just +sufficient _embonpoint_ to impart to her _une mine haute et un port +majestueux_." Her face, something between oval and round, was marked by a +particularly clear complexion and an animated expression. Her eyes were +blue and well-placed; her hair was of a light ash colour; her mouth was +small, and of a brilliant red; her teeth were of pearly whiteness, and +well-ranged; neck, arms, hands were all "beautifully delicate, white, and +admirably shaped"; in fact, you could not desire a more perfect specimen +of feminine humanity. + +With this beauty it was the happy, or unhappy, lot of the no less engaging +Charles IV. to become acquainted at the impressionable age of thirty, when +to the eye, at any rate, he represented all that was manly and +chivalrous. He was then the beau-ideal of the sex, unequalled in all +accomplishments peculiar to the privileged Man of the tip-top strata, a +brilliant horseman, fencer, tilter, and love-maker in the bargain--a +veritable "Don Juan, alike in love and in politics," as his own historian, +M. des Robert, has aptly styled him. + +The two were for the first time brought into contact in 1634. Charles was +then for the moment--a pretty protracted moment--a lackland prince. +Counting a little too confidingly upon the help of that "Empire" which was +always ready to claim and never ready to protect, and moreover upon +equally treacherous Spain, he had defied France--with the result of being +turned out of his dominions by her. But if Charles was driven from his +duchy, he had carried his brilliant little army with him--there was no +better in Europe. He had gained a high reputation already as a dashing +general and a tactician of ready resource. The French feared him, in spite +of their superior numbers. The Austrians and Spaniards were eager for his +alliance, and willing to pay him his own price. He was stationed, in +command of his own troops and some Spaniards, at Besancon, where life was +then made gay indeed to the military visitors. Very butterfly that he +was--forgetting altogether his homely Duchess Nicole, who was far +away--Charles fluttered about merrily from flower to flower, almost +thankful to Providence for having by her otherwise harsh judgment driven +him to such captivating pastures new for the cult of Cupid. He was told, +of course, of the bewitching beauty sojourning in the same city. Sated +already with objects of admiration, he, however, at first scarcely paid +heed to the praises of her charms. But once he met her, the hearts of both +were in a twinkling set aflame. + +Charles did not at the time enjoy the best of reputations among +respectable folk. He had dabbled a little too freely in illicit loves. +Accordingly, old Madame de Cusance observed the young people's mutual +passion with very reasonable alarm--and, to prevent its being carried to +dangerous lengths, she packed Beatrix off in hot haste to lonely Belvoir. +To a lover of Charles's mettle, however, twenty miles was a stimulus +rather than an obstacle to love-making. Every day saw him galloping out to +pursue his courting. There were French spies and scouts stationed all +round, watching for the cavalier, eager to carry him off, as their +comrades had not long before carried off our ambassador, Montagu, to +Coiffy. By narrow breakneck paths, which are shown to the present day, +Charles threaded his way adventurously through the forest, where it seems +a marvel that he did not again and again come to grief. No feat, however, +was too hazardous, no risk too great for him to encounter in the pursuit +of his romantic passion. Accordingly, the old lady, like a prudent, +motherly Dutch matron that she was, saw nothing for it but to carry her +daughter very much further away still, to Brussels, where she had her +family mansion, the Hotel Berghes. There Charles could not at once follow +her, for he had his army to look after; and, moreover, the French stood in +the way like a massive wall. No sooner, however, had he gathered his fresh +bays on the field of Noerdlingen, and brought the campaign of 1635 to a +more or less satisfactory close, than, still homeless and landless, he +hurried likewise to Brussels, which was then the recognised +gathering-place of all the poor victims of Richelieu's grasping policy. +However, in one way he had been forestalled. In the interval the old +countess, thinking in her innocence that nothing could so effectually put +a stop to undesirable love-making as an actual marriage, had compelled her +beautiful daughter to marry Leopold D'Oiselet, Prince de Cantecroix, a +great personage both in the Franche Comte and in Germany. That ought to +have made all things sure. In truth, it did nothing of the kind. Beatrix +and Charles remained as infatuatedly in love as before, and pursued their +amour seemingly with all the greater zest and determination, because there +was now a legal hindrance. The husband, as it happened, was not the only +difficulty in the way. All the Lorrain princes and princesses--expelled, +like Charles, from their own country, and assembled in the capital of the +Austrian Netherlands--set their faces dead against the lady, and +positively refused to have anything to do with her. Beatrix did not care. +She could afford to snap her fingers at Nicole, Nicolas-Francois, Claude, +Henriette, and the rest of them, so long as Charles remained true to her; +and soon we find her, the lawful wife of Prince Cantecroix, openly avowing +herself "the fiancee" of the Lorrain Duke, who was himself lawfully +married. + +The old lady, foiled once more in her precautions, once more packed her +daughter off out of harm's way--this time back to Besancon. As a matter +quite of course Charles hereupon proposed to the crowned heads with whom +he was in league, that the next campaign must necessarily be carried on +in the Franche Comte, where, indeed, the French had somewhat alarmingly +gained the upper hand, and were at that time rather embarrassingly (for +the Spaniards) investing Dole. As if to support him in his pleading, a +deputation of Comtois magnates arrived at Brussels, headed, for irony, by +the Prince de Cantecroix himself, petitioning the victor of Noerdlingen, +with all the urgency of which they were masters, to come to their rescue. +Charles did not keep them waiting long. He promptly led his army back to +their old quarters at Besancon, where he scarcely repaid Cantecroix in a +Christian spirit. For his father-confessor informs us that, being a devout +"Catholic," and believing implicity in the efficacy of masses, he caused +no less than three thousand such to be said, to obtain from Heaven his +rival's death. He drove the French away from Dole, but after that he would +not stir another finger. Fighting was all very well, but there was metal +more attractive at Besancon. The old countess, had submitted at last to +the inexorable ruling of fate. It was of no use transporting Beatrix +backwards and forwards, while Charles followed so persistently after, and +her own husband was so blind, or else so helpless. Things must be allowed +to take their course. + +Charles's masses had the desired effect. In February, 1637 the Prince de +Cantecroix died. In his testament he provided liberally for "ma bien aimee +femme"--which _femme_ loyally lost no time in transferring herself from +his house to one belonging to the duke. + +M. de Cantecroix being out of the way, the next thing to be done was to +remove the no less inconvenient Duchess Nicole. From her right to the +throne Charles had already ousted her by a really grotesque farce enacted +in concert with his father. Charles does not appear to have had masses +said for Nicole's death, but he very assiduously consulted the learned of +Church and State concerning the possibility of obtaining a legal +declaration of nullity of marriage. This was an easier matter in those +days than it is now; because, for want of any other plea, there was always +the charge of witchcraft to fall back upon--a charge much in favour with +"the Church." Charles decided to play this trump card. There was a priest, +Melchior de la Vallee, a chosen protege of the late duke, who had baptized +Nicole. He was now alleged to have been a sorcerer before he performed the +rite of baptism. _Ergo_, he was incompetent lawfully to baptize; _ergo_, +Nicole was not properly baptized; _ergo_, she was not a Christian; _ergo_: +the whole marriage must be void. Witnesses were, of course, produced to +prove the case, and poor Melchior, having been duly condemned, was +orthodoxly burnt at Custines--the place in which Mary Queen of Scots had +spent her youth. His property was declared forfeited to the Crown--to be +eventually employed by Charles, in a fit of remorse, to endow, by way of +pious compensation, the great Chartreuse of Bosserville near Nancy. + +That part of the business had been easily accomplished. It remained, on +the ground of this condemnation, to upset the obnoxious marriage. The +Duke's Chancellor, Le Moleur, was easily persuaded to pronounce an +"opinion" to the effect desired, and, armed with this, he was promptly +sent to Rome, accompanied by the Duke's father-confessor, Cheminot, to +obtain a Papal judgment in accordance with it. The whole thing looked so +plausible as readily to silence the last remaining doubts of Beatrix; and +just nine days after Cantecroix's death the two lovers put their +signatures to the marriage contract which was to make them man and wife. +Less than five weeks later the marriage was formally celebrated in a +characteristic hole-and-corner fashion. On the evening of April 2, 1637, +the duke's physician, Forget, brought the _vicaire_ (curate) of the parish +of S. Pierre in Besancon a written authority from his _cure_ (rector) to +celebrate Sacraments wherever he might be called upon to do so. That done, +the _vicaire_ is led by Forget on a roundabout way into Charles's house, +where he finds a sumptuous supper awaiting him. The food and liquor +despatched, the unsuspecting curate is, in a temper which disposes him to +comply with almost any demand, taken into Charles's own chamber, where the +duke bluntly informs him: "Tu es ici pour benir notre mariage." Even in +spite of the supper, the curate hesitates. But the duke will stand no +parleying. The ceremony is gone through. The young couple, to place +themselves entirely in order, comply with the custom of the diocese to the +very tittle: embrace, break a loaf of bread between them, drink out of the +same glass, and the thing is done. The curate receives twenty doubloons +for his pains, and is, like everybody else present, pledged to silence. + +Secrecy was, however, under the circumstances, absolutely out of the +question, probably not even seriously desired. Soon after we find the duke +publicly owning Beatrix as his wife, and giving orders that she shall be +treated as duchess and styled "Altesse." She lives with Charles, rides +with him, shows herself by his side to his soldiers, who conceive a +violent fancy for her. Nicole and the Lorrain princes and princesses +protest. But they are far away, and can do no hurt. The old countess is +brought to acquiesce in the marriage, and all seems to go as merrily as +could be wished. Beatrix's sister, the nun of Gray, confesses to pious +scruples, and implores her sister not to do what is wicked, but is +silenced with a simple "Vous n'etes qu'une enfant." To make all things +sure, Mazarin, anxious to obtain from Charles an advantageous peace, +promises his all-powerful interest with the Curia. The peace duly signed, +Beatrix and her husband religiously undertake, side by side, a pilgrimage +to Bonsecours, where they pray for Heaven's blessing upon their union, and +afterwards hold their formal entry into Nancy, to the bewilderment of her +husband's loyal subjects, who, not knowing what to make of the double +wedlock, cry out lustily: "Que Dieu protege et benisse le bon Duc Charles +et ses deux femmes!" + +But there was mischief brewing. Nicole and her belongings would have been +less than human if they had not set heaven and earth in motion to upset +the new irregular union. When Cheminot and Le Moleur arrived at Rome to +bespeak the Pope's approval, they found the Prince Nicolas-Francois +already there, actively counterworking their game, on which even without +such opposing influence the Vatican could scarcely have been expected to +smile. In the place of approval, they received nothing but black looks, +coupled with a strict injunction to the Lady Beatrix not on any account to +pretend to the title of "Duchess." + +Of course Charles's "Petite Paix" lasted only a few weeks. Instead of +leading his troops into the French camp as supports, as he had agreed, he +took them straight to the Spanish headquarters, with the inevitable result +of being once more turned out of his country, and finding himself an exile +at large. These misfortunes, however, sat lightly upon the gay-hearted +monarch, while he had the lovely Beatrix by his side, starring it with her +at the Courts of Worms, Luxemburg, and Brussels, and insisting everywhere +upon Beatrix being treated as duchess. He had given her her own +body-guard, her own establishment of maids of honour, allowed her to hold +her courts and drawing-rooms, just like a reigning princess. + +Meanwhile, concurrently with the Pope's judgment, another matter was +slowly ripening. All this marrying and re-marrying had, as a matter of +course, led to litigation. Prince Cantecroix had left a goodly fortune, +for the possession of which his mother, the Marquise d'Autriche, and his +cousin, M. de Saint Amour, were then fighting fiercely. + +While Charles and Beatrix were attending at Malines, as important +witnesses in this case, what should unexpectedly arrive but a brief from +the Pope, directing the archbishop to proclaim the judgment pronounced on +that half-forgotten application of Le Moleur's and Cheminot's! It had +taken His Holiness some years to come to a decision even on the +preliminary point, that of the marriage with Beatrix; on the main +question, the validity of Charles's marriage with Nicole, the judgment was +still silent. But Charles's marriage with Beatrix the document declared +entirely illegal and invalid, formally threatening both parties concerned +with major excommunication if they did not at once separate and +thereafter continue apart, and, moreover, within a given time, purge +themselves by a public and humiliating penance. To Beatrix this judgment +came as a crushing blow. However, she yielded prompt obedience, removing +at once to the distant Hombourg Haut, near Saint-Avold. + +Charles evidently cared very much less about the separation, however +little he might relish the idea of a penance. It looks very much as if he +had already grown a little tired of the lovely Beatrix. She was still very +beautiful, and had any amount of love-making left in her. Her little amour +with Charles II. was still to come; and that portrait to be seen at +Windsor, which so much enamoured Flecknoe, actually shows her as she was a +little later. However, the _toujours perdrix_ of one particular beauty had +evidently begun to pall upon Charles's exacting taste. He managed very +soon to find some cheering consolation for his loss, to the infinite +entertainment of the gay Court of Brussels--which delighted in scandal, +and was constantly on the look out for some fresh amusement. Charles +provided such, very opportunely, by a quite unexpected new amour, which +was certainly not wanting in originality. Charles suddenly fell over head +and ears in love with the very _bourgeoise_ daughter of the Burgomaster of +Brussels. He pressed his heart and hand upon her again and again. No +effort was too great for him to make in prosecution of his suit, no +expense too lavish. The girl found herself serenaded, _feted_, asked to +all sorts of festivities--tournaments, concerts, balls--all arranged +specifically in her honour. She found jewellery showered upon her. And, to +secure her good will, the proud Carlovingian Duke even condescended to +compete with the humble burghers at the popular _kermesse_, in the +cross-bow shooting at the "papegay," which, crack marksman that he was, he +brought down in brilliant style, thereby constituting himself +"papegay-king" for the year. That dignity imposed upon him the obligation +of treating all the burghers and their young women to a flow of +liquor--which liquor he did not stint--and, moreover, of holding a +triumphal progress through the town--which he magnified into a sort of +Lord Mayor's procession, himself appearing in the character of his own +ancestor, Godfrey de Bouillon, encased in costly armour, with all his rich +jewellery hung upon his person, and seated, high and lofty, upon a +magnificent car. The buxom Flamande found all this mightily pretty, but +scarcely knew what to make of it so long as her mother strictly forbade +her to give the devoted Charles any encouragement, nor dare so much as to +meet him in private. Once only was the mother prevailed upon to permit a +_tete-a-tete_ for just as long as Charles could manage to hold a live coal +in his palm. To extend the time, Charles extinguished the fire by +heroically crushing the coal with his fingers. All this tomfoolery amused +the Court intensely. But people were just a little astounded when Charles +carried his devotion so far as to refuse to treat with the Spanish +plenipotentiaries for a renewal of his treaty, unless their Excellencies +would first secure the approval and advocacy of his Flemish Dulcinea. The +Spaniards needed the Lorrain troops badly, and so submitted for the +time--but they had their revenge. + +Of course the news of all this love-making brought Beatrix back pretty +promptly to the Low Countries. As an excuse she alleged a burning desire +to be reconciled to the Church, whose censure her sensitive conscience +could no longer endure. Charles was by no means equally impatient. +However, late in 1645, he too at length consented, and, accordingly, the +two attended together to hear the Church's commination, prostrate +themselves at full length before the altar, play the abject penitents +throughout, confess their guilt, and receive episcopal absolution--all in +the presence of a very large assemblage, which made the proceeding none +the more pleasant for the principal actors. + +That done, Beatrix settled down again, perhaps all the better pleased at +finding that by his new treaty obligations Charles had bound himself to +proceed immediately to the battle-fields in France. Whether she had a +right to be severe upon Charles's little amatory escapades may appear a +trifle doubtful by the light of her own conduct now that he was away. At +Ghent she took a leaf out of his own book. The duke soon heard of her +being in a close _liaison_ with a Polish magnate, Prince Radzivill, _jeune +et bien fait, poli et galant_. And not long after arrived the further +intelligence that one of her most conspicuous and most successful admirers +was our own "gay monarch," Charles Stuart, subsequently Charles II., who +was then a refugee in the Netherlands. There is no reason to believe that +these misfeasances were in any way belittled to Charles's ear, seeing that +it was Princess Marguerite, the Duchess of Orleans, his sister, who played +the principal tale-bearer, a lady who, like all the Lorrain princesses, +had a direct interest in bringing Charles's connection with Beatrix to a +close. Charles took the bait. He was furious with the Princess de +Cantecroix. He would repudiate her for good. He would be reconciled on +the spot with Nicole. All seemed to herald a happy and creditable ending +to the misunderstanding of years, when, all of a sudden, Beatrix announced +herself _enceinte_, and by that announcement upset the whole carefully +reared-up house of cards. Nicole had borne the duke no son. Here was the +prospect of one. Throwing the Pope's warning to the winds, forgetting and +forgiving all about Beatrix's wrong-doings, Charles rushed to join her, +and was overjoyed to be able to be present at the birth of what was +destined to be his only son, Charles, subsequently the gifted and +distinguished Prince de Vaudemont, our William III.'s confidant and +adviser, and the elder Pretender's potent patron and ally. The Papal +Nuncio and the Archbishop of Malines were horrorstruck at this barefaced +breaking of a solemn oath. But no serious harm came of it after all. Only, +it was a little provoking to find that when the confinement was over, and +Charles's back was once more turned, Beatrix calmly resumed her illicit +flirtations, of which the Lorrain princesses, more particularly the +Princess Marguerite, were not slow to advise the duke. + +Charles's patience was now completely worn out. As soon as he could manage +it, he posted back to the Low Countries, resolved, as he declared, to +"mettre deux folles a la raison." One _folle_, of course, was +Beatrix--whom Charles protested that nothing would induce him ever to take +into favour again; and the other was his sister Henriette, who had +distinguished herself by a very unconventional match indeed, her third, +between herself, aged fifty, and the youthful Italian banker, Grimaldi, +aged twenty-seven. There were some utilitarian arguments to plead in +excuse of the marriage. Henriette had spent her last _ecu_, had sold every +bit of property of hers that was at all saleable, and was deep in debt to +boot; and Grimaldi had money. But nothing would justify the extraordinary +proceeding which these two lovers, driven into a corner, resorted to, of, +so to speak, "springing themselves" upon the unsuspecting Archbishop of +Malines, and simultaneously declaring their intention to be man and wife, +before he could so much as utter a word of protest. That constituted, the +archbishop had himself previously explained, a legal marriage according to +canon law. + +Charles found Beatrix at Antwerp. He at once seized her house in all legal +form, fretting and fuming with rage, and refusing to listen to a word +which she might say in explanation. He had everything put under lock and +key, sentries placed before the door, and, overhauling all the furniture +with his own hands, he claimed back all the property which the lady held +from him; above all, that very valuable collection of jewellery for which +the Lorrain Court was noted. To his dismay he found that a portion of it +was gone. That made matters ten times worse. The missing pieces must +necessarily have been given to Beatrix's _galants_. + +The Lorrain princes and princesses were delighted to observe a fresh +rupture, and spared no pains to fan the flame. As it happened, at this +very time, in 1654, the Papal Tribunal of the "Rota" had at last made up +its mind how to adjudicate upon that old plea first raised in 1637, and +formally laid before the Pope in 1642--the question of the validity of +Charles's marriage with Nicole. The "Rota" ruled the whole suit to be +frivolous. The marriage had been "freely contracted," was therefore +binding, and, not to be troubled again with anything of the sort, the +Court imposed upon Beatrix "perpetual silence." Charles accepted the +judgment readily; indeed, he was so earnestly bent upon reconciliation +with Nicole, that he seriously talked of having her excommunicated, should +she withhold her consent. All seemed once more coming right, in spite of +itself, when Europe was surprised by a gross outrage against law and good +faith, namely, the high-handed seizure by the Spanish governor, +Fuensaldana, of the Duke of Lorraine, and his removal, as a prisoner, to +the distant Castle of Toledo. Six long years was the duke destined to pine +in that unwholesome, dark, barred tower, a prey to vermin and to all +discomforts, and a victim to ever freshly-raised, ever sorely-disappointed +hopes. The very Spaniards around him pitied him. The ladies of Toledo +conspired to liberate the interesting captive, who, in spite of his fifty +years, was still handsome, nimble, full of courtesy and full of life. His +own subjects braved tortures, galleys, death--everything, to effect his +rescue. Never was ruler more beloved; rarely did he less deserve it. +Nicole loyally forgot all past grievances, appealed to Mazarin, appealed +to King Louis, appealed to the Pope. Beatrix likewise did her best--more +especially after Nicole's death, in 1657--though roughly rated all the +time by her wrathful and impatient late lover, who never for a day +together knew his own mind. At one time he asked indignantly: Why did she +not come to share his prison? At another he bade her stay where she was, +since there she could be of greater use. A third time he would have +nothing whatever to say to her. When she sent her _intendant_, +Pelletier, to Spain, to exert himself in the cause of the duke's +liberation, Charles brought up the old charges of infidelity and +misappropriation of his jewellery. But he was delighted to receive at +Pelletier's hands the newly-painted portraits of his two children, Anne +and Charles, to whom, as a partially redeeming feature in his character, +he continued devoted to his dying day. + +In 1660 Spain found that she could carry on war no longer. The result was +the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which was rather dictated by Mazarin than +negotiated between France and Spain, and which, among other things, +provided that Charles should be set free. Purchasing the glory of a +princely escort from the needy noblemen of Spain by a distribution of the +full sum of compensation just received at Madrid, the duke hurried to +Saint Jean de Luz in state, and there, with his habitual impetuosity, +nearly got himself back into prison. The Spanish Ambassador, Don Louis de +Haro, badgered beyond endurance by Charles, full of his complaints, +seriously threatened to have the duke carried back to Toledo. This brought +our rather romantic Stuart exile to the front, whom nobody then supposed +to be so near becoming Charles II. of England. Indeed, Mazarin held him in +such small estimation, that he would not even admit him to his presence. +But on Don Louis, if he ever seriously intended fresh violence, this bold +manoeuvre had the desired effect. He promptly desisted from further +threats. The Lorrain Charles, touched by the chivalrous conduct of his +namesake, in a burst of gratitude generously offered the latter the free +use of his purse--an offer which must have been peculiarly welcome to the +ever-impecunious Stuart--and frankly forgave him his rivalry in the matter +of Beatrix, which looks, indeed, as if between him and her he now intended +all to be over. + +In truth, he did not leave the lady very long in doubt upon that point; +for, finding her at Bar-le-Duc, when, on his way home from Paris, he +passed through that town, he flatly declined to see her. She was staying +with her daughter, whom in Paris Charles had got married to the Prince de +Lillebonne, the governor of the Barrois. He was quite willing that Beatrix +should be treated _en duchesse_, but at this time of day it surely was not +to be expected that he would once more embroil himself with the Pope by +breaking his oath! Just only for a few minutes did he at length consent to +meet her, at the urgent supplication of both his children--outside Bar, in +a little village; and then he was chillingly cold. + +Otherwise, he had still fire enough left in him, when occasion +required--as he showed not long after, when at Paris, while engaged on +that hare-brained errand of concluding the "Treaty of Montmartre," he +became madly enamoured of Marianne Pajot, the daughter of his +brother-in-law's (the Duke of Orleans') apothecary. The marriage very +nearly became a fact. Everything was ready, in spite of protests from all +sides. The priest was waiting, the wedding-guests were in attendance, +actually eating the wedding supper, and drinking the young couple's +health--for precisely at midnight the ceremony was to be performed--when +Du Tellier marched into the room with a guard, and at Louis XIV.'s order +carried off Marianne to the convent of Ville l'Eveque. "You would have +had to take a syringe for your armorial device if you had married her," +said Louis XIV. mockingly. "Yes," replied Charles, alluding to the treaty +just concluded, "with the royal _fleur-de-lys_ at the nozzle." + +This was by no means Charles's last amour. Indeed, after various wildish +escapades nearly leading to matrimony he, four years later, when arrived +at the ripe age of sixty, actually took to wife a girl of thirteen, and +settled down a tolerably staid and respectable husband at last. But this +adventure with Marianne Pajot warned Beatrix, whose health was beginning +seriously to fail, that if she wanted to become Charles's wife at all, she +must be quick about it. Accordingly, when the two once more found +themselves in close proximity, unwilling neighbours at Bar-le-Duc--she up +in the castle, he in the lower town, to be out of her way--she took the +liberty of reminding him of his repeated promises to obtain a dispensation +from the Pope and get the marriage renewed. Charles was not at all +prepared for such an appeal, which accordingly made him not a little +cross. "Not yet," he pleaded, "il n'est pas encore temps de songer a notre +mariage"--not when he was fifty-six and she nearly forty-six! Would he not +consent at any rate to see her? God forbid; how could he, a devout +"Catholic," presume to infringe the Pope's explicit command? Indeed, these +repeated appearances of Beatrix, when she was not wanted, were becoming +wearisome to him. She must keep out of the way. Let her go back to +Besancon! He was duke and could command. But Beatrix, loth to fly from +that which alone could cure her heartache, pleaded, like Lot, for a +shorter journey. Might she not stay at Remiremont? Charles acquiesced. In +small Lorrain towns she spent the next year or so. Life was getting hard +for her, in view of progressively failing health--harder under the painful +sense of