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diff --git a/7627.txt b/7627.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5836fab --- /dev/null +++ b/7627.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3881 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook Devereux, by Bulwer-Lytton, Book IV. +#55 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + +Title: Devereux, Book IV. + +Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton + +Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7627] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on February 25, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVEREUX, BY LYTTON, BOOK IV. *** + + + +This eBook was produced by Dagny, + and David Widger, + + + + + +BOOK IV. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +A RE-ENTRANCE INTO LIFE THROUGH THE EBON GATE, AFFLICTION. + +MONTHS passed away before my senses returned to me. I rose from the bed +of suffering and of madness calm, collected, immovable,--altered, but +tranquil. All the vigilance of justice had been employed to discover +the murderers, but in vain. The packet was gone; and directly I, who +alone was able to do so, recovered enough to state the loss of that +document, suspicion naturally rested on Gerald, as on one whom that loss +essentially benefited. He came publicly forward to anticipate inquiry. +He proved that he had not stirred from home during the whole week in +which the event had occurred. That seemed likely enough to others; it +is the tools that work, not the instigator,--the bravo, not the +employer; but I, who saw in him not only the robber, but that fearful +rival who had long threatened Isora that my bridals should be stained +with blood, was somewhat staggered by the undeniable proofs of his +absence from the scene of that night; and I was still more bewildered in +conjecture by remembering that, so far as their disguises and my own +hurried and confused observation could allow me to judge, the person of +neither villain, still less that of Isora's murderer, corresponded with +the proportions and height of Gerald. Still, however, whether mediately +or immediately--whether as the executor or the designer--not a doubt +remained on my mind that against his head was justice due. I directed +inquiry towards Montreuil: he was abroad at the time of my recovery; +but, immediately on his return, he came forward boldly and at once to +meet and even to court the inquiry I had instituted; he did more,--he +demanded on what ground, besides my own word, it rested that this packet +had ever been in my possession; and, to my surprise and perplexity, it +was utterly impossible to produce the smallest trace of Mr. Marie +Oswald. His half-brother, the attorney, had died, it is true, just +before the event of that night; and it was also true that he had seen +Marie on his death-bed; but no other corroboration of my story could be +substantiated, and no other information of the man obtained; and the +partisans of Gerald were not slow in hinting at the great interest I had +in forging a tale respecting a will, about the authenticity of which I +was at law. + +The robbers had entered the house by a back-door, which was found open. +No one had perceived their entrance or exit, except Desmarais, who +stated that he heard a cry; that he, having spent the greater part of +the night abroad, had not been in bed above an hour before he heard it; +that he rose and hurried towards my room, whence the cry came; that he +met two men masked on the stairs; that he seized one, who struck him in +the breast with a poniard, dashed him to the ground, and escaped; that +he then immediately alarmed the house, and, the servants accompanying +him, he proceeded, despite his wound, to my apartment, where he found +Isora and myself bleeding and lifeless, with the escritoire broken open. + +The only contradiction to this tale was, that the officers of justice +found the escritoire not broken open, but unlocked; and yet the key +which belonged to it was found in a pocketbook in my clothes, where +Desmarais said, rightly, I always kept it. How, then, had the +escritoire been unlocked? it was supposed by the master-keys peculiar to +experienced burglars; this diverted suspicion into a new channel, and it +was suggested that the robbery and the murder had really been committed +by common housebreakers. It was then discovered that a large purse of +gold, and a diamond cross, which the escritoire contained, were gone. +And a few articles of ornamental /bijouterie/ which I had retained from +the wreck of my former profusion in such baubles, and which were kept in +a room below stairs, were also missing. The circumstances immediately +confirmed the opinion of those who threw the guilt upon vulgar and +mercenary villains, and a very probable and plausible supposition was +built on this hypothesis. Might not this Oswald, at best an adventurer +with an indifferent reputation, have forged this story of the packet in +order to obtain admission into the house, and reconnoitre, during the +confusion of a wedding, in what places the most portable articles of +value were stowed? A thousand opportunities, in the opening and +shutting of the house-doors, would have allowed an ingenious villain to +glide in; nay, he might have secreted himself in my own room, and seen +the place where I had put the packet: certain would he then be that I +had selected for the repository of a document I believed so important +that place where all that I most valued was secured; and hence he would +naturally resolve to break open the escritoire, above all other places, +which, to an uninformed robber, might have seemed not only less exposed +to danger, but equally likely to contain articles of value. The same +confusion which enabled him to enter and conceal himself would have also +enabled him to withdraw and introduce his accomplice. This notion was +rendered probable by his