injustice and unfaithfulness. She gave herself up to religious +devotions. At Mattaincourt it was, while she was burning candles and +offering prayers to the Lorrain saint, P. Fourier, that the startling news +reached her of a fresh amour into which Charles had thrown himself with +all the ardour of a young man of twenty, an amour with the beautiful +Isabelle de Ludres ("Matame te Lutre," as Madame de Sevigne called her, +ridiculing the rough Lorrain accent), a most delicately-formed, +symmetrically-shaped _brunette_, a very tit-bit of womanhood, destined to +shine in after-time for a brief period in the changing firmament of _Le +Roi Soleil_ at Versailles, as an ephemeral favourite star. She was a +canoness of Poussay--_Lavandieres_ they were called in the popular +slang--looking probably all the prettier in her semi-religious garb, +because its wear involved no religious obligations of any kind. The abbess +had obligingly allowed Charles free access to the "nun," and there they +were, acknowledged _fiance_ and _fiancee_, talking of the time when the +marriage was to take place. To be near Isabella, Charles had moved his +court to Mirecourt, which is just about halfway between Poussay and +Mattaincourt, utterly unconscious probably of the proximity of Beatrix. +There were daily _fetes_, dances, tourneys, the whole bit of country +seemed transformed into a "Garden of Love." It was like a ghost rising +from the earth when Beatrix--pale, worn, haggard, but still erect and +dignified in bearing--appeared on the scene, her marriage contract in her +hand, to bid the young canoness beware, and remind her lover of his +promises and broken vows. What right had she to be there? asked Charles in +a pet. Had he not bidden her go back to Besancon? Let her be off at once +and not trouble him any more! Alas! in her state of health, travelling to +Besancon was out of the question. She got as far as Mattaincourt, sending +fresh precatory letters to faithless Charles. He would give them no heed. +But she left him no peace. By a severe effort she got to Besancon at last. +"She may disinherit your children," urged Charles's lawyers. "She may stop +your marriage," chimed in the Churchmen. "Remember, she has but at longest +a few weeks to live," added the doctors. "Really?" asked Charles with +visible relief. "She cannot possibly live longer." Not a moment did he +cease from his amatory merry-making preparatory to a contemplated new +marriage. But, as there was time for celebrating a preliminary one in the +interval, for his children's sake he consented to despatch a messenger to +the Pope to demand a dispensation, which arrived just in time for the +marriage with Beatrix to be solemnised while there was still breath in +her. "Me voila, bien honore," whispered the dying woman, "a la fin de mes +jours!" Scarcely had the priest left her bedside, when he was called in +once more to celebrate another sacrament. "Ah! quelle union," gasped +Beatrix, "du sacrement de mariage et de l'extreme onction!" + +Thus ended, on June 5, 1663, the changeful life of that "excellents peace +as Nature ever made," as wrote Richard Flecknoe in contemplation of her +portrait at Windsor, full of "colour" and "freshness," and with eyes whose +very lids were "than other eyes more admirably fair," the lady who on the +canvas in our royal castle looks so happy and serene, but who in real life +tasted far more of the bitterness than of the sweet of man's fleeting +love--not, certainly, without much fault on her own part, yet, in respect +of her relations with Charles, surely more sinned against than sinning. + +The news of her death found the feasting at Mirecourt at its merriest. +Trumpets were sounding, flags were flying, drums were beating, all the +jingle of the masquerade of court life was at its noisiest. The widower +scarcely stopped in his amusements to order a brief formal mourning, which +altered but the hue, not the spirit of the feast. For all that his labour +was thrown away. Beatrix had, in self-defence, despatched a protest +against the marriage to the Vicar-general of Toul, who, as a French +bishop, stood in no sort of dependence upon the Duke of Lorraine--rather +delighted in crossing him. Besides, Isabelle's mother, shocked at what she +saw and heard, peremptorily forbade the marriage, and packed her daughter +off in haste to the solitude of Richardmenil. + +When Beatrix's will was opened, it was found that she had not forgotten +"her very dear husband." "As a token of respect and submission," she had +"taken the liberty" of bequeathing to him--that very diamond ring with +which he had wedded her, then the worship of all, twenty-six years before, +when his own affection was still fresh and young, and his whole being +seemed bound up in the life and possession of the fervently-loved young +widow. At her death, certainly, she had this to boast of, that of all the +beauties who had riveted Charles's affection, none had for so long a time +and with equal power held sway over his fickle heart. If she was +neglected, it is some satisfaction to think that her children were +honoured and cherished. On the Prince de Vaudemont Charles heaped what +benefits he had to bestow. But the stain of his birth clung to him to his +death. At one time Charles had hoped to seat him on the proud throne of +the Carlovingians. When in 1723 he died, the Lorrain Courts found that no +princely honours could be paid to his body. Quietly, without pomp and +show, were his bones laid beside the bones of his father, in the +Chartreuse of Bosserville, sad memorial that it remains of the duke's +faithlessness to his first wife. Neither of Charles nor of Beatrix has any +offspring survived. Of Charles even later Dukes of Lorraine have scarcely +ever spoken without a protest. Beatrix lies buried at Besancon, and, after +all, considering what evil she unwittingly brought upon her adopted +country, the portrait which alone remains to recall what she was finds, +perhaps, a more fitting place on the walls of Royal Windsor than could +have been given to it in the historic hall of the more than half-destroyed +palace of Nancy, or among the Lorrain portraits preserved, as a memorial +of Lorrain-Hapsburg rule, in the museum of Florence. + + + + +V.--THE REMNANT OF A GREAT RACE.[8] + + +Modern History is, in its rapid march onward, making sad havoc of old +races. New nations are rising up; but only like new banks and headlands on +our coast, by the accumulation of drifted shingle, which the very same +tide is washing away from wasting older rocks. A generation or two hence, +in the making of a new German people, the last remnant will have finally +disappeared of an interesting race, which historians and archaeologists +alike, to whom it is known, will be loth to miss. + +There are probably few Englishmen who have any very clear idea as to what +and who the "Wends" or "Sorbs" are. Early in the last century, we read--I +think it was in the year 1702--our Ambassador at Vienna, one Hales, +travelling home by way of Bautzen, to his utter surprise found himself in +that city in the midst of a crowd of people, strange of form, strange of +speech, strange of garb--but unquestionably picturesque--such as he had +never before seen or heard of. They are there still, wearing the same +dress, using the same speech, looking as odd and outlandish as ever. We +need not go back to the records of Alfred the Great, of Wulfstan and +Other, to learn what a powerful nation the Wends, one of the principal +branches of the great Slav family, were in times gone by. In the days when +Wendish warriors, like King Niklot, were feared in battle, their ships +went forth across the sea, side by side with those of the Vikings, +planting colonies on the Danish Isles, in Holland, in Spain--aye, very +ambitious Slav historians will even have it that our own _Sorbiodunum_ +(Salisbury) is "the town of the Sorbs," founded by Sorb settlers in 449, +and that to the same settlers--also styled _Weleti_ (Alfred the Great +calls them _Vylte_)--do our "Wilton" and "Wiltshire" owe their names. On +the Continent they once overspread nearly all Germany. Hanover has its +"Wendland," Brunswick its "Wendish Gate." Franconia, when ruinously +devastated by intestinal wars of German races, was, at Boniface's +instance, recultivated by immigrant Wends, famous in his days, and after, +for their husbandry. The entire North German population, from the Elbe +eastward, and north of the Bavarian and Bohemian mountains, is in descent +far more Wendish than German. Wendish names, Wendish customs, Wendish +fragments of speech, bits of Wendish institutions, survive everywhere, to +tell of past Slav occupation. Altenburg is Wendish to a man, the +Mecklenburgs are to the present day ruled even by Wendish grand dukes. +Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden, Luebeck, Leipzig, Schwerin, and many more +German towns, still bear Wendish names. + +There are now but a poor 150,000 or 160,000 left of this once powerful +people. And that handful is dwindling fast. Every year sees the tide of +spreading Germanism making further inroad on the minute domain which the +Germanised Wends have left to their parent race in that much disputed +territory, the Lusatias. Prussian administration, Prussian education, +Prussian pedantic suppression of everything which is not neo-German, are +rapidly quenching the still smoking flax. It boots little that the Saxon +Government, kinder in its own smaller country, has, very late in the day, +changed its policy, and is now striving to preserve what is, at its lowest +valuation, a most interesting little piece of ethnographic archaeology. It +is much too late now to stop the march of Germanisation, which has pushed +on so rapidly that even in the same family you may at the present day find +parents still thoroughly Wendish, and _priding_ themselves on their +Wendish patronymics, and children wholly German, styling themselves by +newly coined German names. Evidently the race is dying fast. + +Its death was in truth prepared a long time ago. Once the Saxons had +obtained the mastery, the poor Slavs were oppressed and persecuted in +every way. They were forbidden to wear their own peculiar dress. They were +forbidden to trade. The gates of their own towns were closed against them, +or else opened only to admit them into a despised "ghetto." No man of +culture dared to own himself a Wend. Accordingly, though they possess a +language unique for its plasticity and pliancy, up to the time of the +Reformation written literature they had none. For centuries their race +has been identified with the lowest walks in life. They must have their +own parsons, of course; but that was all. Otherwise, hewers of wood and +drawers of water, toiling cultivators of the soil, they were doomed to +remain--very "serfs," lending, as we know, in the north, a peculiar name +to that servile station ("serfs," from "serbs"), just as in the south +"Slav" became the distinctive term for "slave." + +To the eye of the archaeologist, all this hardship has secured one +compensating advantage. It has left the Wends--in dress, in customs, in +habits of mind, in songs and traditions--most interestingly primitive. +Everything specifically Wendish bears the unmistakable stamp of national +childhood, early thought, old-world life. There has been no development +within the race, as among other Slavs. There have been modern overlayings, +no doubt; but they are all foreign additions. The Wendish kernel has +remained untouched, displaying with remarkable distinctness that +peculiarly characteristic feature which runs through all the Slav kindred, +at once uniting and separating various tribes, combining a curious unity +of substructure with a striking variety of surface. Among the "Serbs," +or--"Sorbs"--really "Srbs"--of Germany, occur names which reveal a close +kinship with Russians, Bohemians, and Croats. By the strange +survival--among two tribes alone in all the world--of a complete dual, and +the retention of a distinct preterite tense (without the use of an +auxiliary verb) their language links them plainly with the Old Bulgarians. +Their national melodies exhibit a marked resemblance to those melancholy +airs which charm English visitors in Russia. Yet a Pole, one of their +nearest neighbours, is totally at sea among the Wends. His language is to +them almost as unintelligible as that of their "dumb" neighbours on the +opposite side, the _Njemski_--that is, the Germans. Even among themselves +the Lusatians are divided in speech. In Lower Lusatia, for instance, where +the population are descended from the ancient Lusitschani, if you want to +ask a girl for a kiss, you must say: _gulitza, daj mi murki_. In Upper +Lusatia, where dwell the Miltschani, the same request takes the shape of: +_holitza, daj mi hupkuh_. My German friends would have it that to their +ears Wendish sounded very like English--which simply meant, that they +understood neither the one nor the other. In truth, there is no +resemblance whatever between the two tongues, except it be this, that like +some of our own people, the Wends are incorrigibly given to putting their +H's in the wrong place. The explanation, in respect of the Wends, is, that +in their language no word is known to begin with a vowel. Hence, to make +German at all pronounceable to their lips, they often have to add an H as +initial letter, the impropriety of which addition they happen generally to +remember at the wrong time. It will terrify linguists among ourselves to +be told that this Slav language--which the Germans despise as barbarous, +which has scarcely any literature, and which is spoken by very few men of +high education--possesses, in addition to our ordinary verbs, also verbs +"neutropassive," "inchoative," "durative," "momentaneous," and +"iterative"; an aorist, like Greek, and a preterite aorist of its own; a +subjunctive pluperfect, and in declension seven cases, including a +"sociative" case, and a "locative." The most remarkable characteristics +of the language, however, are the richness of its vocalisation, and its +peculiar flexibility and pliancy, which enable those who speak it to coin +new and very expressive words for distinct ideas almost at pleasure, yet +open to no misconstruction. + +In outward appearance the Wends are throughout a powerful, healthy, and +muscular race, whose men are coveted for the conscription. The first +Napoleon's famous "Bouchers Saxons"--the Saxon dragoons--were Wends almost +to a man. And in the present day, it is the Wends who contribute the +lion's share of recruits to the Saxon household regiments. Their women are +prized throughout Germany as nurses. They are all well-built, well-shaped, +strong of muscle, and nimble in motion, like the Lacedaemonian women of +old. All surrounding Germany recruits its nurses from Wendland. Next to +stature, the most distinctive external feature of the race is its national +dress, which, as in most similar cases, survives longest, and in its most +characteristic form, among women. As between different districts, such +dress varies very markedly, but throughout it has some common features. +Short bright-coloured skirts, with the hips preternaturally enlarged by +artificial padding, and an unconscionable amount of starch put into the +petticoats on Sundays; close-fitting bodices, under which, in some +districts, by an atrocious perversion of taste, are placed bits of stout +cardboard, designed to compress a strongly developed bust to hideous +flatness; small tight-fitting caps, into which is gathered all the hair, +and which are often concealed under some bright-coloured outer head-gear, +with an abundance of ribbons dependent; and a goodly allowance of +scrupulously clean collar, frill, and neckerchiefs, at any rate on +Sundays; and, on festive occasions, stockings of the same irreproachable +whiteness put upon massive calves which on other occasions are worn all +bare--these are, briefly put, the main characteristics of the women's +dress. Oddly, the Roman Catholics, who elsewhere--in the Black Forest, for +instance--affect the gayest colours, among the Wends show a partiality for +the soberest of hues, more specifically brown and black. The men delight +in big buttons, bright waistcoats, and high boots, long coats which pass +on from father to son through generations, and either preternaturally +stout hats of prehistoric mould, or else large blue caps with monster +shades. Their peculiar customs are simply legion, and so are their +traditions and superstitions. Their fairs are a thing to see. +Old-fashioned as the Wends are, ordinary shopping has no attraction for +them. But the merry fair, with its life and society, its exchange of +gossip, its display of finery, its haggling and bargaining, its music and +its dancing, is irresistibly alluring. At the great fair at Vetzschau in +olden days you might see as many as a thousand Wendish girls, all dressed +in their best, formally but merrily going through their Wendish dances in +the market-place. In matters of faith the Wends are all great believers in +little superstitious formulas and observances, such as not turning a knife +or a harrow edge or tine upward, lest the devil should sit down upon it. +Their favourite devices for attracting a man's or a maiden's love are a +little too artlessly natural to be fit for recital here. One great +prevailing superstition is the belief in lucky stones--_kamushkis_. +Stones, in truth, play a leading part in their traditions. They have a +belief that stones went on growing, like plants, till the time of our +Saviour's temptation, in the course of which, by an improvement upon the +authorised text, they assert that he hurt his foot against one by +accident. In punishment for having caused that pain, their growth is +understood to have been stopped. They have other stones as +well--"fright-stones" and "devil-stones" for instance. But the _kamushkis_ +are by far the most important and the most valuable. They are handed on as +precious heirlooms from parent to child, and often put down at a high +value in the inventory of an estate. The supernatural world of the Wends +is as densely peopled as any mythology ever yet heard of. There is the +_psches-poniza_--the noon woman, to avoid whom women in pregnancy and +after their confinement dare not go out of doors in the midday hours; +there is the _smerkava_, or "dusk-woman," who is fatal to children, the +_wichor_, or whirlwind; the _plon_, or dragon, who terrifies, but also +brings treasure; the _bud_, or Will-o'-the-Wisp; the _bubak_, or bogey; +the nocturnal huntsman, _nocny hanik_; and the nocturnal carman, _nocny +forman_; the _murava_, or nightmare; the _kobod_ or _koblik_; the +_chodota_ (witch); the _buzawosj_, who frightens children; the _djas_, the +_graby_, the _schyry zed_, the _kunkaz_, there are spirits "black" and +"white." Every mill has its peculiar _nykus_ or _nyx_, who must be fed and +propitiated. And then there are roguish sprites, such as _Pumpot_, who is +a sort of Wendish "barguest," doing kind turns as often as he plays +mischievous pranks. All this curious Slav mythology alone is worth +studying. If in a family children keep dying young, the remedy certain to +be applied is, to christen the next born "Adam" or "Eve," according to its +sex, which is thought absolutely to ensure its life. Like most +much-believing races, the Wends are remarkably simple-minded, trustful, +leadable, and docile, free from that peculiar cunning and malice which is +often charged, rightly or wrongly, to Slav races--not without fault, but +in the main a race of whom one grows fond. + +To see the Wends ethnographically at their best, you should seek them in +their forest homes, all through that vast stretch of more or less +pine-clad plain, mostly sand, extending northwards from the last distant +spurs of the "Riesengebirge" (which bounds at the same time Bohemia and +Silesia), to the utmost limits of their territory in the March of +Brandenburg, and much beyond that--or else in that uniquely beautiful +Spreewald, some hundred of miles or so south of Berlin, a land of giant +forest and water, an archipelago of turfy islets. That is the ancient +headquarters of the Wendish nation, still peopled by a peculiar tribe, +with peculiar, very quaint dress, with traditions and customs all their +own, settled round the venerated site of their old kings' castle. It is +all a land of mystic romance, sylvan silence, old-world usages, such as +well become the supposed "Sacred Forest" of the ancient "Suevi." Alders +and oaks--the former of a size met with nowhere else--cast a dense, black +shade over the whole scene, which is in reality but one vast lake, on +whose black and torpidly moving waters float wooded _kaupes_ or isles, +scattered over which dwell in solitude and practical isolation the +toilsome inhabitants, having no means of communication open to them +except the myriads of arms of the sluggishly flowing Spree. A parish +covers many square miles. Each little cottage, a picture by itself amid +its bold forest surroundings, stands long distances away from its +neighbours. The outskirts of the forest consist of wide tracts of wobbling +meadow, a floating web of roots and herbage, over which one can scarcely +move without sinking into water up to the hips. Were you to tread through, +down you would go helplessly into the fathomless black swamp. On those +vast meadows grow the heavy crops of sweet nutritious grass which make the +Spreewald hay valued at Berlin for its quality as is the hay of the Meuse +at Paris. On their little islands, as in the _Hortillonages_ of the Somme, +the _kaupers_ raise magnificent crops of vegetables (more particularly +cucumbers, without which Berlin would scarcely be itself), which, as on +the Somme, they are constrained to carry to market by boat. Boats and +skates, in fact, supply in that wooded Holland the only means of +locomotion. And thanks to its canals and its water, all in it is so fresh, +and so luxuriant, and so remarkably silent, that, while one is there, +there seems no place like the Spreewald in which to be thoroughly alone +with Nature. On a mound artificially raised upon one of these islands, at +Burg, once stood the castle of the great Wendish kings, whose sceptre is +supposed still to descend in secret from sire to son in a particular +family, known only to the best initiated of Wends. To this country more +specifically, together with some scores of distinctive water sprites (each +endowed with its own attribute), does Wendish mythology owe its numerous +legends about snakes wearing precious crowns, which on occasion they will +carelessly lay down on the grass, where, if luck should lead you that way, +you may seize them and so ensure to yourself untold riches--provided that +you can manage to get safely away. + +In the mountainous country about Bautzen and Loebau in Saxony, where the +scenery is fine, the air bracing, the soil mostly fat, nineteenth century +levelling has been far too long at work for race customs to have +maintained themselves altogether pure. There stand the ancient sacrificing +places of the Wends, the Czorneboh, sacred to the "black god," the +Bjeliboh, sacred to the "white" one--respectively, the Mounts Ebal and +Gerizim of Wendland--and many more. Wendish traditions and Wendish speech +are still very rife in those parts. And most of the brains of the race are +to be found in that well-cultivated district--the "Wendish Mozart," +Immisch, Hornigk, Pfuhl--all the literary coryphaei of the race. From +Bautzen, certainly, with its bipartite cathedral, in which Roman Catholics +and Protestants worship peaceably side by side, divided only by a grating, +it is quite impossible to dissociate Wendish traditions. That is to the +Upper Lusatians what Cottbus is to the lower--_mjesto_, "the town" _par +excellence_. There are very true Wends in those regions still. In a +village near Hochkirch the community managed for a long time successfully +to keep out Germans, refusing to sell any property otherwise than to a +Wend. But under the influence of advancing civilisation so many things +externally peculiar to the race have disappeared--their forests, and their +wooden buildings, much of their ancient dress; they live so much in the +great world, that they can scarcely be said to have kept up their +peculiar race-life in absolute purity. + +In the forest, on the other hand, where, in fact, dwell the bulk of the +not yet denationalised race, you still see Wends as they were many +centuries ago. It is a curious country, that easternmost stretch of what +once was the great forest of Miriquidi, almost touching Bautzen and +Goerlitz with its southernmost fringe, and extending northward far into the +March of Brandenburg. At first glance you would take it to be intolerably +prosaic. It spreads out at a dead level, flat as a rink, for miles and +miles away, far as the eye can see, with nothing to break the straight +sky-line--except it be clouds of dust whirled up by the wind from the +powdery surface of this German Sahara. The villages lie far apart, divided +by huge stretches of dark pine forest, much of it well-grown, not a +little, however, crippled and stunted. The roads are, often, mere tracks +of bottomless sand, along which toils the heavy coach at a foot pace, +drawn by three horses at least, and shaking the passengers inside to bits +by its rough motion across gnarled pine-roots which in the dry sand will +never rot. But look at it a little more closely, and you will find a +peculiar kind of wild romance resting upon it. If you take the trouble to +inquire, you will find that all this forest is peopled with elves. There +are stories and legends and superstitions attaching to almost every point. +Hid away among it are the sites of ancient Wendish villages--you may see +where stood the houses, you may trace where were the ridged fields, you +may feel, Wends will have it, by a creeping sensation coming over you as +you pass, where were the ancient grave-yards. Here is an ancient haunted +Celtic barrow. There is a cave in which are supposed to meet, at certain +uncanny hours, the ghosts of cruel Swedish invaders, barbarously murdered +in self-defence, or else Wendish warriors of much older time. Yonder, +again, is a mound beneath which lies a treasure. Here "spooks" this +spirit, there his fellow. By the Wends the forest is regarded with +peculiar awe. It is to them a personality, almost a deity, exacting, as +they will have it, every year at least one victim as a tribute or +sacrifice. Every now and then you will come upon a heap of dry branches, +on which you may observe that every passer-by religiously lays an +additional stick. That is a "dead man," a Wendish "cairn," raised up in +memory of some person who on that spot lost his life. Between the forest +and dry fields picturesquely stretch out sheets of water, some of them of +large size. And where there is water, the scenery at once assumes a hue of +freshness and verdure which is most relieving. Dull and bare as this +country generally is, no Switzer loves his own beautiful mountain home +more fervently, or admires it with greater appreciation, than do the Wends +their native patch of sand and peat and forest; nor does he miss it, when +away, with more painful home-sickness. + +In this flat tract of land you may see the German Slavs still living in +their traditional timber or clay-and-wattle houses, built in the orthodox +Wendish style--with a little round-roofed oven in front, and a draw-well +surmounted by a tall slanting beam, with a little garden, the +_Ausgedinge-haus_ for the pensioned-off late proprietor, the curious +barge-board, ornamented at either end with some crudely fantastical +carving (which was borrowed more than a thousand years ago from the early +Saxons), and with that most characteristic mark of all, the heavy arched +beam overshadowing the low windows. The house would be thatched, but that +the Prussian government absolutely forbids thatch for new roofing. The +entire settlement is laid out on the old nomad plan, reminding one of +times when for security villagers had to dwell close together. In the +middle of the village is the broad street or green, planted with high +trees, which, by their contrast with the surrounding pine forest, indicate +the site to the traveller a long way off. The Wends are devoted lovers of +trees, and in every truly Wendish village you are sure to find a large +lime tree, tall or stunted, but in every case spreading out its branches a +long distance sideways, and overshadowing a goodly space. That tree has +for generations back formed the centre of local life, and is venerated as +becomes a "sacred tree" of ancient date. Here young and old are wont to +assemble. Here, on Saturday afternoons in spring-time, gather the young +girls to blend their tuneful voices in sacred song heralding the advent of +Easter. Here used to meet the village council--which has in recent times, +for reasons of practical convenience, removed to the public-house--the +_gromada_, or _hromada_, summoned by means of a _kokula_ or _hejka_, that +is, a "crooked stick" or a hammer, sent round from house to house. Every +householder, large or small, has a right to be present and to take his +full part in the proceedings; for the Wends are no respecters of persons. +In the centre sits the _solta_, as president, supported by his "sidesmen," +the _starski_. And there are discussed the affairs of the little +community, heavily and solemnly at first, but with increasing animation as +the _palenza_, or _schnaps_, gets into people's heads. The most +interesting by far of these periodical meetings is the _gromada +hoklapnica_--the "gromada of brawls," that is--which is held in most +villages on St. Thomas' Day, in some on Epiphany Day, to transact, with +much pomp and circumstance, the business which has reference to the whole +year. The annual accounts are there settled. New members are received into +the commune, and if any have married, the Wendish marriage tax is levied +upon them. If there are any paupers in the parish, they are at that +meeting billeted in regular succession upon parishioners. Another +important matter to settle is the institution of paid parish officers, +none of whom are appointed for more than a year at a time. Watchman, +field-guard, blacksmith, road-mender, &c., all are expected to attend, cap +in hand, making their obeisance as before a Czar, thanking the _gromada_ +for past favours, which have secured them infinitesimal pay, and humbly +supplicating for new, which are, as a rule, granted with a rather pompous +and condescending grace. + +The village homesteads line the common or street on either side, standing +gable outwards, as every Wendish house ought to stand. From them radiate +in long narrow strips the fields, as originally divided, when the settlers +were still a semi-nomad race, when each member was scrupulously assigned +his own share of loam, clay, high land, low land, peat, sand, meadow--not +only in order that none might be better off than his neighbour, but also +that the workers in the fields might at all times make sure of +fellowship, to lighten their toil by chat and song, and by taking their +meals in company. During the whole of their history the Wends have shown +themselves devoted to agriculture. Their social system was based upon +agriculture; agriculture occupied their thoughts. Their legends represent +their ancient kings, and the saints of their hagiology, as engaged in +agriculture. And their girls, thinking of marriage, may be heard to sing: + + "No, such a suitor I will not have + Who writeth with a pen; + The husband for me is the man + Who plougheth with the plough." + +By intuitive instinct the Wends prefer cultivating light land, whereas the +Germans give the preference to strong. All their implements seem made for +light soil. Such are their wooden spades, tastefully edged with steel +which, though not perhaps as useful as our all-steel implements, look +incomparably more picturesque. And from light soil the Wends know better +than any race how to raise remunerative crops. They understand heavy land, +too--as witness their excellent tillage in Upper Lusatia, and above all in +that German "Land of Goshen," the Duchy of Altenburg. But on sand they are +most at home. And in the poorest districts you may make sure that wherever +you see a particularly fine patch of corn, or potatoes, or millet, or +buckwheat, that patch is peasant's land. + +The church, as a rule, is placed right in the middle of the village. The +Wends value their church. For all their stubborn paganism in early days, +against which St. Columban, and St. Emmeran, and St. Rupert and St. +Eckbert all contended in vain, the Wends have, since they were +christianized, always been a devoutly religious people, and at +present--barring a little drinking and a little stealing (which latter, +however, is strictly confined to fruit and timber, in respect of which two +commodities they hold communistic opinions)--they are exemplary +Christians. With their parsons they do not always stand on the best of +terms. But that is because some of the parsons, raised from peasant rank, +are, or were--for things have altered by the introduction of fixed +stipends--a little exacting in the matter of tithes and offerings, and the +demand that there should be many sponsors at a christening, for the sake +of the fees. There are some queer characters among that forest-clergy. One +that I knew was a good deal given to second-hand dealing. He attended +every sale within an accessible radius, to bring home a couch, or a whip, +or a pair of pole-chains, or a horse-cloth, for re-sale. His vicarage was +in truth a recognised second-hand goods store, in which every piece of +furniture kept continually changing. Another was greedy enough to claim a +seat at the Squire's table, at the great dinners given in connection with +the annual _battues_, as a matter of "prescription." A third drank so hard +that on one occasion he had to be propped up against the altar to enable +him to go on with the service. The most curious of all was the "chaplain" +of Muskau, who married his couples wholesale, on the Manchester "sort +yourselves" principle. Sometimes, when things went a little slowly, and he +grew impatient, it was _he_ who "sorted" the couples, and then +occasionally it would happen that, giving the word of command like a +Prussian corporal, he would "sort" them wrongly. They were far too well +drilled to discipline not to obey. But when the ceremony was over they +would lag sheepishly behind, scratching their heads and saying: "_Knes +duchowny_, _I_ should have married _that_ girl, and this girl should have +married _him_." However, the Church had spoken, and the cause was +finished. Married they were and married they must remain. Even to this the +patient Wends submitted; and, perhaps, they were all the happier for it. + +But all this has nothing to do with the Church proper, as distinct from +the parson. Their religious instinct appears born with the Wends. Religion +seems to be in all their thoughts and most of their acts. The invariable +greeting given is "God be with you." They talk habitually of "God's rain," +"God's sun," "God's crops," "God's bread"--to them "every good gift and +every perfect gift cometh from above." Worshippers returning from church +are hailed with a "Welcome from God's Word." When the sun goes down, it is +to "God" that it goes to rest. Whenever a bargain is struck, the appeal to +the other party is "God has seen it," or "God has heard it." And although +German jurisdiction, with its partiality for oaths slily extracted _after_ +a statement, has imported here and there a little false swearing, in the +main that ancient confirmation of the contract is still respected. In +Wendland the churches are filled as nowhere else in Germany, and however +prosily the parson may preach--as he generally does--nowhere is he more +attentively and devoutly listened to. In Wendland alone of all Germany +have I noticed that Protestants bow at the mention of the name of +"Jesus." Barring some ten thousand Roman Catholics in Saxony, the Wends +are all staunch Protestants of that nondescript Lutheran-Calvinist creed, +which the kings of Prussia have imposed upon their country. But not a few +of their beliefs and superstitions and legends hark back to older days. +They still keep _Corpus Christi_. In their religious legends, which are of +very ancient origin, the Virgin plays a prominent part--leading off, among +other things, a nocturnal dance, in which the angels all join, clad in +silken gowns with green wreaths on their heads, meeting for the purpose, +of all unsuitable places, in the church, and carefully locking the door +against human intruders. The Virgin's flight into Egypt is put into +strongly agricultural language, "Has a woman with a child passed this +way?" ask Herod's ruthless emissaries. "Aye," answers the truthful Wend, +"while I was sowing this barley." "You fool, that must have been three +months ago." In truth, by a miracle the barley has grown to maturity in +one brief hour. By this expedient the Virgin escapes. The Virgin spins; +the Virgin sews shirts; the Virgin does all that Wendish women are taught +to do. In Scripture-lore the Wends have their own localised versions of +the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; of the fight of St. George and the +Dragon; and an even more localised tale of the doings of King David. The +archangel Michael is made to fight for Budyssin against the Germans. Judas +Iscariot, according to their national tradition, comes to grief mainly +through gambling. The Saviour gave him thirty pieces of silver to buy +bread with. These he staked--tempted by Jews whom he saw gambling by the +wayside--on an unlucky card; and to recover them it was that he sold his +Master. To cap all this unorthodoxy, the Wends make the Creator call after +Judas that he is forgiven. But remorse drives him to hang himself, +notwithstanding. He tries a pine and a fir, but finds them too soft, so he +selects an aspen tree--hence the perpetual agitation of its leaves. One of +their peculiar legendary saints is Diter Thomas, who was so holy that he +could hang his clothes when going to bed--which he appears to have done in +the daytime--on a sunbeam. One day, however, at church this devout man +espied the Devil seated behind the altar, engaged in taking down on a +fresh cowhide the names of all whom he saw sleeping in church. There must +have been an unusually large number, for the cowhide proved too small, and +Satan was fain to stretch it by holding one end with his teeth and pulling +at the other with his hands. As it happened, his teeth let go, and back +went his head against the wall, with a bang which woke up all the +sleepers. This aroused in pious Thomas so much mirth that he forgot the +respect due to the holy place, and laughed aloud--in punishment for which +offence his grace departed from him, and he was thenceforth reduced to the +necessity of using pegs. For their regularity in attendance at church I +half suspect that the peculiar fondness of the Wends for singing is, in +not a small degree, accountable; and, it may be, also the attraction of a +little gossip after service, and the excitement of an occasional little +fair. + +The Wends would indeed not be Slavs if they were not engrossingly fond of +singing. Singing is, in fact, among young folk reckoned the principal +accomplishment. And they have a rich store of songs, set to exceedingly +melodious airs. They have them of all descriptions--legends and convivial +songs, martial songs, sacred hymns, short _roncka_ and _reje_ for the +dancing-room, and long elegies and ballads for the field, to shorten the +long summer's day out at work. They have their own curious instruments, +too, still in use--a three-stringed fiddle, a peculiar sort of hautboy, +and bagpipes of two different sizes, the larger one invariably ornamented +with a goat's head. To be a _kantorka_ (precentress) in church, or even in +a spinning-room, is a thing for a Wendish girl to be proud of, and to +remember to her old age. What a Wendish village would in winter time be +without those social spinning meetings it is difficult to imagine. To no +race do conviviality, mirth, harmless but boisterous amusement, seem so +much of a necessary of life. And none appears to be so thoroughly devoted +to the practice of homely household virtues. Spinning, poultry-breeding, +bee-keeping, gardening, coupled with singing, and nursing children, and +making model housewives--these are the things which occupy girls' +thoughts. At her very christening the baby-girl, borne back from church +"as a Christian," is made to find a spindle and a broom carefully laid in +the room, to act as charms in setting her infant thoughts in the right +direction. Her "sponsor's letter" is sure to contain some symbolic grains +of flax and millet. And a lover's principal gift to his sweetheart +invariably consists of a carefully turned and brightly-painted +"kriebatsche," an antiquated spindle and distaff that is, which is held +dear as a family Bible. Spinning, indeed, is among Wends a far more +important occupation than elsewhere. For men and women alike wear by +preference linen clothes, made of good, stout, substantial stuff, thick +enough to keep out the cold. In rural Germany a peasant girl is expected +as an indispensable preparative for marriage to knit her "tally" of +stockings. In Wendland the _trousseau_ consists all of spun linen. +Servants invariably receive part of their wages in flax. Spinning +accordingly is about the most important work to be accomplished in a +household. And as it lends itself capitally to sociability and mirth, the +Wendish maidens take to it with peculiar zest. The date for beginning +these gatherings throughout Lusatia is the 11th of October, St. Burkhard's +Day in the Wendish calendar. On that day the young unmarried women tell +themselves off into _psazas_, that is, spinning companies, consisting of +twelve at the outside, all of them girls of unblemished character. Among +no race on earth is purity more valued and insisted upon--in both +sexes--than among these poor forest Wends. Wherever corruption has crept +in, it is wholly due to the evil seductions of Germans, who have taken +advantage of the helplessness of Wendish girls when away on service. In a +Wendish village, to have made a _faux pas_ deprives a young fellow and +girl alike of their character for life. The girl must not sit with the +other girls in church when the young are catechised; she must not walk up +to the altar on high festivals; she must not join in the singing; and the +spinning companies will not have her. In olden time she was not even +allowed to dance. Young men going notoriously astray used to be punished +in their own way. + +Some time before the eventful eleventh, the _psazas_ assemble to decide +in whose house the spinning gatherings are to be held. In that house they +meet throughout the winter, spinning industriously with wheel or with +spindle from seven to ten, and requiting the housewife for her hospitality +with welcome assistance in various kinds of domestic work. On the first +evening the company quite expect to be treated to a good supper of roast +goose. How all the spinners, with the resident family, and those young +fellows who, of course, will from time to time pay the lasses a +visit--either in disguise or in their own proper garb--manage to meet, and +work, and lark, and dance, where they do, it is rather a problem to solve. +For many of the rooms are not large. They are plain, of course, in their +equipment, like all Wendish rooms (in which paint is allowed only on +chairs, all the other woodwork being subject to the scrubbing-brush), but +strikingly peculiar. Almost in one corner--but far enough away from the +wall to leave space for a little, cosy nook behind--stands the monster +tile stove, very adequately heated with peat or wood, and showing, +tolerably high up, a little open fireplace, in which burns a bright little +wood fire, rather to give light and look cheerful, than to diffuse warmth. +That is the vestal hearth of the Wendish house, without which there would +be no home. In another corner stands the solid, large deal table, with +painted chairs all round. The walls are all wainscoted with deal boards; +and round the whole room runs a narrow bench, similar to the _murka_, a +seat far more tempting, which encircles the stove. Nearly all the +household implements in use are neatly ranged about the walls, or else +placed on the floor--the _boberzge_, a peculiar plate rack; the _polca_, +to hold pots and spoons; and the _standa_, for water. There are baskets, +cans, tubs disposed about, and a towel hung up for show. This room grows +tolerably lively when the spinning company assemble, telling their tales, +playing their games, gossiping and chatting, but mostly singing. "Shall we +have any new songs?" is the first question invariably asked when the +_psaza_ constitutes itself. And if there is a new girl come into the +village, the inquiry at once passes round, "Does she know any new songs?" +Indeed, the _psazas_ serve as the principal singing classes for the young +women in the village. They are kept up throughout the year as special +choirs and sub-choirs, so to speak, singing together on all sacred and +mundane occasions where singing is required. Whenever "the boys" look in, +there is great fun. Sometimes one will dress up as a "bear," in a "skin" +made up of buckwheat straw; or else he will march in as a "stork," which +causes even greater amusement. Once at least in the season the funny man +of the set makes his appearance transformed into what, by a very wild +flight of imagination, may be taken for a pantomime horseman, with a horse +made up of four big sieves, hung over with a white sheet. Before calling +in a real, formal way, the boys are always careful to ask for leave, which +means that they will bring _piwo_ and _palenza_ (beer and spirits), the +girls revenging themselves by providing cake and coffee; and then the +entertainment will wind up with a merry dance. One very amusing occasion +is the _dopalowak_, or _dolamowak_, that is, the last spinning evening +before Christmas, when the boys sit in judgment upon the girls, and, +should they find one or other to be guilty of idleness, condemn her to +have her flax burnt or else her spindle broken, which penalties are, of +course, in every case commuted into a fine. This sort of thing goes on +till Ash Wednesday, when the "Spinte" is formally executed by stabbing, an +office which gives fresh scope to the facetiousness and agility of the +funny man. The night before is the social evening _par excellence_. It is +called _corny wecor_, "the black evening," because girls and boys alike +amuse themselves with blackening their faces like chimney-sweeps, and with +the very same material. The boys are allowed to take off the girls' caps +and let down their hair--the one occasion on which it is permitted to hang +loose. And there is rare merrymaking throughout the night. Indeed, all +Shrovetide is kept with becoming spirit, perhaps more boisterously than +among any other folk, and in true excitable Slav style. The boys go about +a-"zampering," and collecting contributions; the girls bring out their +little savings; and then the young people dance their fill, keeping it up +throughout Lent. Indeed, they dance pretty well all the year round-- + + "Njemski rady rejwam, + Serski hisce radsjo;" + +which may be rendered thus: + + "The German way I love to dance, + But the Wendish dance I dote on." + +To witness the _serska reja_--the only truly national dance preserved +among the Wends--at its best, you should see it danced on some festive +occasion, when the blood is up, out in the open air, on the grass plot, +where stands the sacred lime tree. There is plenty of room there. The very +sight of the green--say of the young birches planted around for decoration +at Whitsuntide or Midsummer--seems to fire the susceptible spirits. The +dancers throw themselves into the performance with a degree of vigour and +energy of which we Teutons have no notion. The _serska reja_ is a +pantomimic dance. Each couple has its own turn of leading. The cavalier +places his partner in front of him, facing her, and while the band keeps +playing, and the company singing one of those peculiarly stirring Wendish +dance tunes, he sets about adjuring her to grant him his desire, and dance +with him. She stands stock still, her arms hanging down flop by her side. +The cavalier capers about, shouts, strikes his hands against his thighs, +kneels, touches his heart--with the more dramatic force the better. At +length the lady gives way, and in token of consent raises her hand. +Briskly do the two spin round now for the space of eight bars, after which +for eight more they perform something like a cross between a _chassez +croisez_ and a jig, and so on for a little while, after which the whole +company join in the same performance. As a finish the cavalier "stands" +the band and his partner some liquor, and a merry round dance concludes +his turn of leading, to the accompaniment of a tune and song, _roncka_, +selected by himself. + +Lent is a season more particularly consecrated to song. Every Saturday +afternoon, and on some other days, the girls of the various _psazas_ +assemble under the village lime tree, the seat around which is +scrupulously reserved for them, to sing, amid the rapt attention of the +whole village, some of their delightful sacred songs peculiar to the +season. This singing reaches its climax on Easter night, when young +fellows and girls march round the village in company, warbling in front of +every door, in return for which they receive some refreshment. For a brief +time only do they suspend their music to fetch "Easter water" from the +brook, which must be done in perfect silence, and accordingly sets every +mischief-maker at work, teasing and splashing, and playing all sorts of +practical jokes, in order to extract a word of protest from the +water-fetching maidens. As the clock strikes midnight the young women form +in procession and march out to the fields, and all round the cultivated +area, singing Easter hymns till sunrise. It produces a peculiarly striking +effect to hear all this solemn singing--maybe, the same tunes ringing +across from an adjoining parish, as if echoed back by the woods--and to +see those tall forms solemnly moving about in the early gloaming, like +ancient priestesses of the Goddess Ostara. While the girls are singing, +the bell-ringers repair to the belfry (which in many villages stands +beside the church) to greet the Easter sun with the traditional +"Dreischlag," the "three-stroke," intended to indicate the Trinity. + +Lent sees the Wends perform another curious rite, of peculiar antiquarian +interest. The fourth Sunday in Lent is by established custom set apart for +the ceremony of "driving out Death"--in the shape of a straw figure decked +out with the last bridal veil used, which the bride is expected to give up +for the purpose. This poor figure is stoned to destruction to the cry of +_Lec hore, lec hore_, which may be borrowed from the Lutheran name for +the Sunday in question, _Laetare_. In some places the puppet is seated in +a bower of pine boughs, and so carried about amid much infantine +merriment, to be ultimately burnt or drowned. The interesting feature of +this rite is, that it does not really represent the Teuton "expulsion of +winter" so much as the much older ceremony of piously visiting the site on +which in Pagan times bodies used to be burnt after death. It is a heathen +All Saints' Day. + +I have no space here to refer to anything like all the curious Wendish +observances which ought to be of interest to folk-lorists: the lively +_kokot_, or harvest home, so called because under the last sheaf it was +usual to conceal a cock, _kokota lapac_ with legs and wings bound, which +fell to the lot of the reaper who found it; the _lobetanz_; the _kermusa_, +or _kirmess_, great and small, the merry children's feast on May Day; the +joyful observance of Whit Sunday and Midsummer; the peculiar children's +games, and so on. It is all so racy and peculiar, all so merry and yet so +modest in the expenditure made upon it, it all shows the Wends so much to +advantage as a contented, happy, cheerful people--perhaps a little +thoughtless, but in any case making the best of things under all +circumstances, and glad to show off their Slav finery, and throw +themselves into whatever enjoyment Providence has vouchsafed, with a zest +and spirit which is not to be excelled, and which I for one should be +sorry to see replaced by the more decorous, perhaps, but far less +picturesque hilarity of the prosy Prussians. If only the Wends did not +consume such unconscionable quantities of bad liquor! And if in their cups +they did not fall a-quarrelling quite so fiercely! It is all very well to +say, as they do in one of their proverbs, with truthful pithiness, that +"there is not a drop of spirit on which do not hang nine devils." But +their practice accords ill with this proverbial wisdom. The public-house +is to them the centre of social life. Every new-comer is formally +introduced and made to shake hands with the landlord. They have a good +deal of tavern etiquette which is rigidly adhered to, and the object of +which in all cases is, like George the Fourth's "whitewash," to squeeze an +additional glass of liquor into the day's allowance. Thus every guest is +entitled to a help from the landlord's jug, but in return, from every +glass served is the landlord entitled to the first sip. Thus again, after +a night's carousal, the guests always expect to be treated by the host to +a free liquor round, which is styled the _Swaty Jan_--that is, the Saint +John--meaning "the Evangelist," whose name is taken in vain because he is +said to have drunk out of a poisoned cup without hurt. All the invocation +in the world of the Saint will not, however, it is to be feared, make the +wretched _palenza_ of the Wends--raw potato fusel--innocuous. It is true, +their throats will stand a good deal. By way of experiment, I once gave an +old woman a glass of raw spirit as it issued from the still, indicating +about 82 per cent. of alcohol. She made a face certainly, but it did not +hurt her; and she would without much coaxing have taken another glass. + +This article has already grown so long that of the many interesting +customs connected with the burial of the dead and the honouring of their +memory I can only refer to one very peculiar and picturesque rite. Having +taken the dying man out of his bed, and placed him (for economy) on straw +(which is afterwards burnt) to die, put him in his coffin, with whatever +he is supposed to love best, to make him comfortable--and in addition a +few bugs, to clear the house of them--the mourners carry him out of the +house, taking care to bump him on the high threshold, and in due course +the coffin is rested for part of the funeral service in front of the +parsonage or the church. In providing for the comfort of the dead the +survivors show themselves remarkably thoughtful. No male Wend is buried +without his pipe, no married female without her bridal dress. Children are +given toys, and eggs, and apples. Money used to be put into the coffin, +but people found that it got stolen. So now the practice is restricted to +the very few Jews who are to be found among the Wends and who, it is +thought, cannot possibly be happy without money; and, with a degree of +consideration which to some people will appear excessive, some stones are +added, in order that they may have them "to throw at the Saviour." In +front of the church or parsonage the coffin is once more opened, and the +mourners, all clad in white--which is the Wendish colour for mourning--are +invited to have a last look at the body. Then follows the _Dobra noc_, a +quaint and strictly racial ceremony. The nearest relative of the dead, a +young person, putting a dense white veil over his or her head and body, is +placed at the back of the coffin, and from that place in brief words +answers on behalf of the dead such questions as affection may prompt near +friends and relatives to put. That done, the whole company join in the +melodious _Dobra noc_--wishing the dead one last "Good-night." After that, +the lid is once more screwed down and the coffin is lowered into the +grave. + +There are few things more picturesque, I ought to say, than a funeral +procession in the Spreewald, made up of boats gliding noiselessly along +one of those dark forest canals, having the coffin hung with white, and +all the mourners dressed in the same colour, the women wearing the +regulation white handkerchief across their mouths. The gloom around is not +the half-night of Styx; but the thought of Charon and his boat +instinctively occurs to one. The whole seems rather like a melancholy +vision, or dream, than a reality. + +Hard pressed as I am for space, I must find some to say, at any rate, just +a few words about Wendish marriage customs. For its gaiety, and noise, and +lavish hospitality, and protracted merriment, its finery and its curious +ways, the Wendish wedding has become proverbial throughout Germany. Were I +to detail all its quaint little touches, all its peculiar observances, +each one pregnant with peculiar mystic meaning, all its humours and all +its fun, I should have to give it an article by itself. It is a curious +mixture of ancient and modern superstition and Christianity, diplomacy and +warfare. The bride is still ostensibly carried off by force. Only a short +time ago the bridegroom and his men were required to wear swords in token +of warfare and conquest. But all the formal negotiation is done by +diplomacy--very cautiously, very carefully, as if one were feeling his +way. First comes an old woman, the _schotta_, to clear the ground. After +that the _druzba_, the best man, appears on the scene--to inquire about +pigs, or buckwheat, or millet, or whatever it may be, and incidentally +also about the lovely Hilzicka, whom his friend Janko is rather thinking +of paying his addresses to--the fact being all the while that long since +Janko and Hilzicka have, on the sly, arranged between themselves that they +are to be man and wife. But observe that in Wendland girls may propose as +well as men; and that the bridegroom, like the bride, wears his "little +wreath of rue"--_if he be an honest man_, in token of his virtue. The girl +and her parents visit the suitor's house quite unexpectedly. And there and +then only does the young lady openly decide. If she sits down in the +house, that means "Yes." And forthwith preparations are busily set on +foot. Custom requires that the bride should give up dancing and gaiety and +all that, leave off wearing red, and stitch away at her _trousseau_, while +her parents kill the fatted calf. Starve themselves as they will at other +times, at a wedding they must be liberal like _parvenus_. Towards this +hospitality, it is true, their friends and neighbours contribute, sending +butter and milk, and the like, just before the wedding, as well as making +presents of money and other articles to the young people at the feast +itself. But we have not yet got to that by a long way. The young man, too, +has his preparations to make. He has to send out the _braska_, the +"bidder," in his gay dress, to deliver invitations. How people would stare +in this country, were they to see a _braska_ making his rounds, with a +wreath on his hat, one or two coloured handkerchiefs dangling showily from +different parts of his coat, besides any quantity of gay ribbons and +tinsel, and a herald's staff covered with diminutive bunting! Then there +are the banns to be published, and on the Sunday of the second time of +asking, the bride and