insisting so strongly on my not opening the +packet within a certain time; had I opened it immediately, I might have +perceived that a deceit had been practised, and not have hoarded it in +that place of security which it was the villain's object to discover. +Hence, too, in opening the escritoire, he would naturally retake the +packet (which other plunderers might not have cared to steal), as well +as things of more real price,--naturally retake it, in order that his +previous imposition might not be detected, and that suspicion might be +cast upon those who would appear to have an interest in stealing a +packet which I believed to be so inestimably important. + +What gave a still greater colour to this supposition was the fact that +none of the servants had seen Oswald leave the house, though many had +seen him enter. And what put his guilt beyond a doubt in the opinion of +many, was his sudden and mysterious disappearance. To my mind, all +these circumstances were not conclusive. Both the men seemed taller +than Oswald; and I knew that that confusion which was so much insisted +upon, had not--thanks to my singular fastidiousness in those +matters--existed. I was also perfectly convinced that Oswald could not +have been hidden in my room while I locked up the packet; and there was +something in the behaviour of the murderer utterly unlike that of a +common robber actuated by common motives. + +All these opposing arguments were, however, of a nature to be deemed +nugatory by the world; and on the only one of any importance in their +estimation, namely, the height of Oswald being different from that of +the robbers, it was certainly very probable that, in a scene so +dreadful, so brief, so confused, I should easily be mistaken. Having +therefore once flowed in this direction, public opinion soon settled +into the full conviction that Oswald was the real criminal, and against +Oswald was the whole strength of inquiry ultimately, but still vainly, +bent. Some few, it is true, of that kind class who love family +mysteries, and will not easily forego the notion of a brother's guilt +for that of a mere vulgar housebreaker, still shook their heads and +talked of Gerald; but the suspicion was vague and partial, and it was +only in the close gossip of private circles that it was audibly vented. + +I had formed an opinion by no means favourable to the innocence of Mr. +Jean Desmarais; and I took especial care that the Necessitarian, who +would only have thought robbery and murder pieces of ill-luck, should +undergo a most rigorous examination. I remembered that he had seen me +put the packet into the escritoire; and this circumstance was alone +sufficient to arouse my suspicion. Desmarais bared his breast +gracefully to the magistrate. "Would a man, Sir," he said, "a man of my +youth, suffer such a scar as that, if he could help it?" The magistrate +laughed: frivolity is often a rogue's best policy, if he did but know +it. One finds it very difficult to think a coxcomb can commit robbery +and murder. Howbeit Desmarais came off triumphantly; and immediately +after this examination, which had been his second one, and instigated +solely at my desire, he came to me with a blush of virtuous indignation +on his thin cheeks. "He did not presume," he said, with a bow +profounder than ever, "to find fault with Monsieur le Comte; it was his +fate to be the victim of ungrateful suspicion: but philosophical truths +could not always conquer the feelings of the man, and he came to request +his dismissal." I gave it him with pleasure. + +I must now state my own feelings on the matter; but I shall do so +briefly. In my own mind, I repeat, I was fully impressed with the +conviction that Gerald was the real and the head criminal; and thrice +did I resolve to repair to Devereux Court, where he still resided, to +lie in wait for him, to reproach him with his guilt, and at the sword's +point in deadly combat to seek its earthly expiation. I spare the +reader a narration of the terrible struggles which nature, conscience, +all scruples and prepossessions of education and of blood, held with +this resolution, the unholiness of which I endeavoured to clothe with +the name of justice to Isora. Suffice it to say that this resolution I +forewent at last; and I did so more from a feeling that, despite my own +conviction of Gerald's guilt, one rational doubt rested upon the +circumstance that the murderer seemed to my eyes of an inferior height +to Gerald, and that the person whom I had pursued on the night I had +received that wound which brought Isora to my bedside, and who, it was +natural to believe, was my rival, appeared to me not only also slighter +and shorter than Gerald, but of a size that seemed to tally with the +murderer's. + +This solitary circumstance, which contradicted my other impressions, +was, I say, more effectual in making me dismiss the thought of personal +revenge on Gerald than the motives which virtue and religion should have +dictated. The deep desire of vengeance is the calmest of all the +passions, and it is the one which most demands certainty to the reason, +before it releases its emotions and obeys their dictates. The blow +which was to do justice to Isora I had resolved should not be dealt till +I had obtained the most utter certainty that it fell upon the true +criminal. And thus, though I cherished through all time and through all +change the burning wish for retribution, I was doomed to cherish it in +secret, and not for years and years to behold a hope of attaining it. +Once only I vented my feelings upon Gerald. I could not rest or sleep +or execute the world's objects till I had done so; but when they were +thus once vented, methought I could wait the will of time with a more +settled patience, and I re-entered upon the common career of life more +externally fitted to fulfil its duties and its aims. + +That single indulgence of emotion followed immediately