bridegroom alike are expected to attend the Holy +Communion, and afterwards to go through a regular examination--in Bible, +in Catechism, in reading--at the hands of the parson. By preference the +latter makes them read aloud the seventh chapter of the First Epistle to +the Corinthians. At the wedding itself, the ceremonial is so complicated +that the _braska_, the master of ceremonies, has to be specially trained +for his duties. There is a little farce first at the bride's house. The +family pretend to know nothing of what is coming; their doors and windows +are all closely barred, and the _braska_ is made to knock a long time +before the door is cautiously opened, with a gruff greeting which bids him +go away and not trouble peaceable folk. His demand for "a little shelter" +is only granted after much further parleying and incredulous inquiry about +the respectability of the intruding persons. When the bride is asked for, +an old woman is produced in her stead, next a little girl, then one or two +wrong persons more, till at last the true bride is brought forth in all +the splendour of a costume to which it is scarcely possible to do justice +in writing. As much cloth as will make up four ordinary gowns is folded +into one huge skirt. On the bride's neck hangs all conceivable finery of +pearls, and ribbons, and necklaces, and strings of silver coins--as much, +in fact, as the neck will carry. There is any amount of starched frilling +and collar above the shoulders; a close-fitting, blue silk bodice below; +and a high cap, something like a conjuror's--the _borta_, or bride's +cap--upon her head. Even her stockings are not of the ordinary make, but +knitted particularly large so as to have to be laid in folds. The wedding +party, driving off to church, preceded by at least six outriders, make as +big a clatter as pistol-firing, singing, shouting, thumping with sticks, +and discordant trumpeting will produce. On the road, and in church, a +number of little observances are prescribed. At the feast the bride, like +the bridegroom, has her male attendants, _swats_, whose duty it is, above +all things, to dance with her, should she want a partner. For this is the +last day of her dancing for life, except on Shrove Tuesdays, and, in some +Prussian parishes, by express order of the Government, on the Emperor's +birthday and the anniversary of Sedan. The bridegroom, on the other hand, +must not dance at the wedding, though he may afterwards. Like the bride, +he has his own _slonka_--his "old lady," that is--to serve him as guide, +philosopher and friend. Hospitality flows in unstinted streams. Sometimes +as many as two hundred persons sit down to the meals, and keep it up, +eating, drinking and dancing, for three days at least, sometimes for a +whole week at a stretch. It would be a gross breach of etiquette to leave +anything of the large portions served out on the table. Whatever cannot be +eaten must be carried home. Hence those waterproof pockets of phenomenal +size which, in olden days, Wendish parsons used to wear under their long +coat-tails, and into which, at gentlemen's houses, they used to deposit a +goodly store of sundry meats, poultry, pudding and _meringues_, to be +finally christened--surreptitiously, of course--with rather incongruous +affusions of gravy or soup, administered by the mischievous young +gentlemen of "the House," for the benefit of Frau Pastorin and her +children at home. Sunday and Tuesday are favourite days for a wedding. +Thursday is rigorously avoided. For two days the company feast at the +bride's house. Taking her to bed on the first night is a peculiar +ceremony. The young girls crowd around her in a close circle, and refuse +to let her go. The young lads do the same by the bridegroom. When, at +last, the two force an exit, they are formally received into similar +circles of married men and women severally. The bride is bereft of her +_borta_, and receives a _cjepc_, a married woman's cap, in its place. +After some more hocuspocus, the two are accompanied severally by the +_braska_ and the bride's _slonka_ into the bridal chamber, the bride +protesting all the time that she is "not yet her bridegroom's wife." The +_braska_ serves as valet to the bridegroom, the _slonka_ undresses the +bride. Then the _braska_ formally blesses the marriage-bed, and out walk +the two attendants to leave the young folk by themselves. Next morning the +bride appears as "wife," looking very demure, in a married woman's garb. +On that day the presents are given, amid many jokes--especially when it +comes to a cradle, or a baby's bath--from the _braska_ and the +_zwada_--the latter a sort of clown specially retained to amuse the bride, +who is expected to be terribly sad throughout. The sadder she is at the +wedding, the merrier, it is said, will she be in married life. There is +any amount of rather rough fun. On the third day, the company adjourn to +the house of the bridegroom's parents, where, according to an ancient +custom, the bride ought to go at once into the cowhouse, and upset a can +of water, "for luck." After that she is made to sit down to a meal, her +husband standing by, and waiting upon her. That accomplished, she should +carry a portion of meat to the poorest person in the village. A week +later, the young couple visit the bride's parents, and have a "young +wedding" _en famille_. + +I have said enough, I hope, to shew what an interestingly childlike, +happily disposed, curious and contented race those few surviving Wends +are. And they are so peaceful and loyal. Russian and Bohemian Pan-slavists +have tried all their blandishments upon them, to rouse them up to an +anti-German agitation. In 1866 the Czar, besides dispensing decorations, +sent 63 cwts. of inflammatory literature among them. It was all to no +purpose. Surely these quiet, harmless folk, fathers as they are of the +North German race, might have been spared that uncalled-for nagging and +worrying which has often been pointed against them from Berlin for purely +political purposes! In the day of their power they were more tolerant of +Germanism. They fought side by side with the Franks, fought even under +Frankish chieftains. Germany owes them a debt, and should at least, as it +may be hoped that she now will, let them die in peace. Death no doubt is +bound to come. It cannot be averted. But it is a death which one may well +view with regret. For with the Wends will die a faithfully preserved +specimen of very ancient Slav life, quite unique in its way, as +interesting a piece of history, archaeology and folk-lore as ever was met +with on the face of the globe. + + + + +VI.--VOLTAIRE AND KING STANISLAS.[9] + + +One can scarcely help wondering that among all the books written about +Voltaire and his varied experiences, there should be practically not one +which treats of that brief but eventful period during which, in company +with the "_sublime Emilie_," the great writer found himself the guest of +hospitable King Stanislas--"le philosophe-roi chez le roi-philosophe." To +Voltaire himself that was one of the most memorable episodes in his long +and changeful life. It left on his mind memories which lasted till death. +He showed this when, in 1757, looking about him for a peaceful haven of +rest, he fixed his eyes once more, as if instinctively, upon Luneville as +a place in which to spend the evening of his days. Stanislas would have +been only too thankful to receive him. Old and feeble, rapidly growing +blind and helpless, and reduced by ill-health and the desertion of his +Court to the poor resource of playing _tric-trac_--backgammon--in his +lonely afternoons, with such uncourtly _bourgeois_ as his messengers could +pick up in the town, the _faineant_ Duke would have hailed Voltaire's +presence, as he himself says, as a godsend. However, the _philosophe_ was +once more out of favour with Louis XV. Accordingly, the permission was +withheld, and the royal father-in-law found himself denied the small +solace which surely he might have looked for at the hand of his daughter's +husband. + +The biographical neglect of Voltaire's stay in Lorraine appears all the +more surprising since in Lorraine, almost alone of Voltaire's favourite +haunts, are there visible memorials left of his sojourn. Nowhere else is +anything preserved that could recall Voltaire. In Lorraine dragoons and +_piou-pious_ now tramp where in his day courtiers sauntered, and +nursemaids lounge where the first wits of the century made the air ring +with their _bon-mots_. Still, the stone buildings, at any rate, of +Luneville and Commercy have been allowed to stand, and French +destructiveness has spared some of the flower-beds that delighted +Voltaire. In that pretty "Bosquet" of Luneville you may walk where +Voltaire trod, where he rallied Madame de Boufflers on her "Magdalen's +tears," where Saint Lambert made sly appointments with Madame du +Chatelet--and with not a few other ladies as well. In the Palace you may +step into the upper room where Voltaire lived and wrote, and fought out +his battles with the bigot Alliot. You may walk into "le petit appartement +de la reine," on the ground-floor, which Stanislas good-naturedly gave up +to Madame du Chatelet for her confinement--and her death. There it was +that those impassioned scenes occurred of which every biographer of +Voltaire speaks, and there that the Marchioness's ring was found to tell +the mortifying tale of her unfaithfulness to her most devoted lover. You +may walk through that side-door through which, dazed with grief, the +stupefied philosopher stumbled; and sit on the low stone-step--one of a +short flight facing the town--on which he dropped in helpless despair, +"knocking his head against the pavement." In that hideously rococo church, +tawdrily gay with gew-gaw ornament, you may stand by the black marble +slab, still bare of any inscription, below which rest, rudely disturbed by +the rough mobs-men of the first Revolution, the decayed bones of the +_sublime_ but faithless _Emilie_. + +Barring his rather unnecessary grief over the threatened production of a +travestied _Semiramis_, there were for Voltaire no happier two years than +those which saw him, with one or two interruptions, King Stanislas' guest. +And to Stanislas, eager as he was to attach the great writer to his bright +little court, there could have been no more welcome rigour than that +which, at his daughter's instance, drove the leading spirit of the age +into temporary exile. Voltaire had paid his court a little too openly to +the powerful favourite. After that _cavagnole_ scandal at Fontainebleau, +neither he nor Madame du Chatelet stood for the time in the best of odours +at Court. Therefore, it probably required little persuasion on the part of +the two royal princesses, prompted by their revengeful mother, to prevail +upon Louis XV. in that one little square-rod of hallowed ground, over +which the power of the mighty Circe did not extend, their nursery, to +decree the banishment of the poet. Madame de Pompadour might have reversed +the judgment had she been given the chance; but she was not given it, and, +after all, Voltaire's exile did not make much difference to her. So the +philosopher and Emilie were allowed to pursue their cold winter's journey, +amid sundry break-downs and accidents, and prolonged involuntary +star-gazing in a frosty night, to that pretty little oasis in ugly +Champagne--a Lorrain _enclave_--in which stood the du Chatelets' castle. + +Stanislas did not allow the brilliant couple to remain long in their +uncongenial retirement. He was anxious not to be forestalled by Prussian +Frederick, who made wry faces enough on finding the preference over +himself and his famous Sans-souci given to the _prince bourgeois_ and his +_tabagie de Luneville_. Stanislas' great ambition was, to make his Court a +favoured seat of learning and letters. In his own, rather too +complimentary opinion, he was himself something of a _litterateur_. +Voltaire laughed pretty freely--behind the king's back--at his uncouth and +incorrect prose and at those long and limping verses _de onze a quatorze +pieds_, which the world has long since forgotten, as well it might. There +are some well-put thoughts to be found in the king's _Reflexions sur +divers sujets de morale_--for instance: "l'esprit est bien peu de chose +quand ce n'est que de l'esprit," to say nothing of his oft-quoted motto: +"malo periculosam libertatem quam quietam servitutem." But, at best his +writings, however carefully revised by Solignac--his answer to Rousseau, +and his _Oeuvres d'un Philosophe Bienfaisant_--are but ephemeral trash. +Really, Stanislas could not even speak or write French correctly. But +though he was nothing of a writer, and not much more of a wit, he knew +thoroughly how to appreciate talent and genius in others. And in a man +occupying nominally royal rank, placed at the head of a brilliant Court, +having a civil list corresponding in value to at least 6,000,000 francs in +the present day, and a pension list of perfectly amazing length in his +bestowal, such appreciation must mean something. + +To understand the life of the little world into which, in 1748, Voltaire +entered, we ought to remember what at that time Lorraine and its Court +were. Stanislas had not been put upon his ephemeral throne without a +definite object. To lodge the French king's penniless father-in-law, who +no doubt had to be maintained somewhere, in the Palace of Luneville, +instead of that of Meudon or of Blois, and to allow him to amuse himself +with playing at being king, was one thing. But very much more was required +of him. In 1737 France had, after toying for several centuries, with +greedy eyes and hungry tongue, with the precious morsel of Lorraine, at +length firmly and finally closed her jaws upon it. It was a bitter fate +for the duchy, in which France was detested; and the hardship was felt by +every one of its sons from the powerful "grands chevaux" down to the +humblest peasant. Of what French government meant, the Lorrains had had +more than one taste. They were sipping at the bitter cup at that very +time; they were having it raised daily to their lips, while that ablest of +French administrators, De la Galaiziere--a veritable French Bismarck, +hard-headed, hard-hearted, inexorably firm, and pitilessly exacting--was +loading them with _corvees_, with _vingtiemes_, with the burden of +conscription for the French army, plaguing them with high-handed judgments +and oppressive penalties, all of which ran directly counter to the +constitution which the nominal sovereign, Stanislas, had sworn to observe. +It was Galaiziere who was king, not Stanislas, the ornamental figure-head; +and under his stern rule all Lorraine cried out. + +Even courtly Saint Lambert, who, as a moneyless member of the _petite +noblesse_, with his mouth wide open for French favours, represented in +truth the least popular element in Lorrain Society, felt impelled by his +Muse to record his protest in verse: + + J'ai vu le magistrat qui regit la province + L'esclave de la Cour, et l'ennemi du prince, + Commander _la corvee_ a de tristes cantons, + Ou Ceres et la faim commandoient les moissons. + On avoit consume les grains de l'autre annee; + Et je crois voir encore la veuve infortunee, + Le debile orphelin, le vieillard epuise, + Se trainer, en pleurant, au travail impose. + Si quelques malheureux, languissants, hors d'haleine, + Cherchent un gazon frais, le bord de la fontaine, + Un piqueur inhumain les ramene aux travaux, + Ou leur vend a prix d'or un moment de repos. + +But there was no help for it. Kind-hearted Stanislas was caused many a +wretched hour by the incongruity of his position, which led his "subjects" +to appeal to him against the oppression of "his chancellor," as he +patronizingly called him who was in truth his master. He had begged Louis +to appoint a more humane and merciful man, but his prayer had proved of no +avail. + +Still, there was something which Stanislas could do. Affable, genial, +kind, free-handed to a fault, the stranger puppet-king--the originally +distrusted "Polonais"--might, in spite of all harsh government +administered in his name, by tact and liberality gain the personal +affections of his nominal subjects, and so in the character of a Lorrain +Prince discharge better than any one else that odious task of +un-Lorraining the Lorrains. All things considered, he earned his civil +list. + +French writers have very needlessly contended over the motives which led +Father Menoux, of all men, the King's Jesuit confessor, to urge Stanislas +to invite the great _philosophe_ to his Court. Although repeatedly +assailed on the score of its inherent improbability, Voltaire's own +version is doubtless the most plausible. One of the leading +characteristics of the Lorrain Court, as Voltaire knew it, was the sharp +division prevailing between French and Lorrains, Jesuits and +_philosophes_. By all his antecedents--by his rigidly Romanist education, +by the principles carefully instilled into him, first by his parents, +later by his wife--Stanislas was predisposed to take sides staunchly with +the Jesuits. A more devout Catholic was not to be found. The king made all +his household attend mass, appointed a special almoner for his +_gardes-du-corps_, and directed the kitchen-folk to select a monastery for +the scene of their daily devotions. In respect of offerings, the Church +bled him freely, and found him a willing victim. More especially during +the lifetime of his wife, that homely, very religious Catherine Opalinska +whose _bourgeois_ manners gave such great offence to the courtiers of +Versailles, the Jesuit faction had it all their own way. + +But when Voltaire came to the Court, Catherine had been nearly a year in +her grave. King Stanislas' immediate _entourage_, it is true, was still +wholly Jesuit--the French governor, Galaiziere; the King's _intendant_, +Alliot; his father-confessor, Menoux; his useful secretary, de Solignac; +Bathincourt, Thiange, and Madame de Grafigny's "Panpan," De Vaux. But +otherwise a decided change had come over the scene. The lady head of the +Court now was the peculiarly attractive Marquise de Boufflers, a declared +_philosophe_, and, in virtue of her birth, the powerful leader of the +Lorrain faction. She was a Beauvau, the daughter of that lovely Princesse +de Craon who had ruled the heart of the late Duke Leopold. Her husband +(who had not stood seriously in the way of her _amours_) was dead; and she +was therefore quite free to give herself up to her _liaison_ with +Stanislas, who had formally installed her in some of the best apartments +in the palace, in a suite adjoining his own, and handed over to her the +management of the Court. She must have been a remarkably fascinating +woman. We find Voltaire, in his courtly way, writing of her: + + Vos yeux sont beaux, mais votre ame est plus belle, + Vous etes simple et naturelle, + Et sans pretendre a rien, vous triomphez de tous. + Si vous eussiez vecu du temps de Gabrielle, + Je ne sais ce qu'on eut dit de vous, + Mais l'on n'aurait point parle d'elle. + +She is described as possessing a fine girlish figure, a peculiarly clear +and delicate complexion, exceptionally beautiful hair, and neat hands +(which made de Tressan enamoured of her "_comme un fou_") and, moreover, a +charming lightness and grace of movement and manner--endowments of nature +which scarcely needed a fine discriminating taste and more than average +intellectual powers to render effective. She sang, played, painted pastel, +and possessed an inexhaustible fund of tact and self-command. Whenever she +happened to be absent from the Court, de Tressan writes to Devaux, "Je me +meurs, je peris d'ennui. On ne joue point, la societe est decousue." Her +nickname at Court was "La Dame de Volupte," which, as is shown by the +following lines, composed by herself for her epitaph, she accepted +good-humouredly:-- + + Ci git, dans une paix profonde, + Cette Dame de Volupte, + Qui, pour plus grande surete, + Fit son paradis dans ce monde. + +To the priests her relations with Stanislas constituted a serious +stumbling-block, and many a lecture had the king to listen to from his +confessor, Menoux. He accepted it submissively, and even performed the +penances which on the score of Madame de Boufflers the Jesuit decreed. But +discard her he would not, on any consideration. Just as little, on the +other hand, would he discard the Jesuit, however good-humouredly he might +listen to Madame de Boufflers' rather violent abuse of him. + +Menoux was now trembling for his authority. Madame de Boufflers' +influence appeared to him to be growing too formidable. They were curious +relations which subsisted between Voltaire and the priest. With de Tressan +and other Academicians Menoux was at open and embittered feud. Voltaire +was more of a statesman. To their faces the two opponents invariably +professed the sincerest friendship and the warmest admiration. Even many +years after we find Voltaire, when writing to Menoux, declaring to him his +unaltered love and attachment, while at the same time paying the Abbe +delicate compliments on the score of his _esprit_: "Je voudrais que vous +m'aimassiez, car je vous aime." Behind their backs they called each other +names. Menoux was by no means a mere hierophantic prig or sacerdotal oaf. +Voltaire calls him "le plus intrigant et le plus hardi pretre que j'ai +jamais connu," and adds that he had "milked" Stanislas to the extent of a +full million. D'Almbert describes him as the type of a Court +divine--"habitue au meilleur monde," without any "rigidite +claustrale"--"homme d'infiniment d'esprit, fin, delicat, intelligent, +subtile, ayant heureusement cultive les lettres et en conservant les +graces et la fraicheur sans la moindre trace de pedanterie." Between him +and Boufflers there was continual warfare--above-ground and below-ground, +by open hostilities and by schemes and intrigues. It was with a view to +checkmating Boufflers, so Voltaire relates, that Menoux first suggested an +invitation to Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet to come to the Court. Madame +du Chatelet was to become the favourite's rival. To this theory French +writers object that, as du Chatelet was some years older than Boufflers, +not nearly as good-looking, certainly not _devote_, and another man's +property already, the scheme was absurd. In the result Menoux certainly +showed himself to have made a mistake; but that was owing to a +circumstance which neither he nor any one else could have foreseen. +Otherwise the scheme cannot be pronounced bad. To literary-minded +Stanislas, at his time of life, the intellectual graces of du Chatelet +might well balance the greater personal attractions of Boufflers. Besides, +Menoux did not look for an actual ally so much as for a rival to the +favourite. Even to lessen her absolute authority would be quite enough for +his purpose. He travelled all the way to Cirey to sound the two, and, +finding them willing, pressed their invitation upon Stanislas. + +Stanislas was, as Menoux had foreseen, only too eager to accept the +suggestion. He had had more than one taste of the pleasures of playing the +Maecenas. Montesquieu had been at his Court, working there at his _Esprit +des Lois_, and Madame de Grafigny, Helvetius, Henault, Maupertuis; and the +shy and retiring, but gifted Devaux was a fixture. However, Stanislas +wanted more. The only disappointment to Menoux was that he found the +invitation planned by himself actually issued by his rival, Madame de +Boufflers. It was, of course, accepted; and the beginning of 1748 saw +Voltaire and Madame du Chatelet safely arrived at Commercy. + +The Lorrain Court, always bright and gay, was at that time perhaps at its +very brightest. Stanislas, being permitted to play at being king, and +given ample pecuniary resources for doing so, played the game in good +earnest, with a due appreciation of showy externals, and with a +singularly happy grace. He had at his command an apparatus which any real +king might have envied. Here was Commercy, raised by Durand for the rich +and tasteful Prince de Vaudemont, the friend of our William III. and of +the elder Pretender, a blaze of magnificence, with gardens around it, and +sheets of water, and cascades, which cast Versailles into the shade. His +principal residence, however, one of the masterpieces designed by +Boffrand, was the Palace of Luneville. On seeing it Louis XV., surprised +at its grandeur, exclaimed, "Mais, mon pere, vous etes mieux loge que +moi." That was the + + salon magnifique, + Moitie Turc et moitie Chinois, + Ou le gout moderne et l'antique, + Sans se nuire, ont uni leurs lois, + +of which Voltaire writes--very incongruous, but decidedly splendid and +comfortable. Stanislas had added the delightful "Bosquet," laid out for +him by Gervais--overloading it, it is true, with kiosks and pavilions, +renaissance architecture and renaissance statuary, a hermitage, and +eventually with de Tressan's "Chartreuse." Like all persons of "taste" in +his day, Stanislas loved gimcrackery; he had utilized Francois Richard's +inventive genius for embellishing his principal residence with a unique +contrivance, admired by all Europe--an artificial rock with clockwork +machinery setting about eighty figures in motion. You may see a picture of +it still in the Nancy Museum. It must have been very ingenious and very +ugly. First, there was a miller's wife opening her casement-window to +answer some supposed caller; then two cronies appear on the scene, +engaging in a morning chat. A shepherd playing on his _musette_ leads his +flock, tinkling with bells, across the rock. Two wethers engage in a real +contest; a clockwork dog jumps up, barking, and separates them. There was +a forge, with hammers beating and sparks flying. An insatiable tippler +knocks at the closed door of the tavern, and is answered by the hostess +with a pailful of water emptied upon his head from a window above. In the +distance a pious hermit is seen telling his beads. And in the background +is discovered, standing on a balcony, to crown the whole, the Queen, +Catherine Opalinska, complacently looking down upon the scene, while two +sentries pace solemnly up and down, occasionally presenting arms. Such +were the toys of royalty in those days. Besides these two palaces +Stanislas had others--Chanteheux, well in view from Luneville, built in +the Polish style: "rien de plus superbe, rien de plus irregulier"; +Einville, flat and level, disparaged by the duc de Luynes, but +nevertheless grand, and possessing a "salon" famed for its magnificence +throughout Europe; and lastly the historic Malgrange, close to Nancy, the +"Sans souci" of Henri le Bon, in which Catherine of Bourbon had met the +Roman doctors of divinity, despatched to convert her, in learned +disputation, and sent them away discomfited, to the no little annoyance of +her brother, Henri IV. Beyond this, Here was at work beautifying Nancy in +the Louis-Quinze style, with statuary and balustrades, gorgeous gateways, +and magnificent arches; and he was building that handsome palace, which +now serves as the Commanding General's quarters, in which, in 1814, when +the Emperor of Austria, the last real Lorrain Duke's grandson, was lodged +there, was hatched the Absolutist conspiracy of the "Holy Alliance." + +The Court itself was modelled entirely on the pattern of the superior +Olympus of Versailles. "On ne croyait pas avoir change de lieu quand on +passait de Versailles a Luneville," says Voltaire. There was splendour, +display, lavishness, gilding everywhere--only in Lorraine there was an +absolute absence of etiquette and restraint--"ce qui completait le +charme." At Luneville the etiquette was of the slightest. From the other +palaces it was wholly banished--"me voici dans un beau palais, avec la +plus grande liberte (et pourtant chez un roi)--a la Cour sans etre +courtisan." "C'est un homme charmant que le roi Stanislas," Voltaire goes +on, in another letter. And not without cause. For Stanislas had placed +himself and all his household at the great writer's service. The king +entertained a perfect army of Court dignitaries, who had scarcely anything +to do for their salaries. He had his _gardes-du-corps_, resplendent in +scarlet and silver, his _cadets-gentilhommes_, who were practically pages, +half of them Lorrains, the remainder Poles, his regular pages, two of whom +must always stand by him, when playing at _tric-trac_, never moving a +muscle all the while. He had his pet dwarf "Bebe," decked out in military +dress, with a diminutive toy-coach and two goats to carry him about, and a +page in yellow and black always to wait upon him. This dwarf the king +would for a joke occasionally have baked up in a pie. Upon the pie being +opened Bebe would jump out, sword in hand, greatly frightening the ladies +and performing on the dinner-table a sort of war-dance, which was his +great accomplishment. Then he had his _musique_, headed by Anet, the +particular friend of Lulli, and with Baptiste, another friend of Lulli, +for "premier violon." The Lorrain court had always been noted for its +concerts, its theatricals and its _sauteries_--that was at the time the +fashionable name for balls. Adrienne Lecouvreur, Mademoiselle Clairon, +Fleury, had all come out first on the Lorrain stage. Luneville it was +which invented the "Cotillon," which has become so popular all over the +continent. Luneville also was the birthplace of the aristocratic and +graceful "Chapelet." And king Stanislas' orchestra enjoyed a European +reputation. "Do you pay your musicians better than I do?" asked Louis +Quinze of his father-in-law with a touch of jealousy. "No, my brother; but +I pay them for what they do, you pay them for what they know." There was +wit and fashion in abundance, and a galaxy of beauty--the royal-born +Princesse de Roche-sur-Yon, the Princesse de Luetzelburg, the fascinating +Princesse de Talmonde, Stanislas' cousin, who subdued the heart of our +young Pretender, the Countess of Leiningen, the Princesse de Craon, Madame +de Mirepoix, Madame de Chimay, and others. But what of all things +Stanislas prided himself upon most were his table and his kitchen. He was, +as I have said, fond of gimcracks and he was a great eater, though he +often concentrated all his eating upon one Gargantuan meal. The +dinner-hour never came round fast enough for him, which made Galaiziere +say, "If you go on like that, Sire, we shall shortly have you dining the +day before." His particular delight were quaint culinary refinements, +"imitations" and "surprises," which were only to be achieved with the +help of so accomplished a master as his supreme _chef de cuisine_ (there +were five other _chefs_ besides) Gilliers, the author of that unsurpassed +cookery-book, _Le cannameliste francais_. Every dining-table at Court was +a mechanical work of art. Touch a spring, when the cloth was removed, and +there would start up a magnificent _surtout_--there were some measuring +five feet by three--a silversmith's _chef d'oeuvre_, covered with rocks, +and castles, and trees, and statuary, a swan spouting water at a beautiful +Leda, and the like. And between these ornaments was set out a rich array +of dessert, likewise so shaped as to represent every variety of figures, +like Dresden China. One year, when all the fruit failed--I believe it was +while Voltaire was in Lorraine, in 1749, which was a year of unparalleled +distress--Gilliers kept the Court supplied with a continual succession of +imitation fruit, which did service for real plums and peaches. Stanislas +had introduced such "bizarreries septentrionales" as raw _choucroute_ and +unsavoury messes of meat and fruit, and imitation _plongeon_ (great +northern diver), produced by plucking a goose alive, beating it to death +with rods, and preparing it in a peculiar way. A turkey treated in the +same manner found itself transformed into a sham capercailzie. But the +_chefs d'oeuvre_ were Gilliers' "surprises," prepared after much thought, +to which Stanislas contributed his share. Voltaire makes out that "bread +and wine"--which he did not always get--would have been amply sufficient +for his modest wants; but what we hear of the Lorrain Court shows him to +have been by no means indifferent to the products of Gillier's inimitable +_cuisine_. We read of Voltaire's eyes glistening with delight when, after +the removal of the cloth, what looked like a ham was brought upon the +table, and a truffled tongue. The ham turned out to be a confectionery +made up of strawberry preserve and whipped cream, _pane_ with macaroons; +the tongue something of the same sort, truffled with chocolate. I must not +forget the coffee, to which Voltaire, like most great writers, was +devoted. Swift declared that he could not write unless he had "his coffee +twice a week." Voltaire consumed from six to eight cups at a +sitting--which is nothing compared with the performance of Delille, who, +to keep off the megrim, swallowed twenty. Stanislas employed a special +_chef du cafe_, La Veuve Christian, who was responsible for its quality. +Then, there was the wine, Stanislas' special hobby. Of course, he had all +the Lorrain _crus_. The best of these, that grown on the famous Cote de +Malzeville, close to Nancy, he had made sure of by bespeaking the entire +produce in advance for his lifetime, at twelve francs the "measure." His +peculiar pride, however, was his Tokay. Every year his predecessor, +Francis, become Emperor of Germany, sent him a large cask, escorted all +the way by a guard of Austrian grenadiers. As soon as ever that cask +arrived, Stanislas set personally to work. What with drugs, and syrups, +and sugar, and other wine, he manufactured out of one cask about ten, +which he drew off into bottles specially made for the purpose. Some he +kept for his own use at dessert. The larger portion he distributed among +his friends, who every one of them becomingly declared upon their oath +that better Tokay they had never tasted. + +But there were better things to entertain the Lorrain Court. There were +fetes; there were theatricals--at some of which Voltaire and du Chatelet +performed in person, Voltaire as the "Assesseur" in _L'Etourderie_, du +Chatelet as "Isse"; there was brilliant conversation, music, everything +that money could buy and good company produce. And Voltaire was the feted +of all. "Voltaire etait dieu a la Cour de Stanislas," says Capefigue. He +could do as he liked--sleep, wake, work, mix with the company, stroll +about alone--without any restraint; the king and all were at his beck, all +eager for his every word, taking everything from him in the best part, +appreciating, admiring, worshipping. His plays were put upon the stage. He +was allowed to drill the actors at his pleasure. In this way, _Le +Glorieux_ was produced with great pomp; also _Nanine_, _Brutus_, _Merope_, +and _Zaire_, the last-named, for a novelty, by a troupe of children. +Whatever he wrote, he could make sure that he would have an attentive +audience of illustrious personages to hear him read out. + + Je coule ici mes heureux jours, + Dans la plus tranquille des Cours, + Sans intrigue, sans jalousie, + Aupres d'un roi sans courtisans, + Pres de Boufflers et d'Emilie; + Je les vois et je les entends, + Il faut bien que je fasse envie. + +If Voltaire was "god," Madame du Chatelet was "goddess"--waited upon, +petted, having her every wish and every whim studied and gratified. There +could seemingly be no more congenial, mutually appreciative group of +persons than Stanislas and Voltaire, the Marquise de Boufflers and the +Marquise du Chatelet. + +Stanislas was then already an oldish man--according to one of his +biographers, Abbe Aubert, sixty-six; according to another, Abbe Proyart, +seventy-one. He was not quite the robust hero that he had been when he +accompanied Charles XII. on his trying ride to Bender, and shared rough +camp-life with Mazeppa. When, in 1744, Charles Alexander of Lorraine +crossed the Rhine at the head of 80,000 Austrians, and sent out manifestos +which gladdened his countrymen's hearts, proclaiming that he was coming to +take possession of the old Duchy--when signal-fires blazed on every +hilltop of the Vosges to bid him welcome, and all Lorraine was throbbing +with patriotic excitement; when Galaiziere mustered what scratch forces he +could improvise for defence, and dragged the twelve ornamental pieces of +cannon out of the Luneville Park to point against the foe--then Stanislas, +remembering his age, had discreetly retired, in a sad state of tremor, +behind the safe walls of Nancy. But in 1748 he was at any rate still hale +and hearty, and bore the weight of his years with an easy grace. He +managed to gallop to the Malgrange at a pace which left all his younger +companions far behind. He is described as of winning manners, rather +majestic in figure and bearing, of an engaging countenance, exceedingly +good-natured and affable. It was said that "il ne savait pas hair." "Je ne +veux pas," he declared when multiplying charities and hospitals, "qu'il y +ait un genre de maladie dont mes sujets pauvres ne puissent se faire +traiter gratuitement." Among such "maladies" he included "the law"--for he +paid advocates to give gratuitous advice to the poor. + +Voltaire is described as about at his best at that period. The air of +Lorraine is said to have suited him particularly well. He was just turned +fifty--a little too old, as Madame du Chatelet was cruel enough to inform +him, to act the part of an ardent lover, but appearing to less exacting +persons still in the very vigour of manhood. "Apres une vie sobre, reglee, +sagement laborieuse," he is represented as "well preserved"--slim, +straight, upright, of a good bearing, with a well-shaped leg and a neat +little foot. His features, we know, were wanting in regularity; but they +wore a benevolent and pleasing expression. His greatest charm is said to +have lain in his brilliant and expressive eyes, which seemed by their play +to be ever anticipating the action of his lips. His mind certainly was +still young, and so were his tastes. He is described as a most fastidious +dandy, _irreprochablement poudre et parfume_, affecting clothes of the +latest cut and richly embroidered with gold. To his factotum at Paris, +Abbe Moussinot, he writes from Luneville: "Send me some diamond buckles +for shoes or garters, twenty pounds of hair-powder, twenty pounds of +scent, a bottle of essence of jessamine, two 'enormous' pots of pomatum _a +la fleur d'orange_, two powder puffs, two embroidered vests,"--&c. He was, +moreover, an accomplished courtier. Properly to ingratiate himself with +his new host, he made his appearance at Commercy with a complimentary copy +of his _Henriade_ in his hand, on the flyleaf of which were penned these +lines: + + Le ciel, comme Henri, voulut vous eprouver: + La bonte, la valeur a tous deux fut commune, + Mais mon heros fit changer la fortune + Que votre vertu sut braver. + +Of Madame du Chatelet's appearance we have two hopelessly irreconcilable +accounts. She was certainly past forty-two; if her ill-natured cousin, the +Marquise de Crequi, speaks truly (and she refers doubters to the parish +register of St. Roch), she was even five years more. Voltaire's portrait +of her, painted with the brush of admiration, is probably more +complimentary than strictly truthful. Madame du Deffand limns her in very +different lines:--"Une femme grande et seche, une maitresse d'ecole sans +hanches, la poitrine etroite, et sur la poitrine une petite mappe-monde +perdue dans l'espace, de gros bras trop courts pour ses passions, des +pieds de grue, une tete d'oiseau de nuit, le nez pointu, deux petits yeux +verts de mer et verts de terre, le teint noir et rouge, la bouche plate et +les dents clair-semees." This hideous portraiture, it is true, Sainte +Beuve protests against as a "page plus amerement satirique" than any to be +found in French literature. But Madame de Crequi has even worse to say of +her cousin, adding, by way of further embellishment, "des pieds terribles, +et des mains formidables"--let alone that, if Emilie was "une merveille de +force," she was also at the same time "un prodige de gaucherie." "Voila la +belle Emilie!" Even Voltaire speaks of her "main d'encre encore salie." +However, everybody agrees in praising the grace of her manner, the +remarkably attractive play of her expressive eyes--Saint Lambert calls her +"la brune a l'oeil fripon"--and her peculiar skill in becomingly dressing +her dark hair. She spoke with engaging animation and quickly--"comme moi +quand je fais la francaise," says Madame de Grafigny (who was always proud +of being a Lorraine)--"comme un ange," she completes the sentence. If +during the day, while wholly engrossed upon her _Newton_, Emilie showed a +little too much of the pedant, according to the same lady's testimony--"le +soir elle est charmante." + +The advent of the brilliant couple from Cirey, it need not be stated, +added further strength to the _philosophe_ party. Abbe Menoux found out +that he had reckoned without his host. Between the two Marchionesses, De +Boufflers and du Chatelet, in the place of the expected jealousy and +rivalry, there proved to be nothing but sincere, close, and demonstrative +friendship. To some extent Madame du Chatelet's amiability towards the +Duke's favourite was a piece of diplomacy. She had not come into Lorraine +without a very material object in view. Her husband was not as well off as +either he or she might have wished; and, although in other matters she +showed herself very indifferent to the dull "_bonhomme_"--that is what she +used to call him--in matters of money she thoroughly supported his +interest. As in some respect a vassal of the Duke of Lorraine, and a +member of one of those four distinguished families which were known in +Lorraine as "Les grands Chevaux"--the Lignivilles, the Lenoncourts, the +Haraucourts and the du Chatelets--she considered that her husband had +something like a claim upon king Stanislas. One of King Stanislas' best +pieces of patronage, the post of _grand marechal des maisons_, worth 2,000 +_ecus_ a year, had at the time fallen vacant, and for her husband _la +belle Emilie_ resolved to secure it. It cost her a tough struggle, for +there was a formidable rival in the field in the person of Berchenyi, a +Hungarian, and one of the King's old favourites. However, her woman's +persistence triumphed in the end. Apart from such cupboard love, the two +women, both of them possessing _esprit_, both born courtiers, and both, +moreover, sharing a sublime contempt for the prosaic rules of what has +become known as the "Nonconformist Conscience," seemed thoroughly made for +one another. And their alliance told upon the Court. The Jesuits became +alarmed. Menoux put himself upon his defence, and threw himself into the +contest, more particularly with Voltaire, with a degree of vigour and +energy which taxed all the combative power of his opponent. Others might +eye the infidel askance and profess a holy horror of the opinions of one +whom Heaven was fully expected some day to punish in its own way. There is +an amusing anecdote of an unexpected encounter between Madame Alliot, the +wife of the "Jesuit" _intendant_, and Voltaire, both of whom rushed for +shelter, in a sudden and exceptionally violent storm, under the same tree. +At first the lady shrank from the atheist as from an unclean thing. The +rain, however, was inexorable. She revenged herself by preaching to the +infidel, attributing the entire displeasure of Heaven, as evidenced in +that fearful storm, to his unbelief. Voltaire, it is said, not feeling +quite sure of his ground while lightnings were flashing, and in no sort of +mood to play the Ajax, contented himself with meekly pleading that he had +"written very much more that was good of Him to whom the lady referred +than the lady herself could ever say in her whole life." Such harmless +little hits the _philosophe_ had now and then to put up with; but for +serious fighting few besides Menoux had any stomach. Devaux (Panpan), +however "devot," was disarmed by being--quite on the sly, but no less +ardently--one of Madame de Boufflers' chosen admirers. Galaiziere was +taken up with other things. Solignac was too much of a dependent. "Mon +Dieu" Choiseul did not carry sufficient weight. There was, indeed, another +Abbe at Court, who might have been expected to help: Porquet, who became +the Duke's almoner, a most amusing person in a passive way. But he was by +no means cut out for a champion. Besides, being tutor to the young de +Boufflers, he was scarcely a free agent. He himself describes himself as +an "homme empaille." When first appointed almoner, and called upon to say +grace, he found that he had quite forgotten his Benedicite. Stanislas made +him occasionally read to him out of the Bible, with the result that, +half-dozing over the sacred page, he fell into mis-readings such as this: +"Dieu apparut en singe a Jacob." "Comment," interrupted the Duke, "c'est +'en songe' que vous voulez dire!" "Eh, Sire, tout n'est-il pas possible a +la puissance de Dieu?" + +There was one sturdy supporter of Catholicism, however, who never flinched +from the fight: that was Alliot, the Duke's _intendant_, who, by virtue of +his office, had it in his power to make his dislike sharply felt. With +what abhorrence he regarded the infidel guest, for whom he had to cater, +we may learn from the contemporary records of his clerical allies, +narratives which do not ordinarily come under the notice of persons +reading about Voltaire. One can scarcely help drawing the inference that +King Stanislas, with all his goodness and all his affected devotion to +_periculosa libertas_, was a little bit of a "Mr. Facing-both-ways," using +very different arguments in different companies--a Pharisee to the +Pharisees, a _philosophe_ to the _philosophes_. Only thus could it come +about that we have such extraordinary stories, altogether inconsistent +with known facts, vouched for on the authority of reverend divines like +Abbe Aubert and Abbe Proyart. "On vit quelquefois," says Abbe Proyart, "a +la Cour du roi de Pologne certains sujets peu dignes de sa confiance, et +le Prince les connoissoit; mais il trouvoit dans sa religion meme des +motifs de ne pas les eloigner." It was represented to him (by Alliot) that +Voltaire "faisoit l'hypocrite." "C'est lui meme, et non pas moi qu'il fait +dupe," replied the king. "Son hypocrisie du moins est un hommage qu'il +rend a la vertu. Et ne vaut-il pas mieux que nous le voyions hypocrite ici +que scandaleux ailleurs?" But "le vrai sage," the Abbe goes on, found +himself compelled at last to dismiss "le faux philosphe, qui commencoit a +repandre a sa Cour le poison de ses dangereuses maximes." Under this +clerical gloss the well-known story of Alliot stopping Voltaire's supply +of food and candles assumes a totally new shape. "Ce ne fut pas une petite +affaire que d'obliger Voltaire a sortir du chateau de Luneville." In vain +did the king treat his guest with marked coldness; the philosopher would +not take the hint. In his predicament Stanislas appealed to the +_intendant_ for advice. "Sire," replies Alliot, "_hoc genus daemoniorum non +ejicitur nisi in oratione et jejunio_," which means, he explains, that +"pour se debarrasser de pareilles pestes," having "prayed" them to go +without avail, he should now enforce a "fast," which would certainly drive +them out of the place. Stanislas is alleged to have fallen in with the +Jesuit's counsels; hence that open tiff with Alliot over the stoppage of +provisions, which made Voltaire complain that he had not been allowed +"bread, wine and candles." In truth, of course, all this clerical story is +pure invention. Of the stopping of the provisions Stanislas knew nothing +till advised by Voltaire, when he quickly set the matter right. + +What with feasting, working, acting, dancing, travelling, the time passed +most pleasantly. "En verite," writes Voltaire to the Countess D'Argental, +"ce sejourci est delicieux; c'est un chateau enchante dont le maitre fait +les honneurs. Je crois que Madame du Chatelet passerait ici sa vie." +Sometimes at Commercy, sometimes at the Malgrange, most generally at +Luneville, with visitors coming and going, discussions raised, attentions +being paid this side and that, gallantry, billiards, _tric-trac_, +_lansquenet_, _comete_ (which was a great favourite), marionettes, fancy +balls, time could hang heavily on no one's hands. "On a de tout ici, hors +du temps." Madame du Chatelet, writing till five o'clock in the morning, +though she rose not later than nine, worked hard at her translation of +_Newton_, which Voltaire cried up as a masterpiece--more particularly the +preface. Whenever she found herself at fault, she had a splendidly +fitted-up astronomical cabinet, kept up by Stanislas, to fall back upon, a +cabinet which, says Voltaire, "n'a pas son pareil en France." Voltaire +himself carried on a brisk correspondence with the Argentals, with +Frederick the Great, with his friend Falkener in Wandsworth, and with many +more, and worked at his history "de cette maudite guerre," at the _Siecle +de Louis XIV._, at _Catilina_, and so on, with the easy industry which +comes from comfort and absolute absence of restraint amid agreeable +surroundings. To ingratiate himself the more with Madame de Boufflers, he +wrote _La Femme qui a raison_. He acted and he criticized. He performed +with a magic lantern, to the great amusement of the Court; and at masked +balls he got himself up, sometimes as a "wild man," sometimes as an +ancient augur. He was sorely troubled when threatened with a performance +in Paris of a travesty of _Semiramis_. Then he lost some manuscripts. +Then, again, Menoux frightened him with a tale that _Le Mondain_ and _Le +Portatif_, published at Amsterdam, had both been in France traced to his +pen. Among the visitors who in the second year of his stay came to enliven +the Court was our Young Pretender--over whose misfortunes Voltaire had +pathetically lamented before King Stanislas--and Prince Cantacuzene. The +Pretender's cause Voltaire had espoused with fervid warmth. The news of +his arrest in Paris arrived at Luneville at the very moment when he was +delighting the Lorrain Court with reading out his just completed chapter +of _Le Siecle de Louis XIV._, treating of the Stuarts. "O ciel!" he +exclaimed, "est-il possible que le roi souffre cet affront et que sa +gloire subisse une tache que toute l'eau de la Seine ne saurait laver?" +"Que les hommes prives," he wrote later, "qui se plaignent de leurs +infortunes jettent leurs yeux sur ce prince et sur ses ancetres." + +Several times he left Lorraine for a brief time, going with Madame du +Chatelet to Cirey, to Chalons, and to Paris. One visit he paid to Paris by +himself, to see _Semiramis_ put on the stage. He came back in a pitiable +state, the account of which in Longchamp's journal reads comical enough. +"Il est vrai que j'ai ete malade," he writes later, "mais il y a plaisir a +l'etre chez le roi de Pologne; il n'y a personne assurement qui ait plus +soin de ses malades que lui. On ne peut pas etre meilleur roi et meilleur +homme." One would think not. Voltaire was petted like an invalid child. He +had but to send word that he wished to see Stanislas, to bring the king to +his bedside. When he found himself "malingre, bon a rien qu' a perdre ses +regards vers la Voge," he was taken out to Chanteheux, and made thoroughly +comfortable there, where he could best indulge in the idle pleasure of +contemplating the mountains. Meanwhile Madame du Chatelet had been to +Plombieres with Madame de Boufflers, and had come home just as much +disgusted with the place as Voltaire himself had been nine or ten years +before. Then the gay Court reassembled, and there was the same life, the +same succession of pleasures, the same effusion of wit and raillery. +Gilliers invented new dishes. King Stanislas exhibited his indifferent +pastels. Madame de Boufflers played the harp, and courtiers with voices +sang to her accompaniment. Under Voltaire's inspiration, all the Court +turned _litterateur_ and engaged in versifying. Stanislas took up his pen +once more and wrote, among other things, _Le Philosophe +Chretien_--horrifying thereby his daughter, the Queen of France, who +persuaded herself that in the book she discerned the malignant teaching of +the infidel Voltaire. Madame de Boufflers wrote; Saint Lambert composed +fresh ditties; Devaux grew industrious; even Galaiziere found himself +impressed by the lyric Muse. Every courtier mounted his own little Pegasus +and made an attempt to produce something witty, or clever, or at least +readable. Luneville became a modern Athens. + +But there was a snake in the grass. One of the pleasantest features of the +remarkably sociable life carried on by the brilliant company assembled +under the roof of Stanislas, while at Luneville and at Commercy, were +those merry nocturnal gatherings held as soon as the king had retired to +rest--which he did punctually at ten o'clock, without ever troubling the +company, in spite of his jealousy, with an unexpected reappearance. Then +began Madame de Boufflers' reign in good earnest; and to the good cheer of +a choice little supper, to which often an exciting game of _comete_ or of +_cavagnole_ added a fresh delight, was summoned, by means of a lighted +candle placed in a particular window, a new guest, whom Stanislas' +jealousy would not otherwise tolerate in the palace. This guest was the +young and handsome Saint Lambert, a captain in the Duke of Lorraine's +Guards, the cynosure of the ladies' world, of whom it was said that no +fair heart to which he seriously laid siege could resist him. His muse had +not yet taken the frigid turn which eventually produced those dull and +chilling _Seasons_, a poem in which no one will now detect any merit, +though Voltaire praised it up to the skies, and French contemporaries +declared that the poet had surpassed Thomson. But he dabbled very neatly +in little ditties, _vers d'occasion_, and the like, some of them rather +light and pretty, though not of the most perfect style. Voltaire professes +to regard Saint Lambert as a _terrible eleve_, of whose poetry he owns +himself "jealous." "Il prend un pen ma tournure et l'embellit--j'espere +que la posterite m'en remerciera." Posterity has done nothing of the +kind. In matters of courtship Saint Lambert resembled the "_papillon +libertin_" sketched by himself in one of his prettiest _pieces +fugitives_:-- + + Plus pressant qu'amoureux, plus galant que fidele, + De la rose coquette allez baiser le sein. + D'aimer et de changer faites-vous une loi: + A ces douces erreurs consacrez votre vie. + +Neither Society nor History would ever have known him, nor have detected +any talent in him, had it not been his fortune to dispossess his two great +contemporaries, Voltaire and Rousseau, successively of their mistresses, +conquering the heart, first of Madame du Chatelet, and later that of +Madame de Houdetot. Madame de Houdetot and he turned out to be really +congenial spirits. For Madame du Chatelet his own conduct shows that he +did not really care--as how could a young man of thirty-one for a woman of +forty-two or else forty-seven, who had been some years a grandmother? Her +letters are full of impassioned professions of affection, impatient +longings for his presence, reproaches for his indifference. On his side it +was all a question of vanity. It flattered him to think that he had +eclipsed the great genius of the age in the affections of a woman of whom +all the polite world was talking. What she was he knew well enough. More +than once had she tasted of the forbidden fruit. Voltaire's _Epitre a la +Calomnie_ had not whitewashed the Magdalen who had had relations +successively with Guebriant, with Richelieu, and with Voltaire. Of +Voltaire's overstrained praise of her assumed modesty Saint Lambert +himself writes:-- + + De cette tendre Courtisane + Il faisait presque une Susanne. + +But what could have induced Madame du Chatelet to engage in this +conspiracy of deceit all round--deceit on her part towards Voltaire, +deceit on Saint Lambert's part towards both Voltaire (with whom he was not +then on terms of intimacy) and Madame de Boufflers (with whom he had a +standing _liaison_)? It was in Madame de Boufflers' drawing-room, of all +places, that the courtship was most actively carried on. Her gilt-framed +harp, we hear, served as a letter-box for the lovers. There was a slit in +it just of a convenient size to hold the letters, which passed daily. Of +Madame du Chatelet's passion there could be no doubt. She threw herself +into the _amour_ with the fervour of a girl of sixteen. She sent her lover +dainty _billets-doux_ written on pink and blue-edged, fringed, and scented +paper; declared that she could not live two days without hearing from him, +when he was away; appointed _rendez-vous_ in the "Bosquet"--watched and +waited for him. It seems ridiculous in a grandmother; but she was not the +first woman of her age to go wrong. + +Clogenson will have it that the attachment sprang up some years +before--that Madame du Chatelet became annoyed at Voltaire's long absence +at the Court of King Frederick, and looked out for a new lover. We know, +however, that Emilie and Saint Lambert met for the first time at the +Lorrain Court in 1748, when Voltaire had long been back from Berlin, and +was devoting himself to his lady with an assiduity which could not be +excelled. Besides, we know--from correspondence quite recently come to +light--that as late as 1744 the relations between Voltaire and Emilie were +still quite unclouded. The miniature portrait of Voltaire, which she wore +so long secretly in her ring, and which was after her death found to have +been replaced by one of Saint Lambert, was painted in 1744. In February of +that year she writes to Abbe Moussinot: "Je vous laisse la choix du +peintre, et je ne le trouverai pas cher, quoiqu'il puisse couter." That +does not sound like pining for a fresh lover. Evidently the later +attachment dated only from 1748, when she first became personally +acquainted with Saint Lambert; and, as the late M. Meaume puts it, "threw +herself at his head." There is no need to look very far for an +explanation. Emilie herself is perfectly outspoken about it. The +temptation came. She had yielded so often that she had not sufficient +virtue left to resist. The odd part of the business is, that Voltaire so +readily forgave her; that he continued to dote upon her, to look upon her +as half of his own self; and that he grew fast and admiring friends, +almost _in consequence_ of the betrayal, with his betrayer, Saint Lambert. +Many years after, Saint Lambert very naively set forth his own views on +the proper conduct of friends in matters of this kind in his _Conte +Iroquois_. Voltaire accepted that not very chivalrous theory readily, and +contented himself with protesting--"O ciel! voila bien les femmes! J'en +avais ote Richelieu, Saint Lambert m'a expulse: cela est dans l'ordre, un +clou chasse l'autre." + +Growing poetic, he says: + + "Dans ces vallons et dans ces bois, + Les fleurs dont Horace autrefois + Faisait des bouquets pour Glycere-- + Saint Lambert ce n'est que pour toi + Que ces belles fleurs sont ecloses: + C'est ta main qui cueille les roses. + Et les epines sont pour moi." + +Indeed, his relations with Madame du Chatelet were not those of an +ordinary lover. He did not look upon her as in his young days he had +looked upon the inconstant "Pimpette," on the beautiful "Aurore," the +pretty "Artemire," on the very "natural" Rupelmonde, or the false +Adrienne. His heart beat to a different tune at Cirey from what it did in +the Rue Cloche Perce. She was a companion and a friend--"une ame pour qui +la mienne etait faite." + +There is no need to review the incidents of that melancholy love-making in +detail. They are well known. It was at Commercy that the treachery was +detected, and that those half-comical, half pathetic scenes described by +Longchamp occurred--Voltaire, mad with a sense of the injury endured, +firing up, abjuring Emilie, almost accepting Saint Lambert's challenge to +fight, ordering his valet, Longchamp, to bespeak a coach and horses at +once, that very night, for Paris. Longchamp knew too well who was master. +Instead of rushing to the posting-house, he went quietly to Emilie, who +directed him to let post-master, horses, and coach alone, and report that +there were none to be had. Her cynically frank explanation, next morning, +in Voltaire's own room put matters straight and Saint Lambert was not +only pardoned but asked pardon of by Voltaire and admitted as a friend to +both parties. Later came the ludicrous trick played off upon the Marquis +at Cirey. Last of all, there was the sad ending at Luneville. + +Madame du Chatelet had a short time before met Stanislas at the Trianon, +and had begged him for the use, for the time of her confinement, of "le +petit appartement de la reine" in the ducal palace, a handsome set of +apartments on the ground-floor, looking out on one side on the Cour +d'Honneur, on the other on the private gardens reserved for the +Court--apartments which were magnificently furnished, but were prized by +the petitioner chiefly for their comfort, and for their nearness to those +other rooms, on the first floor (which command a splendid view across the +Bosquet, bounded in the distance by the gorgeous facade of Chanteheux), in +which Voltaire was to be lodged. Those rooms in the first story are now +appropriated as a granary. Madame du Chatelet's apartments serve as +quarters for the divisional General. King Stanislas, kind-hearted as ever, +gladly acceded to the petition, and entered into all the arrangements with +particular personal interest, as if they had concerned some near relative +of his. Under his own and Madame de Bouffler's attentive care (to say +nothing of Voltaire and Mademoiselle du Thil), we know how admirably +Emilie was looked after, how satisfactorily at first all seemed to +proceed--her _Newton_ was finished just in the nick of time--till that +fatal glass of iced _orgeat_ suddenly turned happiness into grief, and +made the palace a house of mourning. + +Voltaire was dazed at the loss, unable to command his words or his steps. +He tottered out on to the little flight of stairs, where he sat in dull +despair and stupefaction. In spite of all that had happened of late, he +declared that he had lost, not a mistress, but "half of his own self." The +world would be a different world to him now. There was to be no more of +woman's love for him in his after-life. Luneville was no longer a place +for him. "Je ne pourrais pas supporter Luneville, ou je l'ai perdue d'une +maniere plus funeste que vous ne pensez." Stanislas, kind to the last, did +all that he could to comfort his distressed friend. On the day of his +great trial he went up thrice into his room, sat with him, and wept with +him. We hear little of the funeral, except that it was carried out in a +magnificent style, attended by the whole of the Court, and with all the +honours which were due to a member of one of the four "_Grands Chevaux_." +It seemed like a mockery of Fate that, on being carried out to be placed +on the car the bier should have broken down in the large saloon in which +only a few weeks before Emilie had gathered brilliant laurels in her +favourite character of Isse, and that a mass of flowers, with which her +coffin was covered, should have dropped on the very spot where on that +occasion had fallen a shower of bouquets thrown in token of admiration. +The parish church of St. Remy, then quite new, received the body--it is +that same hideously grotesque rococo church now dedicated to St. Jacques, +overladen with misshapen ornament, whose two lofty but gingerbread spires, +"bourgeoises, lourdes, cossues et bonhommes au demeurant," as Edmond About +describes them, stand up, a conspicuous landmark, visible from afar off, +and looking down on a scene far more attractive than themselves--the +little town with its rectangular streets and squares, brightly-green +vineyards all around, and laughing hop-grounds, carefully-kept gardens, +dark bosquets, and luxuriant meadows, watered on one side by the broad +Meurthe, on the other by the modest Vesouze--with the chain of the Vosges +rising in the distance, overtopping those prettily undulating elevations +with which Luneville is fenced in. The tomb was new, the first dug in the +nave--and it has remained the last. A black marble slab, bearing no +inscription, was laid over the grave. That same black slab is there still. +It was displaced once, when the rough champions of the Revolution raised +it, in order to possess themselves of the lead of the coffin, scattering +about rudely the bones which that coffin enclosed--almost at the precise +moment when the body of Voltaire was being carried in triumph to the +Pantheon in Paris. Pious hands gathered the remains once more together, +and there they rest in the same humble vault. + +Voltaire wrote serious verses upon Emilie's death; King Frederick the +Great wrote flippant ones. Maupertuis lamented the possessor of brilliant +powers never put to a bad use, a woman guilty of "ni tracasserie, ni +medisance, ni mechancete." Madame de Grafigny mourned over one who had +"never told a lie:" Voltaire added that she had "never spoken ill of +anyone." It all mattered little after she was gone. Voltaire packed up his +things, and hurried off sorrowfully to Cirey, where he gathered together +the various chattels with which he had made that place more habitable and +more attractive; and before the Marquis could seriously object, he had +carried them off to Paris. + +He had done his work at Luneville. He had put the stamp of literature and +taste on the place. He had set the current of learning flowing towards the +Lorrain capital, where a year after de Tressan appeared, to add one more +captive to the admiring army vanquished by de Boufflers--Tressan, the +"Horace, Pollion et Tibulle" of Voltaire, but forgotten now--who in 1751 +founded, under Stanislas' auspices, that "Societe de Sciences et de Belles +Lettres," which soon acquired the name of "Academy," and took rank in +public estimation almost on a par with the sacred Olympus of the "Forty" +at Paris. Montesquieu, Helvetius, Henault, Fontenelle, Bishop Poncet, +Bishop Drouas--all begged as a favour to be admitted. Really, that +Academy--which is still a flourishing institution at Nancy--was Voltaire's +work. Stanislas' fond dream had been realized, and the Court of Lorraine +had become a foremost seat of the Muses. + +Voltaire never forgot the hospitality received at Stanislas' hands. To the +time of that nominal sovereign's melancholy death, he continued in +friendly and affectionate correspondence with him. In 1760, after Louis +XV. had refused him permission to settle once more on the banks of the +Vesouze, we find him writing to the Polish king:--"Je me souviendrai +toujours, Sire, avec la plus tendre et la plus respectueuse reconnaissance +des jours heureux que j'ai passes dans votre palais. Je me souviendrai que +vous daigniez faire les charmes de la societe comme vous faisiez la +felicite de vos peuples, et que si c'etait un bonheur de dependre de vous, +c'en etait un plus grand de vous approcher." + +Six years after that the little drama of the Lorrain Court was played out. +Blind, and old, and deserted, Stanislas was not even sufficiently cared +for to have some one handy to help when his silk dressing-gown caught +fire. He died of his wounds--with an innocent _bon-mot_ on his lips. The +Lorrains, who had been slow to welcome him, crowded round his sick bed and +his hearse. He had done his work. In spite of his failings, his posings, +his airs, and his frivolities, no one need grudge him that tribute of +esteem. He had made the change from independence, dear as life itself to +the Lorrains while under their own dukes, to incorporation with France +very much easier. He had done much material good to the Duchy, and to +literature he had rendered very useful service. His Court is forgotten +now. His Palace is turned into a barrack; and the once gay capital has, +but for its garrison, become a sleepy little provincial town, in which the +presence of a stray stranger puts the police at once on the _qui vive_. +The hop-trade and the manufacture of _dentelleries_ monopolize the +attention of the inhabitants; and only rarely is it that some inquiring +traveller comes to inspect with interest the spot on which was enacted the +most important scene of what the late Comte d'Haussonville has aptly +called "the great second act" of the _comedie_ of Voltaire's life--that +act which, according to the same gifted author, might be named "L'amour de +la science, et la science de l'amour." + + + + +VII.--THE PRINCE CONSORT'S UNIVERSITY DAYS.[10] + + "Quarum virtutum laude hominum animas, dum in hac urbe morabaris, + mirifice Tibi devinxisti."--_Address of the Senate of Bonn to Prince + Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, January, 28, 1840._ + + +There are incidents in a man's life--sometimes important, sometimes +insignificant--which impress themselves upon his mind as if graven in +"with a pen of iron." Thirty-two years have now passed away, but I +remember, as if it had happened only a few weeks ago, old "Senius" putting +his weather-worn face into my bedroom at Bonn, on the memorable grey +morning of mid-December, 1861, to make the melancholy announcement: "Uuer +Prinz is doht." "Dat war 'ne johde Heer," he added rather impressively. + +"Senius" was our "Stiefelfuchs"--which means a great deal more than having +to "polish our boots." And in some capacity or other--it must have been a +subordinate one--it had been his fate to be employed in the Prince +Consort's household while the latter was a student at Bonn. What +qualified him for either of these positions I am at a loss to conjecture. +He was nothing of a valet. We used to beg him, for mercy's sake, not to +attempt to remove stains from our clothes, inasmuch as in doing so (in the +only way which seemed to suggest itself to his untutored mind) he +invariably made two smudges out of one by spitting just a little wide of +the mark. At least that was the tradition. For any delicate mission, such +as smuggling liquor into the "Carcer," he was absolutely useless. He knew +well enough how to bandage a man for a "Mensur." And on the bitter cold +days of a North-German winter the huge bowl of his ever-smoking pipe would +be very acceptable as a hand-warmer to those gloved for the fight. He was +honest, no doubt, and strictly faithful, and that must have helped to +ingratiate him with the Prince. But his main recommendation appears to +have been his curious capacity for saying odd things in an odd way, and in +the quaintest of broad Rhenish _patois_, which made them sound doubly +droll. What with quaint habits and quaint sayings, he had become a +"character" at Bonn, generally popular as such, known to every man, woman +and child in the place, and allowed almost any latitude of speech. The +Prince, whose relish for humour was, in his student days, fully as keen as +ever in after-life, appears to have been tickled with the man's unintended +drollery; for, according to "Senius's" own naively frank account, he made +it his amusement to "draw" him, eliciting odd answers by inoffensively +unmerciful chaff. And this may account for "Senius" remaining in the +princely household, and experiencing much kindness at his master's hands. +If gratitude be a return, the Prince had it in ample measure. That "dat +war 'ne johde Heer" was spoken with unmistakable feeling, and it proved +the prelude to a whole string of little anecdotes which--though not +perhaps in themselves particularly remarkable or worth repeating--were +poured forth with such simple earnestness as sufficiently testified, how +firmly a sense of regard and affection had taken root in the old man's +heart, to live there through many years of separation. + +"Senius" was not the only person in Bonn who could grow warm upon this +subject. The Prince's death, indeed, set loose in the University town a +whole flood of anecdotes and reminiscences, some very trivial and +commonplace, but all of them evidencing a lively interest and abiding +regard. It is strange what power some persons possess of impressing men's +minds. There have been scores of princes students at Bonn since, some of +them spending more money and making much more of a show; but memory has +closed over them like water over a ripple. There is none remembered like +the then Prince of Coburg--down to the days of his grandson, the present +Emperor, who, of course, conquered local hearts by identifying himself +rather demonstratively with the place. + +At my time people spoke frequently of "der Prinz Albehrt." All the older +townsfolk remembered the "bildschoene junge Mann," who sat his horse like a +born cavalier, and whose mere appearance was calculated to prepossess +people in his favour. Two friends of mine--the brothers von C---- (one of +them is now a retired general who has covered himself with glory in the +wars in 1866 and 1870)--used as boys to make a point of watching for the +Coburg Princes when about to mount horse, from the house of their +neighbour, Landrath von Hymmen, who lived just opposite. They would rush +out eagerly at the proper moment to hold the Princes' stirrups, and +consider themselves amply rewarded with a kind word or a genial smile. +Travelling Englishmen have afterwards made it a matter of duty, Murray or +Baedecker in hand, to "do" the simple house "in which Prince Albert +lived," as they "did" the Muenster and the Alte Zoll. To the people of Bonn +the Prince's doings were a living memory. Only eighteen months ago I was +surprised, while accidentally alluding to the subject in conversation with +an old resident, since dead, to find that gentleman at once pulling out of +his pocket a photograph of the Prince's house, which he seemed to carry +about with him habitually. He knew all the windows, and the gateway, and +answered questions about the Prince's habits of life as if they had +referred to matters of yesterday. + +In truth, Bonn owes a great deal to the Prince Consort--more than most +people are aware. If the University has grown great and popular, a +favourite with reigning houses, a High School in which every King of +Prussia is expected to have pursued his studies, something like a "Christ +Church" among German Universities; if the town has grown rich and +flourishing, a favourite residence with wealth and position _en retraite_, +the merit is in no small measure due to the Prince who, practically +speaking, first set the fashion among illustrious folk. No scion of a +reigning house, to speak of--none, certainly, to make a mark--had been at +Bonn before. Indeed, Bonn, with its associations of the Burschenschaft, +of disaffection and of ecclesiastical strife, did not stand in the best of +odours. Hence, when a Prince came to break the ice, of more than ordinary +promise, and already connected by rumour with a high destiny, very +naturally, all eyes were turned upon him. His subsequent marriage with the +Queen--at that time certainly the most powerful sovereign in +Christendom--following almost immediately upon his studentship, no doubt +emphasised the effect and added force to the example. We see at once +princes flocking to the _Fridericia Guilelmia Rhenana_--Schaumburgs, and +Mecklenburgs, and Schleswig-Holsteins, and Meiningens. Twelve years after +we have the heir to the Prussian Crown matriculating as a student. We find +the roll of students growing at a bound from 650 to 731--to increase since +to above 1,200. In short, we see Bonn developing into a different place. +English folk--as the Prince's friend, Professor Loebell, puts it, rather +uncomplimentarily, in one of his Belgian letters--send their "young bears" +to Bonn in whole batches, "to be licked." Then the parents come +themselves, bringing their families with them, to settle there. German +rank and fashion follow in their wake, quintupling the population in less +than sixty years--and the reputation and position of the town are made. + +Bonn was a very different place from the fashionable town that it is now, +when, on May 3, 1837, Professor Wutzer, as Rector Magnificus, pledged +"Prinz Albrecht Franz, Herzog von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha", "by pressure of +hand in place of oath," to be a faithful "citizen" of the University. +Prince Ernest, the Prince's elder brother, matriculated at the same time. +There was also a Prince of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, of whom little was seen +or heard; moreover, Prince William of Loewenstein, who grew to be the +Prince's intimate friend; and two Hohenlohes. (Prince Erbach is not in the +University Register included among persons of illustrious birth.) All the +wide belt of spruce and tidy villas set up amid laughing gardens, which +now make Bonn so charming and attractive, and impart to it so pleasing a +look of prosperity and comfort, were still a thing to come. The little +town, having only about 12,000 inhabitants, still lay hemmed in within the +lines of its old walls, the gates of which were carefully closed for +security every night. There was an air of "smallness" about everything, +except the handsome "Schloss," which Archbishop Clemens August had built +(with money received from France) as a sumptuous residence for himself, +but which King Frederick William III. in 1818, without much regard for +Roman Catholic susceptibilities, converted into a "double-denomination" +University. Lutheran divines now taught where the most orthodox of +Catholic princes had held court. A non-denominational Senate conferred +degrees where the last Archbishop-Elector, the Austrian Archduke Max +Franz--"Abbe Sacrebleu," as he was popularly called--had danced with most +unepiscopal perseverance and vigour. And at Poppelsdorf learned professors +made the air malodorous with chemical stenches in the same palace in which +that most courtly of all archbishops, Clemens August, had entertained +those beautiful ladies who got him into rather serious trouble at Rome. +But, apart from these costly buildings, all was country-townish. There was +no Coblenzer Strasse as yet--only a small cluster of houses, among which +the _Vinca Domini_--whilom the winepress of the local lord--and the villa +of the patriot Arndt, were alone conspicuous. Inside the walls the +students were much in evidence, rough in their uncouth costume of those +days, very "Guys" in embroidered "pikesches" and wide petticoat-trousers, +having long curls dangling from their heads and heavy rapiers from their +waists. However, opinion in high quarters was not altogether favourable to +them. The revolutionary "Burschenschaft" had been strong in Bonn, +numbering Heinrich Heine among its members. Rhineland was, moreover, at +that time still wholly unreconciled to Prussian rule. Its seventeen years +of incorporation with France had raised a crop of free and anti-Prussian +ideas which were not soon to be eradicated. And with Austria so powerful, +and Austrian sympathies so widely diffused, thanks to Max Franz, the +authorities had still to deal gingerly with their new subjects. It made +them wince to hear the words "'ne Pruess" commonly and openly used as a +term of reproach and contempt--they were so to down in the fifties. But +they could not interfere too rigorously. Then there was the ecclesiastical +squabble, foreshadowing Prince Bismarck's "Culturkampf," and every bit as +serious and as violent. Only incapacity like that of a Schmedding, and +infatuation like that of a Bunsen, could have created such a hopeless +dilemma. "Is your Government mad?" Cardinal Lambruschini is reported to +have asked, when Bunsen communicated to him the appointment of Droste von +Vischering to be Archbishop of Cologne, as a supposed "angel of peace." +The Crown Prince, subsequently Frederick William IV., favoured the +appointment. The "angel of peace" proved a very demon of war. What with +the dispute over mixed marriages, the Episcopal protest against State +interference in Church matters, the Anathema pronounced by the new prelate +against the latitudinarian school of the followers of Hermes, particularly +favoured by the Government and deliberately installed at Bonn, and the +Archbishop's uncompromising ban upon the University _Convictorium_, there +was war along the whole line. All Rhineland, be it remembered, was then +still staunchly Romanist. Bonn contained but a handful of Protestants. The +"concurrently endowed" University, planted in the midst of a Catholic +country, was a standing abomination and a perpetual taunt to the native +population. The Prince's letters of that time show how fully he +appreciated the grave significance of the struggle even at his early age. +It was while he was at Bonn that the refractory Archbishop was carried off +by force, to be "interned" at Minden. + +Under such circumstances it required some resolution for a young +Protestant Prince to settle amid an excited Romanist population. If to be +"'ne Pruess" was a reproach, to be "'ne Juess"--that is "Gueux," or +Protestant--meant downright anathema. And Prince Albert settled right in +what may be called a little Protestant colony, saucily set up under the +very shadow of the beautiful east-end of that splendid old "Muenster," +which traces its foundation to Constantine, and has been the scene of +Councils and Imperial coronations from the tenth century downwards. + +The Empress Frederick, a few years ago, when in Bonn, very naturally asked +to be shown the house in which her father had lived. By that time every +vestige of it had disappeared, and she could only be pointed out the +site--a garden it is now, fronting an entirely new building in the +Martinsplatz, close to where, up to the beginning of the century, stood +the church which gave the square its name. But I can perfectly recall the +unpretending structure, a three-storied, flat-gabled house, with a +two-storied wing--the old-fashioned windows set off by dark-green +shutters--lying rather in a hollow, within a yard enclosed in a stone wall +pierced by a gate, but generally open in situation and yet, thanks to the +enclosure, pretty private. It commanded very fair views of the +Poppelsdorfer Allee--the favourite strolling-ground, ever since it was +planted, for fashionable and unfashionable Bonn--of the Kreuzberg, and +sideways of the more distant Seven Mountains. It seemed a small house to +harbour two Princes and their suite, more especially when one was told +that what seemed the main portion was reserved for the use of the owner. +But it was a building of considerable depth, and so afforded sufficient +room for the illustrious inmates and all their not very numerous +household, which included, of course, the "excellent" Doctor Florschuetz as +tutor, the rather starchy martinet-soldier Herr von Wiechmann, who acted +as governor, the Prince's favourite valet, and some more. All about the +household, as about the Prince's doings generally, was marked by extreme +simplicity, which could not, however, in any particular have suggested +anything like niggardliness, but merely the voluntary plain living of a +gentleman who had no taste for sumptuous habits. Meals, appointments, +entertainments, everything indicated a dislike of display. The Prince's +trap was such as an innkeeper living opposite could, on its original +owner's departure, purchase and use for his business-drives without +occasioning remark. If there was one material thing in respect of which +the Prince practised luxury, it was his little stud, which was small, but +generally admired as choice, and which was, it need scarcely be added, +much prized by its owner. The hours kept in the little green-shuttered +house were probably the most regular in all the town. Everything in the +illustrious student's life was subordinated to the purposes of study. +Every hour had its allotted task. He must have been an early riser who +could have seen the blinds down of a morning; and long before lights went +out in some of the adjoining houses, all was darkness and rest in the +Prince's home, which was a veritable temple of method and punctuality. + +The quarters had been selected because the Duke of Saxe-Coburg wished his +sons to be lodged with a professor. There were not many such with +sufficiently large dwellings to select from, and possibly on that ground +the choice had fallen upon a Professor of Medicine, who could have been of +little service to the Princes in the prosecution of their studies. He was +popularly known as "Gamaschenbischof"--"Gaiter-Bishop"--to distinguish him +from the other Geheimrath Bischoff who became better known as a great +professor of chemistry, but who wore no gaiters. I quite forget whether +"Gamaschenbischof" was a Roman Catholic or a Protestant. But his next-door +neighbour on the side of the old Neuthor--then still an old-fashioned +arched gateway with a substantial gate to keep out bad characters at +night--was the acknowledged head of the Lutheran congregation, then a +mere handful, the sparing growth of twenty years of Prussian rule. The +little community did not yet possess a church of their own as they do now. +Indeed, for many years after they had to content themselves with the use +of the bald but lofty University chapel, which for many decades they have +shared with their English fellow-Christians, often enough keeping the +latter waiting when their sermon happened to be long, and considerately +leaving a crucifix as a fixture for rigid Evangelicals to chafe at and +write letters about to successive chaplains. But the proper stronghold of +local Protestantism was to be found in that turreted little Chateau +Gaillard facing the Muenster, in which Pusey's friend, Professor Sack, +Schleiermacher's least heterodox pupil, had at the Prince's time his +official residence. The Coburg Princes, who loyally upheld their own +Protestant church, were not infrequent visitors in the house of this +pastor, who was well-informed and sociable, and by no means an +unacceptable neighbour. Beyond the parsonage, directly abutting upon the +Neuthor, was another Protestant institution--the Lutheran school--which, +some years later, became a noted centre of attraction to males of all +creeds, by reason of the residence in it of "The Three Graces," the +_Kuester's_--that is, the clerk and schoolmaster's--remarkably handsome +daughters. But in 1837 and 1838 those ladies were still too young to do +much mischief, even to so impressionable a cavalier as Prince Ernest. All +these buildings spoken of, which still stood at my time, have long since +been pulled down and made to give place to houses of a more modern type. + +All things considered, it would have been difficult for the Duke of +Coburg to make a better choice of a University in which to give his sons +the last finishing touch of education. Bonn has always stood high as a +home of learning. King Frederick William III. was careful, with the most +luxurious buildings and what was at that time considered a truly princely +endowment, to bestow upon his own peculiar "pet child" as competent a +teaching staff as money and favour could procure. And in 1837, though +Niebuhr was gone, and Arndt was suspended--for preaching too vigorously +the gospel of German union, which was then reputed rank heresy--and though +Dahlmann, who would have been a professor after Prince Albert's own heart, +had not yet come, the teaching staff could compare with that of any +period. But apart from that, there was a tone of freedom and geniality +prevailing at Bonn which distinguished that place from all other German +universities. It was the least Prussian of all Prussian High Schools--far +more in the world and in touch with the world than all its sisters. Set up +on "Frankish" soil, which used to give Germany its Emperors; the chosen +residence, until recently, of prelates of an ancient See, who had +entertained relations from time immemorial with all great Courts, and who +had been recruited from princely houses; and, last, but not least, only a +generation before an integral portion of the Republic, "one and +indivisible," which planted its tricolor nowhere without leaving its free +spirit behind, even after the outward ensign was gone--Bonn nourished a +more independent habit of thought and encouraged wider and larger views +than did the "zopf"-ruled universities of the East. It was here, +doubtless, among the patriotic aspirations of a "Young Germany" unchilled +by Carlsbad and Laibach, under the inspiring teaching of Arndt, that Duke +Ernest, prophetically styled _Spes patriae_ in an address presented by the +Academical Senate, conceived that liberal, high-minded and unselfish +policy which paved the way as much as anything else for the Union of 1871. +And to Prince Albert, likewise, this must have seemed a wider world than +that of Coburg; and, in a period of life more formative of character than +any other, it must have served to prepare him better for that freer sphere +of action into which he was destined shortly to be called. + +Niebuhr, as observed, was gone from Bonn. Arndt was removed from his +"chair" for saying too freely in 1820 what Princes had openly proclaimed +in 1813. Dahlmann was, in truth, still one of "the Seven of Goettingen," +inasmuch as Ernest Augustus had not yet made his Hanoverians to regret +that they were governed by the Salic law. But there was Welcker, the great +historian of art, and the brilliant elocutionist, from whom the Prince +must have learnt much of that close knowledge and warm appreciation of art +which afterwards made him so efficient a furtherer of culture in this +kingdom. There were Loebell and Perthes, von Alten, Bethmann-Hollweg, +Walter, Brandis, Nitzsch, Deiters, Bleek, Breidenstein, Noeggerath, +Argelander, Schlegel, Fichte, Pluecker, Boecking, and many more--not a few +of whom I can perfectly remember from my own days. The two Princes, and +more particularly Prince Albert, knew how to turn the opportunities at +their command to admirable account, not merely by attending the public +lectures with exemplary regularity, but, in addition, by seeking out +learning, so to speak, _en deshabille_, and drawing from it in the easy +way of conversation and chat probably more information than it dispensed +on more formal occasions. Prince Albert was on excellent terms with the +most able of these men--Schlegel, Perthes, Bethmann-Hollweg, Walter and +some more--and was frequently to be seen walking with one or other of them +in the Poppelsdorfer Allee, or else on the Venusberg, or along the Rhine, +keeping up an animated conversation. And often would he ask some one or +two to his house, or else drop in--sometimes on his own invitation--to +that peculiarly German repast of evening "tea," further to prosecute his +cross-questioning. "Tea," of course, does not in this application mean +anything like our own "five o'clock," nor yet quite so substantial a meal +as our middle-class "high tea," but a light evening repast, such as is +usual (viz., after a good mid-day dinner) among the cultivated classes in +Germany, when _en famille_, from the Imperial Court downward. Taxing the +stomach but little, such a meal leaves the head all the more free for +intellectual occupation, and is, in truth, dependent for its best relish +on the Attic salt supplied by the company. (The "tea" itself is, +unfortunately, as a rule, indifferent in quality.) At Bonn these "teas" +became little feasts of reason, and used to be, I am told, one of the +Prince's particular delights. He was in the habit of discussing questions +of learning and politics and statesmanship very freely with his own chosen +little set, Prince Loewenstein and others. But he knew the difference +between this and putting Professors (who in Bonn were then not merely men +of the lamp) into the witness-box and pleasurably pumping them dry over +their own tea-table. Nobody relished this treatment more than the +Professors themselves, who in after-time often spoke of the enjoyable +evenings which they had spent, and the pleasure of discussing matters on +which they were masters with so apt a pupil, who knew how to put +brightness and stimulating interest into the conversation. The Prince's +enjoyment, it is to be suspected, went even a little further. For, men of +great learning as these Professors were, more than one of them had +contracted odd habits of speech and manner, which no man was more quick to +note and more apt inoffensively to caricature--in mien and with +pencil--than the Prince. We know that he could use pen and brush deftly +enough. And more particularly of his artist's work completed at Bonn +several specimens survive--for instance, the Queen's "Savoyard Boy." Some +of the caricature sketches referred to are said to have been admirable, +and no less so the mimicry which, without malice or guile, brought out +tellingly the little oddities of these learned gentry, to the intense +amusement of a privileged and very select audience. There was, as it +happened, ample material. Schlegel, the great and the witty--there could +have been no pleasanter companion than he who first made the Germans +understand Shakespeare--was, with all his merits, vain and conceited, and +foolishly insisted upon parading his conceit before the world. He was old +at that time, and lectured only at rare intervals, but every now and then +some of that old impetuosity would break out, which in earlier days had +made him, without regard for conventionalities, pull off his coat and +waistcoat in the midst of an evening party, in order to fling to his +brother Frederick the smaller garment, for which in a rash moment he had +bartered away a good story. Then there was Loebell, the friend of Tieck, +the uncompromising Protestant, full of historic lore as an egg is of meat, +and of truly magnetic attractiveness to his pupils, but ugly as a monkey, +diffident and gauche, and, thanks to his habitual absence of mind, a +source of the oddest and never-failing anecdote. Perthes and Fichte laid +themselves equally open to ridicule. The "University Judge" (Proctor) von +Salomon, commonly nicknamed "the Salamander," was made more than once to +sit for a comic portrait; and Oberberghauptmann Count Beust--the Prince's +own countryman, a native of Saxe-Coburg, with whom the Prince was on terms +of comparative intimacy--provided at times irresistible food for laughter, +not only by his curious squat little figure, but even more by that +genuinely Saxon sing-song accent, which seems to be a common feature of +all Beusts who have not remained in their old Brandenburg home. The +statesman of the same name, whom we have seen in our midst, shared this +same family defect, and was accordingly known in Saxony as "Beist;" and +one of the Ministries of which he formed a member was currently spoken of, +by way of joke, as "Behr _beisst_ Rabenhorst." As droll as any was +Professor Kaufmann, from whom, long before I listened to the curious +cadences of his speech, the Prince Consort learnt very orthodox political +economy conveyed in the prosiest of ways, fortunately relieved by the +quaintest illustrations of economic truths which could ever have issued +from the brain of man. He looked like one of Cruikshank's figures come to +life, and it was really difficult not to laugh at him. + +The Prince's shafts of wit never wanted point, but at the same time they +never struck painfully home. There was no mimicry or jest which even its +victims could not readily forgive. Years after the Prince had left Bonn, +the very men whom he had amused himself by taking off most mercilessly +looked back, not only without resentment, but with absolute satisfaction, +on all this intercourse. And when, on the approach of the Prince's +marriage, it was proposed to send him a Latin address of congratulation, +and to bestow upon him--as the fittest offering for the occasion that the +Senate could think of--the Degree of _Doctor utriusque juris_, the motion +was carried by acclamation, and the learned Professor Ritschl was at once +commissioned to compose a Latin ode, which turned out perfect in grammar +and prosody, but which is a trifle too long to be here quoted. + +With the students, generally speaking--apart from his own little princely +set--the Prince was less intimate. He would mingle with them in the +quadrangle, the lecture-hall, and the fencing-room, and he would invite +them periodically, in batches, to his hospitable table, where, of course, +he made a most genial host. But I have heard complaints of his supposed +reserve and coldness, and his keeping people at a distance, contrasting +just a little with the _engouement_ with which Prince Ernest was ready to +take part in the fun and frolic of German student life. It was said that +the coming engagement with the Queen, which rumour considerably +ante-dated, had chilled Prince Albert's young blood, and led him to stand +a little on his dignity. Probably this was to some extent a question of +manner. But, moreover, it ought to be borne in mind, that student life was +in those days just a trifle rough, and, knowing what it was, one can +readily understand the Prince's disinclination to identify himself +altogether with habits not by any means congenial to himself. He could +grow sociable enough with students on proper occasions. He is known to +have been a regular attendant at the _Fechtboden_--where, however, he +practised rather with the broad-sword than with the student's +rapier--ready to accept the challenge of any competent opponent; and he +would occasionally look on with interest at a real _Mensur_, whenever good +fencers were put forward to fight. We know that at a great fencing match +he carried off the first prize.[11] Even beyond this, from time to time he +would visit a students' _Kneipe_--having duly prepared himself for the +short nocturnal dissipation with a little snooze--and join very readily in +the fun and the mirth, more particularly in such amusements as allowed +play for the intellectual faculties. He was fond of German melodies, and +knew how to delight his audience with a song. And when it came to some +serio-comic diversion--such as the mock-trial know as a _Bierconvent_, a +travesty of legal proceedings, conceived, when ably led, in the spirit of +Demosthenes' hypothetical lawsuit about "the shadow of an ass"--he is said +to have been excellent. But mere beer-drinking and shouting were not in +his line. At home he was wont to cultivate the Muses, People still talk of +a little volume of poetry which the two brothers are said to have brought +out conjointly in support of a local charity, and to which Prince Albert +is supposed to have contributed the verse, and Prince Ernest the tunes. I +should not be surprised to learn that Prince Albert had as much to do with +the music as with the text. So far as there was poetry and music and +geniality to be found under the rough mask of student life, the Prince was +very ready to take part in it. And during the sixteen months of his +studentship he grew sufficiently familiar with some of his fellow-students +even to _tutoyer_. My friend, E. von C----, who was then a boy, distinctly +remembers meeting him walking towards the Rhine, and hearing him accosted +by two burly "Westphalians": "Wo gehst du hin, Albert?" "Ich gehe ins +Schiff," was his reply; "ich reise nach England." The Westphalians at once +turned round to see him off. That was an eventful journey "to England." + +How little _hauteur_ really had to do with the Prince's intercourse with +his fellow-men is testified by the friendly acquaintanceship which grew up +at Bonn between him and persons of an entirely different class, and which +has still left its honourable memories behind. + +Pretty well opposite his own quarters, cornering the Martinsplatz--where +now are two much-frequented shops--in those days stood a middle-sized +house, over the door of which might be read the inscription +"Weinwirthschaft von Peter Stamm." In later days, under a new proprietor, +the house came to be more ambitiously christened "Gasthaus zum Deutschen +Hof." In this establishment both Princes were frequent visitors, perhaps +Prince Albert more so than his brother. It was at this corner generally +that they mounted horse for a ride--I believe that some of their horses +were put up in the "Weinwirthschaft"--and here accordingly my friend, von +C----, used to watch for them, in order to hold their stirrups. In a +University town, in which + + Bibit hera, bibit herus, + Bibit miles, bibit clerus, + Bibit ille, bibit illa, + Bibit servus cum ancilla, + Bibit velox, bibit piger, + Bibit albus, bibit niger, + Bibit constans, bibit vagus, + Bibit rudis, bibit magus, + Bibit pauper et aegrotus, + Bibit exul et ignotus, + Bibit puer, bibit canus, + Bibit praesul et decanus, + Bibit soror, bibit frater, + Bibit anus, bibit mater, + Bibit iste, bibit ille, + Bibunt centum, bibunt mille: + Tam pro Papa, tam pro rege + Bibunt omnes sine lege, + +of course there are wine-shops many, and beer-shops many; and neither +student nor "Philistine" need ever be in any fear of having to remain +"dry" for want of liquor. But there has always been some one or other +wine-house raised a little above the common run, not by any pretentious +architecture or outfit--as a rule it was in external features one of the +most unpretending in the town--but by the superior quality of the liquor +served. Here would meet--as is doubtless the case now--the _honoratiores_ +of the town, and some other blithe spirits, admitted almost by favour, a +select _clientele_, to sip down, to the accompaniment of fluent +conversation, not the vulgar "schoppen" of the multitude, but the +capitalist "special"--a half-pint held in a massive goblet-shaped glass. +In my time the "select" wine-house of this sort was that of +"Schmitzkoebes"--which means "James Schmitz"--in the market-place. In the +Prince's time it was the house of Peter Stamm. However, it was not for the +wine that the Prince came to this house--though in moderation he +appreciated a glass of good Rhenish, or Walporzheim. In our +aristocratically organised country, where, moreover, sportsmanship is held +to be public property, as accessible to the stockbroker as to the squire, +we have no idea of the fast link which in Germany--altogether differently +constituted, at any rate, then--the love of sport will bind between +persons of totally different classes. It holds them together like a +bracket. Prince and farmer, noble and tradesman--it is all alike _quoad_ +sport; for that purpose genuine comradeship is established, on altogether +equal terms. There is no giving one's self away in this, nor yet any undue +presumption. The tradesman remains a tradesman, the prince no less a +prince; social differences are merely put aside. Now Peter Stamm was a +most zealous sportsman, who knew where to find a hare or a bird for many +miles round, and could spend whole nights and days with his dog and with +his gun--more particularly if there were some like-minded companion to +share the sport. And what was more for the present purpose, he was an +ardent horse-fancier, and a connaisseur of horse-flesh. His brother, +"Stamm-hannes"--that is, "John Stamm"--was a noted horse-dealer and +horse-breaker, who always had some good cattle on hand. And, moreover, +Peter Stamm was a great dog-fancier, and known for having the best dogs in +all Bonn. From him, I believe, it was that the Prince purchased that +handsome favourite of his, Eos, whom he brought over with him to England, +his constant companion then on walks and drives and travels. So here was a +threefold cord which bound together these two neighbours, living within a +stone's throw of one another--a link which never broke in after-life. Long +after the Prince had left Bonn, there used to be messages going backwards +and forwards. When Peter was gone, Stamm-hannes kept up the intercourse, +and on one of his travels to England even visited the Prince as an old +friend. They are both dead now--and so is Nicolas, the third brother, who +kept the Bellevue Hotel on the Rhine. But to the present day old Fraeulein +Stamm, now eighty-three years of age, carefully preserves and +affectionately cherishes the few keepsakes which still remain of the +Prince's giving--originally to Peter--and there is nothing that the old +lady is more fond of talking about than those old days, when the Prince +and Peter used to drive out to the Kottenforst together, and Peter would +come home and tell her of their common, not overexciting, adventures. The +keepsakes have dwindled down to three pictures and two porcelain cups, the +latter rather rudely painted, as was the fashion in those days, with views +of the Drachenfels and Rolandseck. Of the pictures, two are portraits of +the young Princes taken at Brussels before they repaired to Bonn, and +showing their boyish faces flanked by two heavy pairs of epaulettes. The +third, a woodcut, represents some unknown sportsman going a-stalking. +There used to be other small articles, such as sportsman friends are in +the habit of presenting to one another; but time has, one after the other, +disposed of them. + +The Prince, we know, was always particularly fond of bodily exercise. At +Bonn he would fence regularly. And he would swim with as much zest, and +think nothing of mixing with the common crowd in those rough-and-ready +swimming-baths which I well remember; for in my time they were still all +the convenience for river bathing that Bonn had to offer--a rude concern +on the other bank of the Rhine, knocked together out of a raft and a few +sheds. In those baths the Prince did not seem to mind whom he rubbed +shoulders with. In this respect he closely resembled his son-in-law, the +Emperor Frederick, whose popularity in Berlin was not a little enhanced by +the _sans gene_ with which he would, while in the water, join in the +splashing and larking of his future subjects, to whom it never on such +occasions occurred to forget themselves. A simple "Na, Jungens, jetzt ist +genug" from the Prince would at once warn them back into proper distance. +The Prince Consort became just as popular among the swimmers at Bonn. The +Rhine is really a troublesome river to swim in, on account of the force of +its current. The Prince would have himself rowed up a pretty long +distance, to swim back. I once or twice swam the same distance, in company +with Count H----, of the "Borussians," and we both found it quite long +enough. A very favourite sport with the Prince was, to tumble little boys +into the water--the swimming-master being by for safety--and then dive +after them to bring them up. He would select such as were not likely to be +frightened. And they came to like the fun. + +But the Prince's favourite recreation of all was going a-shooting. In the +near neighbourhood of Bonn there is no very ambitious sport. The more +venturesome spirits go as far as the Eifel Mountains, there to kill +wild-boar and red-deer. For this the Prince grudged the time. So he had to +be content with hares and birds, an occasional roebuck--and, I dare say, +in those, early days he now and then brought down a fox, which in Germany +is reckoned rather good sport. When, in 1858, the Crown Prince, Emperor +Frederick, came back from his wedding, and found the officers of the Deutz +Cuirassiers drawn up in line at the Cologne station to salute him, he +singled out Count F----, of M--dorf, to present more especially to his +bride. "I must present Count F---- to you," he said; "it was on his estate +that I shot my first fox." Either Count F----'s conscience stung him, or +else he realised better than the Crown Prince in what light vulpicide is +regarded in the Princess's country: "It was not really a fox, Sir," he +explained with some embarrassment; "it was a wild cat." + +There were water-fowl near Bruehl; there used to be a heronry there. But I +do not think the Prince went in that direction. His ordinary +shooting-ground was near Bergheim, on the other side of the Rhine and, +beyond the Venusberg, in the Kottenforst, a long stretch of forest, not +everywhere well-timbered, in which Peter Stamm had a "Jagd," to which of +course the Prince was welcome. Wherever the forest was a little ragged +there were, of course, black game. And then, in spring, to the Prince's +great delight, there was woodcock shooting. The "Schnepfenstrich" was his +pet sport, and never was he to be seen more regularly driving his plain +little trap out to Roettgen--where Stamm had his shooting--the faithful +Peter always by his side--than in the four weeks which precede Palm +Sunday, the season of all others sacred in Germany to woodcock shooting, +for + + Oculi, da kommen sie; + Laetare, das ist das wahre; + Judica, sind sie auch noch da; + Palmarum, Trallarum. + +The Latin words are the Lutheran calendar names for the four Sundays next +before Easter. + +Often Stamm-hannes would be of the party--often also Everard Sator, +another local Nimrod and horse-fancier, of Stamm's peculiar set, and +acceptable to the Prince. And some of the Prince's more aristocratic +companions would likewise occasionally join. But the Prince and Peter were +in this matter inseparables, roughing it out on the wooded heights from +sheer love of sport; and after that they would meet in the +"Weinwirthschaft" and talk over their common experiences, being +attentively overheard by a small company who reckoned it a privilege, +however little they might know about shooting, to listen to these +sportmen's tales, and bottle them up to retail to others after the Prince +was gone. + +There was another very faithful friend, of humbler station still, whose +heart the Prince managed to capture by his genial affability and the kind +interest which it was his wont to manifest in others. Nobody could have +stayed any time in Bonn at that particular period without becoming +acquainted with "Appeltring"--or, as she was more ceremoniously called to +her face, "Frau Gevatterin." She was, without question, the most popular +"character" in Bonn, and there was no man who had not a kind word for her, +and was not ready to test her well-known power of repartee by a little +joke. "Appeltring," of course, means "Apple-kate"--"Tring" standing for +Katherine by one of those extraordinary transformations of names which, +probably, not even Grimm could explain, and which in the Rhenish dialect +convert "Heinrich" into "Drickes," and "Reinhard" into "Nieres." She was +an apple-woman, as her name implies, or, rather, a seller of fruit +generally, and had her stall or tent just outside the Neuthor, close to +the Prince's quarters, and on a spot which he must pass several times +almost every day--a coign of vantage, moreover, from which all the +fashionable and unfashionable world taking the air in the Poppelsdorfer +Allee, might be surveyed, as can all the fine folk passing in and out of +Hyde Park from Hyde Park Corner. She was on that spot still when I was at +Bonn twenty-three years later, and she was there for some time after--a +weather-bronzed, wrinkled old woman then, but still full of chat and +lively talk, humour and repartee, and endowed with a truly encyclopaedic +knowledge of everyone who had been anyone at Bonn, and of his life, and +failings, and little adventures. Even in the Prince's day she was +decidedly past her first youth, and devoid of personal attractions; but +she had still something of the halo about her then of a not very distant +serio-comic little love affair, about which she was made to hear no end of +chaff--with a trumpeter (named Bengler, if I recollect right) who lost his +life in that Russian war in which the great Moltke won his first spurs. +During all the time that she offered her wares outside the Neuthor her +stall was a favourite resort with folk who had a spare quarter of an hour +on their hands, some of them of the best blood. The Emperor Frederick has +sat on that spot many a time, watching the passers-by, and exchanging chat +with "Tring," while eating cherries from one of the shallow flat-bottomed +baskets in which "Frau Gevatterin," or her younger assistant, served them +from the tent; and so have the Coburg Princes, more particularly Prince +Albert, who had a peculiar liking for "Appeltring" and her quaint ways, +her good temper, and her ready answers. Barring the Princes, "Tring's" +customers were not always prompt paymasters. This necessitated the keeping +of accounts, which, as "Tring" was nothing of a penwoman, resulted in a +description of bookkeeping so curious as to induce a learned archaeological +society of Bonn afterwards to publish her records in facsimile. There were +no names, but rude imitations of a beard, or a tassel, or big top-boots, +or else a peculiar nose, or a pair of spectacles, or some other +distinguishing feature about the particular debtor. + +The habit of almost daily chat begot a peculiar familiarity and interest +in one another's affairs between these two people at opposite poles of +society, and inspired "Tring" with a devotion to the Prince which has +just a touch of romance about it. To her simple but honest mind the Prince +was the noblest creature that walked the earth. Whenever he failed to pass +to bid her good-day, she seemed to feel as if deprived of a substantial +pleasure. For years and decades after he had gone she would relate with +striking animation little stories of his life in Bonn, and tell of his +kindness to her. She was indefatigable in inquiries about him, and would +draw in every word of information received with eager curiosity. Nor did +she ever hear of anyone going to England without commissioning +him--"Jruesse Se den Prinzen Albehrt." It sounded very ridiculous to some, +no doubt. But I venture to surmise, that to the Prince himself that +broadly Rhenish "Jruesse Se den Prinzen Albehrt" would have been a not +unwelcome greeting. + +Most of the good people here spoken of, with whom the Prince exchanged +jokes and more serious intercourse, whom he charmed with his happy temper +or edified with graver talk, are now dead and gone. Bonn has grown a town +of 50,000 or 60,000 inhabitants, well-to-do, bright and attractive, adding +to its population year by year. The University has throughout its history +maintained its old high rank. As a new generation rises up old +reminiscences are dying out. Stories which thirty years ago passed current +from mouth to mouth are gradually being forgotten. There is so much more +that used to be told of the Prince, when memories were fresh; indeed, +there is much that might be told still, only the incidents seem trivial in +themselves, and memorable only as demonstrating what singular power their +hero possessed of riveting men's affections, and as concurring in +impressing a stamp of noble principle, unselfish consideration for others, +of a genial and happy disposition, and laborious devotion to study upon +his student life of sixteen months. There was, there is reason to believe, +very much good done in private, of which the outside world never heard. To +Bonn the Prince's stay was a turning-point in its history; and, since +elsewhere scarcely anything has been said about that particular epoch in +the Prince's life, it may not be unmeet to gather together the fragments +of traditions and reminiscences surviving, before they pass finally out of +men's minds, and thus to fill a gap hitherto left in the memorials of a +life which has in its later periods amply realized the promise given in +the early days of youth here spoken of. + + + + +VIII.--SOMETHING ABOUT BEER.[12] + + +When Judas Iscariot, as the legend has it, prompted by a presumptuous +ambition to emulate Our Saviour in the performance of a miracle similar to +that of Cana, spoke his cabalistic words over the water which he desired +to make potable, it may be argued that a worse product might have resulted +from the process than beer--at any rate from a non-teetotal point of view. +According to another legend, of wider currency, the inventor of beer was +not the apostate apostle, but a more or less mythical king of Brabant, +named Gambrinus. His bine-crowned visage may be seen beaming from the +walls of most tap-rooms in Germany and in those more or less German +provinces which once formed, or should have formed, or still form, that +political desideratum, the "Middle Kingdom." This is a case of _ex +vocabulo fabula_. For Gambrivium is Cambray--the Cambray of the League and +also of early brewing. And "Gambrinus" is either John the Victorious of +Brabant, who fell in a tournament held at Bar-le-Duc on the occasion of +the marriage of Henri, count of that country, with Eleanor, daughter of +our King Edward I., or else--and more probably--it is Jean Sans-Peur of +Burgundy, who, to ingratiate himself with his Flemish subjects, had a +dollar coined, showing a wreath of hop-bine encircling his head--and also +instituted the order of the _Houblon_, giving no little offence thereby to +his loyal clergy. Not that there was anything at all heretical in his act. +No; but the case was really much worse. For the clergy, it turned out, in +those days had a vested interest in beer. That was in the fourteenth +century, when the liquor was still generally brewed without hops, a +mixture of aromatic herbs being used instead, which was in most cases +supplied from episcopal forests. So it was in Brabant. The Bishop of Liege +possessed virtually a monopoly of the trade in _gruyt_, and when Duke John +favoured the cultivation of hops, the bishop's income suffered a serious +diminution. Accordingly, his Eminence remonstrated--just as in our +country, about 1400, and again in 1442, complaint was made to Parliament +of the introduction of that "wicked weed, that would spoil the taste of +drink and endanger the people." In the dioceses of Utrecht and Cologne it +was just the same thing. The bishops fought hard for their _gruyt_ or +_kruet_, using their crosiers as a defensive weapon, but had eventually to +give in. From this it would appear that what King Gambrinus really did +introduce was not beer, but the use in the brewing of it of hops, the +ingredient over which that eminent saint, Abbess Hildegardis of +Rupertusberg, had already pronounced her benediction. St. Hildegardis was +a saint of unquestionable authority, having been specially recognised at +the Council of Treves as a prophetess by St. Bernard and Pope Eugenius IV. +She recommended hops on the ground that, though "heating and drying," and +productive of "a certain melancholy and sadness" (she must have been +thinking of the effects next day), they possess the sovereign virtues of +preventing noxious fermentation and also of preserving the beer. (Burton, +in partial opposition to the saint, asserts that beer--hopped, of +course--"hath an especial virtue _against_ melancholy, as our herbalists +confess.") St. Hildegardis' opinion was given in the twelfth century. That +was not by any means the earliest age of beer; for we find it referred to +in history some centuries before. Whether the inhabitants of Chalcedon, +when they shouted in derision after the Emperor Valens, "Sabajarius! +Sabajarius!"--which has been translated, "drinker of beer"--really +referred to beer, as we now understand it, must appear doubtful. In the +same way, the reputed "beer" of the early Egyptians and Hebrews--alluded +to by Xenophon, Herodotus, and other ancient writers--may or may not have +been beer in our sense. But in the eighth century we find Charlemagne +enjoining brewing in his dominions. In 862 we have Charles the Bald making +to the monks of St. Denis a grant of ninety _boisseaux d'epeautre_ a year +_pour faire de la cervoise_. In 1042 we have Henri I. conferring on the +monks of Montreuil-sur-Marne the valuable right of brewing, and in 1268 +St. Louis laying down rules for the guidance of brewers in Paris. Paris +was then, as it now is becoming again--I cannot say that I like the +idea--a very "beery" place. Its brewers, even at a very remote time, +formed a highly respected corporation, using as their insignia and +trade-mark an image of the Holy Virgin--their patron saint--incongruously +enough grouped together with Ceres, both being encircled by the +legend:--_Bacchi Ceres aemula_. No modern Pope would allow such crossing +of the two religions. Ceres was of course in olden time looked upon as the +especial goddess of beer, made of barley, which was after her named +_Cerevisia_. Juvenal mentions _Demetrius_ as its name, derived of course +from Demeter. However, Fischart, a notable German poet, who lived in the +sixteenth century, ascribes its invention to Bacchus, as an intended +substitute for wine wherever there are no grapes. Modern Germany has +produced a very pretty song, which represents Wine as a wonder-working +nobleman, making a triumphal progress in grand style, clad in silk and +gold, and Beer crossing his path as a sturdy but rather perky peasant, in +a frieze jacket and top-boots, challenging him to a thaumaturgic tourney, +as Jannes and Jambres challenged Moses. After an amusing little squabble +the two make friends, and henceforth rule the world in joint sovereignty +and happy unity. At Paris, in the reign of Charles V., we find the local +brewers, twenty-one in number, so wealthy as to be able to pay a million +_ecus d'or_ for their licenses. Under Charles VI., beer had become a +regulation drink at the French court, and we have our own Richard II. +presenting the French king with a "_vaisseau a boire cervoise_." From this +it may be inferred that the famous verselet-- + + Hops and turkeys, carps and beer, + +or, as some rigid Anglican has improved it-- + + Hops, reformation, bays, and beer + Came to England all in one year-- + +to wit, the year 1525--is a little wrong in its date, and that beer was +known earlier. After the date named, we know that it soon made its way +into the highest circles. As proof of this we have the one shoe which +Queen Bess carelessly left behind after that lunch, of which beer formed +an item, with which she was regaled on her progress through Sussex, under +the spreading oak still shown in that pretty village of Northiam-- + + O fair Norjem! thou dost far exceed + Beckley, Peasmarsh, Udimore, and Brede-- + +which shoe may still be seen, by favour, in the private archaeological +collection at Brickwall House, in company with Accepted Frewen's +toasting-fork. + +Saxon descent may have had much to do with the development of our own +peculiar cerevisial taste--taste, that is, for beer with some body and a +good strong flavour of malt. There can be no doubt that, compared with the +produce of other countries, our beer is still the best--if only one's +liver will stand it--the most tasty, the most nourishing--"meat, drink and +cloth," as Sir John Linger puts it--beer which will occasionally "make a +cat speak and a wise man dumb." The Saxons always had a liking for beer +with something in it--not merely "strong water," as Sir Richard l'Estrange +calls the small stuff. The ancient Teutons, we know, were all of them +furious drinkers. Accordingly, not a few of the modern generation hold, +with Luther's Elector of Saxony, that a custom of such very venerable +antiquity ought not to be lightly abandoned. Tacitus writes that the +Germans think it no shame to spend a whole day and night a-drinking. The +Greek Emperor Nicephoras Phorcas told the ambassador of Emperor Otho that +his master's soldiers had no other proficiency but in getting drunk. +Rudolph of Hapsburgh grew vociferous over the discovery of good beer. +"Walk in, walk in!" he shouted, standing at a tavern door in Erfurt, +wholly oblivious of his imperial dignity; "there is excellent beer to be +had inside." And "good King Wenceslas" of our Christmas carol--described +as "good" nowhere else--was an habitual toper, and was "done" accordingly +by the French at Rheims, where he thought more of the wine than of the +treaty which he was negotiating. Henri Quatre would on no account marry a +German wife. "Je croirais," he said, "toujours avoir un pot de vin aupres +de moi." A modern writer, Charles Monselet, says that in Strassburg--in +this respect a typically German town--"tout se ressent de la domination de +la biere." Beer lends its colour to the faces of the inhabitants, to their +hair, to their clothes; to the soil and the houses; and the very women +seem nothing but "walking _chopes_." But the Saxons in particular--not the +modern ones, but those of the North, some of whom found their way into +England--always loved good stout nutritious drink, such as that to which +the German composer Von Flotow ascribes our sturdy robustness: + + Das ist das treffliche Elixir, + Das ist das kraeftige Porterbier. + +Obsopaeus says of the ancient Saxons: + + Coctam Cererem potant _crassosque liquores_. + +And an old rhyme, still quoted with gusto, goes to this effect: + + Ein echter Sachse wird, wie alle Voelker sagen, + Nie schmal in Schultern sein, noch schlaffe Lenden tragen. + Fragt Einer, welches denn die Ursach' sei: + Er isset Speck und Wurst, und trinket _Mumm_ dabei. + +"Mumm" is our own good old "mum," about the meaning of which in an Act of +Parliament there was recently some controversy, when even Mr. Gladstone +did not quite know how to explain it. It is the good, thick, stout, +nourishing beer--_nil spissius illo_--which makes blood and flesh, and +gives strength--"vires praestat et augmentat carnem, generatque cruorem," +says the school of Salerno. Very presumably it is such beer as this, too, +of which the unnamed witty poet quoted in Percy's "Reliques" writes: + + nobilis ale-a + Efficit heroas dignamque heroe puellam. + +No doubt beer has had a good many nasty things said about it. The same +school of Salerno lays it down that "crassos humores nutrit cerevisia, +ventrem quoque mollit et inflat." It also affirms that ebriety resulting +from beer is more hurtful than that produced by wine. But, notwithstanding +this, it endorses the advice given by Matthew de Gradibus, which is, to +drink it in preference to wine at the beginning of, or even throughout, +meals, and above all things after any great exertion. "Cerevisia vero +utpote crassior, et ad concoctionem pertinacior, non tam avide rapitur: +quare ab ea potus in principio prandii vel coenae utilius inchoatur. +Cerevisia humores etiam orificio stomachi insidentes abluit, et sitim, quae +ex nimia vini potatione timetur, praeterea et quamlibet aliam mendosam +coercet ac reprimit." To say nothing of the censure pronounced by Crato, +Henry of Avranches, and Wolfram von Eschenbach--that pillar of the Roman +Church, Cardinal Chigi, charitably suggests that if beer had but a little +sulphur added, it would become a right infernal drink. And Moscherosch, +joking on the admixture of pitch with beer, common in his time--possibly +copied from a similar practice applied to wine in the days of ancient +Greece--speaks of "la biere poissee qui habitue au feu de l'enfer." "Pix +intrantibus" used to be a familiar superscription placed for a joke over +tavern doors. Then, again, we have Luther barely qualifying the old German +rhyme-- + + Gott machte Gutes, Boeses wir: + Er braute Wein, wir brauen Bier-- + +by laying it down that "Vinum est donatio Dei, cerevisia traditio humana." +And he went so far as to pronounce the leading brewer of his time "Pestis +Germaniae." But this same Luther was himself a zealous beer-toper. He +drank beer, it is on record, when plotting the Reformation with +Melanchthon at Torgau. He called for _Bierseidel_ when Carlstadt came to +the "Bear" at Jena to discuss with him the subject of consubstantiation. +And the two divines used their pewters very freely by way of accentuating +their theological arguments, and, towards the close of the sitting, even +in substitution of them. Luther records with satisfaction, in his "Table +Talk," that many presents reached him from France, Prussia, and Russia, of +"wormwood-beer." And at Worms, where he was pleading the cause of the +reformed faith before a hostile Diet, the one ray of comfort which +pierced through the gloom of his imprisonment was the arrival, +particularly mentioned in his letters, of a small cask of "Eimbeck" beer +from one of the friendly princes. Like our modern M.P.'s annually +exercised about the matter, the German reformer had a fervent zeal for the +"purity of beer"--so fervent, that he actually threatened adulterating +brewers with Divine wrath. He wrote these lines: + + Am juengsten Tage wird geschaut + Was jeder fuer ein Bier gebraut. + +On the other hand, Cardinal Chigi's Roman anathema is more than +neutralised by any number of benedictions, expressed or implied, from holy +men of his Church. There are the regulations of St. Louis, of St. +Hildegardis, the enlisted interest of the Bishops of Cologne, Utrecht, and +Liege, the patron-saintship of St. Amandus, St. Leonard, St. Adrian, and +the Irish St. Florentius, and, moreover, the very close connection which +from time immemorial monks and religious houses have maintained with +brewing. In olden days they were the brewers _par excellence_. In Lorraine +our English Benedictines of Dieulouard, who maintained themselves in their +monastery near Pont-a-Mousson down to the time of the Revolution, long +possessed an absolute monopoly of brewing, and were famed for their +produce. And M. Reiber will have it that there are still in Germany, at +the present day, _des congregations de moines brasseurs_. Then there is +St. Chrodegang, a near relative of Charlemagne, the great reformer of +monastic orders, who particularly directed--and the rule is still +observed--that monks should be allowed the option of either beer or wine. +And sensible monks, a communicative Carthusian confided to me the other +day, prefer good beer any day to bad wine. + +If, in face of all this, neither Romanists nor Protestants can say +anything against beer, much less are Mussulmans in a position to do so. +For Mahomet actually, though he expressly forbids wine, never says a word +in prohibition of beer--thus leaving a convenient loophole to thirsty +Mahommedans, of which French writers tell us that bibulous Algerians +eagerly avail themselves. + +From all this it will be seen that, despite teetotal disparagement, beer +comes before the world, so to speak, with very respectable credentials, +entitling it to a fairly good reception. Brillat-Savarin, it is true, +admits to its detriment that "l'eau est la seule boisson qui apaise +veritablement la soif." But "l'eau," says another French writer, M. +Reiber, "est la prose des liquides, l'alcool en est la poesie." Speaking +more particularly of beer, among alcoholic drinks, M. Dubrunfaut writes: +"La biere occupe incontestablement le premier rang parmi les boissons +hygieniques connues." And he goes on to say that among the beer-drinking +nations one finds, as a rule, manly qualities most developed--as among the +English, the Germans, the Dutch, the Belgians, and the Northern French. +Brillat-Savarin only objects that beer makes people stout. + +Of course there is beer and beer. The wise doctors of Salerno very rightly +gave particular attention to this subject--as well they might, for beer +was adulterated in their days with no more scruple than it is in ours. The +Minnesinger Marner, in the thirteenth century, bitterly complains that +brewers make beer even without malt. There was no minnesinging to be done +on such drink. Then there was the manufacture of the aroma. Before there +were hops--and even after--people had a violent fancy for spices, the +indulgence in which was carried to such a point that the Church, meeting +in Council at Worms in 868, and at Treves in 895, felt bound to take +notice of the matter, and in a special canon laid down the rule that beer +spiced after the manner then prevalent should be allowed, as a luxury, +only on Sundays and saints' days. What those spices were may be gathered +from the following recipe for making beer, which appears to have been +first published at Strassburg (from early days a cerevisian city) in 1512, +and which was twice re-issued, under special approbation--namely, in 1552 +and 1679. "To one pound of coloured 'sweet-root' (probably liquorice) add +seven ounces of good cinnamon, four ounces of the best ginger, one ounce +each of cloves, 'long' pepper, galanga, and nutmeg, half an ounce each of +mace and of cardamom, and two ounces of genuine Italian saffron." Whatever +might be added in the shape of malt, who would recognise in this decoction +anything remotely worthy of the name of beer? It is of such stuff that +Cardinal Chigi must have been thinking when he pronounced beer "infernal +drink." For brewing beer the school of Salerno give the following good +advice: + + Non acidum sapiat cerevisia, sit bene clara. + Ex granis sit cocta bonis satis, ac veterata. + +It must not, above all things, be sour. For acidity "ventriculo inimica +est. Acetus nervosas offendit partes." As the Germans have it--and they +ought to know-- + + Ein boeses Weib und sauer Bier + Behuet' der Himmel dich dafuer! + +It should be clear, because "turbida impinguat, flatus gignit, atque +brevem spiritum efficit." "Bene cocta" it should be, for "male cocta +ventris inflationes, tormina et colicos cruciatos generat"--which Latin +speaks for itself. As for good grain, the doctors appear to prefer a +mixture of barley and oats. They allow either wheat, barley, or oats. +Wheat, they say, makes the most nourishing beer, but heating and +astringent. Barley alone makes the beer cold and dry. A mixture of barley +and oats renders it less nourishing, but also lighter on the stomach, and +less confining and distending. The Germans nowadays brew beer of every +conceivable grain and no-grain, even potatoes. But according to the +material so is the product. Lastly, say the doctors, beer, like wine, +should be old, or you will feel the effects in your stomach. + +We cannot at the present period dissociate from beer the idea of hops. But +it was comparatively late in history before hops were regarded as an +indispensable ingredient. The Sclav nations are reported to have had them +early; also the Mahommedans of the East. Haroun-al-Rashid's physician +states that in his day they were given as medicine. In France, the first +record of their cultivation is of the year 768, when Pepin le Bref gave +some directions as to the hop-grounds belonging to the monastery of St. +Denis. In Germany they are known to have been successfully cultivated +about Magdeburg in 1070. We are supposed to have received them over here +in 1525. In Alsace, beer-drinking country as it is, they were not +cultivated till 1802. The soil being very suitable, they then made way +with such rapidity that they soon crowded out completely madder and woad, +which had previously been considered the most profitable crops--so +profitable, that from the _coques de pastel_ (woad), which were looked +upon as the emblem of prosperity and well-being, the Lauraguais, and +indeed the whole country round Toulouse, came to be christened _le pays de +Cocagne_. Hence our own word of "Cockaigne," about the derivation of which +so many contradictory guesses have been made. It may be interesting to +note that in Strassburg the bakers at one time used to put hops into their +yeast, and that in some foreign countries the young shoots of the hop-bine +furnish a favourite vegetable, dressed like asparagus. + +Drinking habits are of course by far the most developed in Germany, where +beer has really become the object of a cult. Blessed with a healthy +thirst, which made our own poet Owen exclaim-- + + Si latet in vino verum, ut proverbia dicunt, + Invenit verum Teuto, vel inveniet-- + +the nation has seized upon beer as a second faith, "outside which there is +no salvation." Fischart, indeed, in his verses bade people who _must_ +drink beer, and would not be satisfied with German wine, "go to +Copenhagen; there they would find beer enough." Denmark truly was of +old--we know from "Hamlet"--a grand country for drinking. But in respect +of beer, in the present day, it is not "in it" with Germany. Tacitus wrote +about German drinking. Emperor Charlemagne felt bound to pass a law +against it. The earlier Popes, before consenting to crown a German +emperor, exacted from him an affirmative reply to the standing question: +"Vis sobrietatem cum Dei auxilio custodire?" Of the old Palsgraves it +used to be said: "Potatores sub coelo non meliores;" and "bibere more +palatino" became a byword. Maximilian I. felt called upon to pass +stringent laws. In the sixteenth century Germany went by the name of "Die +grossen Trinklande." And Luther, when resting from his _seidels_ +accompanying theological disputations, expressed a fear "lest this devil +(of thirst) should go on tormenting Germany till the day of judgment." The +modern Germans have remained true to the custom of their forefathers, and +have developed it scientifically. + + Um den Gerstensaft, geliebte Seelen, + Dreht sich unser ganzer Staat herum. + +The whole commonwealth literally "hinges" upon beer. The Emperor has drunk +it as a student at Bonn, and presumably still drinks it--in moderation. +The German Chancellor, instead of the parliamentary full-dress dinners +customary among ourselves, invites the members of the Diet to +"beer-evenings." If a learned professor discover a new bacillus or +antidotal lymph; if an African traveller annex a new province; if a +statesman attain his jubilee--there is but one form of public recognition +for all varieties of merit and distinction, and that is a _biercommers_. +No doubt the great extension of university education has a great deal to +do with the spread of regulated beer-drinking. The learned classes set the +tone, and the many follow it. + + Cerevisiam bibunt homines, animalia caetera fontes. + +That has become the general motto. It sounds very filthy to hear of the +astounding quantities of liquor consumed. But, in the first place, where +much is drunk, it is only very light stuff. And, to make it less trying, +the drinkers adopt the Socratic maxim of "small cups and many," by +frothing the beer up incredibly. Altogether they follow good classical +rules, which it is curious to trace, and which make their symposia rather +interesting. Drinking is not the end, but only the natural means for +attaining hilarity. And there is a good deal of rough geniality about it. +Like the ancient Greeks, these organised drinkers fix a well-recognised +[Greek: tropos tes poseos]. They have their absolute ruler, the +symposiarch, their accepted order of drinking, their proper scale of +fines. And also, as in Greece, only too often drinking is not a voluntary +act, but [Greek: anagkazesthai], and it is made to be [Greek: apneusti +pinein]--drinking without taking breath. There is the [Greek: propinein +philotesias]--drinking to one another--which _must_ be answered. There are +songs and jokes--though no _taeniae_ and, fortunately, no kisses. And the +small cups are duly followed up with the large horns, the [Greek: kerata], +and the huge vessels which the Greeks called [Greek: phreata]. Nay, these +modern classics even imitate the Greeks in respect of the [Greek: hales +kai kyminon]. For in many places the well-salted and carawayed [Greek: +epipasta] forms a standing accompaniment to the liquor. And next day, if +they are a trifle "foxed," they copy the Greeks in [Greek: kraipalen +kraipale exelaunein], or, as Sir John Linger calls it in better +"understanded" language, they take "a hair of the same dog," with a +pickled herring covered with raw onions for a companion, which is supposed +to set all things right. There are beer-courts to adjudge upon disputes, +there are indeterminate beer-minutes to settle the time--everything is +"beer." In all this joking there is no harm. As little harm is _meant_ to +be in the _missoe cerevisiales_ which tradition has handed down from the +time when monks were both the greatest brewers and also the greatest +drinkers, and, probably, in their refectories and misericords made as much +fun of the service over their cups as do now--or did until lately--German +students. There is the genuine chanting of versicles and responses, but +the words have reference to beer. This practice, I am glad to say, is now +very much on the decline. + +All this is scarcely surprising. We all knew it of the Germans long ago. +But it is a little strange to find France once more--few people know about +the first time--taking her place among beer-drinking countries and placing +the _honestas chopinandi_ among the precepts of the modern decalogue. The +French are good enough to explain that they do this, not for their own +gratification, but as a public service, as "saviours of society," to +"rendre les moeurs gambrinales plus aimables." That may be. But the fact +remains, that the annual consumption of beer per head of the population in +France has now risen to 21 litres (about 14 quarts), which on the top of +119 litres of wine (however light), 20 litres of cider, and 4 litres of +spirits, is a respectable allowance enough. For Germany the figures are +said to be--93 litres of beer, 6 of wine, and 10 of spirits--and such +spirits! France brews every year more than eight millions of hectolitres +of beer, and consumes considerably more. To do this, of course it must +import from abroad. And very rightly too, I should say. For though French +beer may no longer deserve the description given of it by the Emperor +Julian, who condemned it as "smelling strongly of the goat," there is +still little enough that is really good. And it is drunk out of such tiny +thimbles! I suspect that there is a dodge in this. The "bocks" have grown +smaller and smaller, till in some places they are mere tea-cups. But then +out come the _restaurateurs_ with their old disused "bocks," now +re-christened _bocks serieux_, and charge double price. That promises to +make France a real brewers' paradise. But, large glasses or small, there +is something about the beer which you must first get used to. Accordingly, +many of those gorgeous _brasseries_, of genuinely German type, which seem +so out of place in the Paris boulevards, are supplied, not from +Tantonville or Xertigny, but from Munich or Vienna, or else from +Strassburg. For, of course, the attachment which Frenchmen feel for their +lost provinces had a great deal to do with their new departure in the way +of a liking for beer. France, as it happens, owes some reparation to +Strassburg, and more particularly to its brewers. For at various times it +has treated the latter most unkindly. In the first place, the Second +Empire unmercifully hastened on the hour of "Bruce," making it eleven +"sharp," instead of the quarter past which had been previously allowed. +This threatens never to be forgotten or forgiven. In the second place, the +First Republic, though it honoured hops by assigning to them, in the place +of the calendar saint, St. Omer, the patronship of the 9th of September, +inflicted a very grievous injury when, in the _An II._ of its era, its +_tribunal revolutionnaire_ imposed a fine of 255,000 livres upon the +brewing trade, as is stated in the official _Livre Bleu_, "pour les abus +qu'ils ont pu se permettre sur leur comestibilite." The mulct is explained +in this wise:--"Considerant que la soif de l'or a constamment guide les +brasseurs, il les condamne a deux cents cinquante-cinq mille livres +d'amende, qu'ils doivent payer dans trois jours, sous peine d'etre +declares rebelles a la loi et de voir leurs biens confisques." There is no +talk of "compensation," as among ourselves. To be sure, the bakers, with +nothing against them--except it be on the score of weight--fared worse. +For they were declared _hostes generis humani_, and fined 300,000 livres. +The brewers really paid only 188,000 livres. But that was considered heavy +enough. In spite of this imposition, the brewing trade in Strassburg has +made tremendous strides, and continues flourishing. And very much more +beer is now consumed in the city than wine. For 1878 the figures were: +121,345 hectolitres of beer and 36,583 of wine. Paris in 1881 consumed +300,000 hectolitres of beer; in 1853 only 7,000 and in 1864 still only +40,000 hectolitres. (All this beer-drinking, it will be seen, dates from +1870.) In Paris, in spite of protection, the brewing interest appears to +find foreign competition rather formidable. At the time of the first +revolution, a French general (Santerre), with the assistance of government +subsidies, tried very hard to oust us from the market by brewing "ale" and +"porter." This earned the veteran the nickname of "Le General Mousseux." +But the speculation did not pay, and had to be abandoned. Having become so +popular, beer has, of course, found many fervid apologists in France. "La +biere fait en ce moment le tour du monde. Mieux que tous les raisonnements +et quoi qu'en disent les esprits chagrins, sa vogue prouve que la boisson +en houblon est utile, que l'humanite l'apprecie et en a besoin." So says +M. Reiber. "La bonne biere n'est pas une boisson malsaine; elle est +tonique et nourrissante." So says Dr. Tourdes. + +But really this is nothing new. Old inscriptions, dating from the +Gallo-Roman era, show that Pliny was correct in setting down, at his +period, the Gauls as a largely beer-drinking race. They had earthenware +beer-pots, some of which have been exhumed, bearing the inscription, +"Cerevisariis felicitas!" An old Gallo-Roman flagon is preserved in Paris, +on which is engraved--"Hospita reple lagenam cervisia!" The oldest +beer-song extant is Old-French, dating from the thirteenth century. It is +as follows: + + LETABUNDUS + Or hi purra; + La _cerveyse_ nos chauntera + Alleluia! + Qui que aukes en beyt + Si tel seyt comme estre doit + Res miranda. + +The prohibition which Charlemagne issued against keeping St. Stephen's Day +too zealously by the consumption of beer and wine, applied to France no +less than to Germany. The French were, in truth, great respecters of +saints' days in a bibulous way. St. Martin's Day was with them a favourite +occasion for drinking. Hence _martiner_ still currently signifies drinking +more than one ought. Another suggestive popular term is "Boire comme un +Templier." France then has really only returned to her _premier amour_. +But in doing so she has set upon it a seal of domination, which is +significant, as meaning that it is not likely to be readily surrendered. + +No doubt beer, having held its own so long, though much assailed, will +still continue to maintain its position. There is too much of human nature +in man to admit of its being effectually proscribed. "Abusus non tollit +usum." The same school of Salerno which praises beer as a wholesome drink +adds this wise proviso:--"Hic unicum de cervisiae usu praeceptum traditur: +nempe ut modice sumatur, neque ea stomachus praegravetur vel ebrietas +concilietur." Sebastian Brant writes in old German: + + Eyn Narr muosz vil gesoffen han, + Eyn Wyser maesslich drincken kann. + +There is great virtue in the _modice sumatur_. The wine-trade has passed +through a similar change. Though four-bottle men have died out, the +wine-trade is doing better than it did in olden days. So it will probably +be with beer. However temperance advocates may regret it, it is not to be +got rid of by railing. In truth it is now indeed making _le tour du +monde_. And, unless mankind changes its character altogether, it will +probably go on drinking--more or less _modice_--to the end of the chapter, +a beverage which stands commended by so exemplary a Father of the Church +as the whilom Bishop of Bath and Wells, Polydore Virgil, who pronounces it + + Potus tum salubris tum jucundus. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Blackwood's Magazine, August, 1894. + +[2] The church encloses, in addition to one of the "true" pebbles with +which was stoned, says M. Bellot-Herment, the chronicler of Bar, "_St +Etienne, cure de Gamaliel, bourg du diocese de Jerusalem_," that boldly +original sculpture from the chisel of the great Lorrain artist, Ligier +Richier, whom we so undeservedly ignore, the famous "_Squelette_"--the +mere name of which frightened Dibdin away, as he himself relates. Durival +terms this sculpture "_une affreuse beaute_"--but "_beaute_" it +undoubtedly is. + +[3] Patriotic Frenchmen derive this name from the Latin _fascinatio_. But +quite evidently it is a gallicised form of the German _fastnacht_, which +in Alsace is pronounced _fasenacht_, or very nearly _fasenocht_; in a +French mouth it would naturally become _faschinottes_. + +[4] Blackwood's Magazine, June, 1891. + +[5] National Review, February, 1892. + +[6] Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1893. + +[7] See the _Memoirs of the Family of Taaffe_, p. 13. + +[8] Westminster Review, May, 1892. + +[9] National Review, May, 1892. + +[10] Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1894. + +[11] The "English" student who took the second prize on the occasion must, +I think, have been Edmund Arnold. At any rate, I can discover no other +English name on the register. English students were still few in those +days. + +[12] Gentleman's Magazine, March, 1891. + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. + +Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}. + +The original text contains letters with diacritical marks that are not +represented in this text version. + +The original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these +letters have been replaced with transliterations. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Odd Bits of History, by Henry W. 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