after my +resolution of not forcing Gerald into bodily contest. I left my sword, +lest I might be tempted to forget my determination. I rode to Devereux +Court; I entered Gerald's chamber, while my horse stood unstalled at the +gate. I said but few words, but each word was a volume. I told him to +enjoy the fortune he had acquired by fraud, and the conscience he had +stained with murder. "Enjoy them while you may," I said, "but know that +sooner or later shall come a day when the blood that cries from earth +shall be heard in Heaven,--and /your/ blood shall appease it. Know, if +I seem to disobey the voice at my heart, I hear it night and day; and I +only live to fulfil at one time its commands." + +I left him stunned and horror-stricken. I flung myself on my horse, and +cast not a look behind as I rode from the towers and domains of which I +had been despoiled. Never from that time would I trust myself to meet +or see the despoiler. Once, directly after I had thus braved him in his +usurped hall, he wrote to me. I returned the letter unopened. Enough +of this: the reader will now perceive what was the real nature of my +feelings of revenge; and will appreciate the reasons which throughout +this history will cause me never or rarely to recur to those feelings +again, until at least he will perceive a just hope of their +consummation. + +I went with a quiet air and a set brow into the world. It was a time of +great political excitement. Though my creed forbade me the open senate, +it could not deprive me of the veiled intrigue. St. John found ample +employment for my ambition; and I entered into the toils and objects of +my race with a seeming avidity more eager and engrossing than their own. +In what ensues, you will perceive a great change in the character of my +memoirs. Hitherto, I chiefly portrayed to you /myself/. I bared open +to you my heart and temper,--my passions, and the thoughts which belong +to our passions. I shall now rather bring before you the natures and +the minds of others. The lover and the dreamer are no more! The +satirist and the observer; the derider of human follies, participating +while he derides; the worldly and keen actor in the human drama,--these +are what the district of my history on which you enter will portray me. +From whatever pangs to me the change may have been wrought, you will be +the gainer by that change. The gaudy dissipation of courts; the +vicissitudes and the vanities of those who haunt them; the glittering +jest and the light strain; the passing irony or the close reflection; +the characters of the great; the colloquies of wit,--these are what +delight the temper, and amuse the leisure more than the solemn narrative +of fated love. As the monster of the Nile is found beneath the sunniest +banks and in the most freshening wave, the stream may seem to wander on +in melody and mirth,--the ripple and the beam; but /who/ shall tell what +lurks, dark, and fearful, and ever vigilant, below! + + + +CHAPTER II. + +AMBITIOUS PROJECTS. + +IT is not my intention to write a political history, instead of a +private biography. No doubt in the next century there will be volumes +enough written in celebration of that era which my contemporaries are +pleased to term the greatest that in modern times has ever existed. +Besides, in the private and more concealed intrigues with which I was +engaged with St. John, there was something which regard for others would +compel me to preserve in silence. I shall therefore briefly state that +in 1712 St. John dignified the peerage by that title which his exile and +his genius have rendered so illustrious. + +I was with him on the day this honour was publicly announced. I found +him walking to and fro his room, with his arms folded, and with a very +peculiar compression of his nether lip, which was a custom he had when +anything greatly irritated or disturbed him. + +"Well," said he, stopping abruptly as he saw me,--"well, considering the +peacock Harley brought so bright a plume to his own nest, we must admire +the generosity which spared this gay dunghill feather to mine!" + +"How?" said I, though I knew the cause of his angry metaphor. St. John +used metaphors in speech scarcely less than in writing. + +"How?" cried the new peer, eagerly, and with one of those flashing looks +which made his expression of indignation the most powerful I ever saw; +"how! Was the sacred promise granted to me of my own collateral earldom +to be violated; and while the weight, the toil, the difficulty, the +odium of affairs, from which Harley, the despotic dullard, shrank alike +in imbecility and fear, had been left exclusively to my share, an insult +in the shape of an honour to be left exclusively to my reward? You know +my disposition is not to overrate the mere baubles of ambition; you know +I care little for titles and for orders in themselves: but the most +worthless thing becomes of consequence if made a symbol of what is of +value, or designed as the token of an affront. Listen: a collateral +earldom falls vacant; it is partly promised me. Suddenly I am dragged +from the House of Commons, where I am all powerful; I am given--not this +earldom, which, as belonging to my house, would alone have induced me to +consent to a removal from a sphere where my enemies allow I had greater +influence than any single commoner in the kingdom,--I am given, not +this, but a miserable compromise of distinction, a new and an inferior +rank; given it against my will; thrust into the Upper House to defend +what this pompous driveller, Oxford, is forced to forsake; and not only +exposed to all the obloquy of a most infuriate party opposed to me, but +mortified by an intentional affront from the party which, heart and +soul, I have supported. You know that my birth is to the full as noble +as Harley's; you know that my influence in the Lower House is far +greater; you know that my name in the country, nay, throughout Europe, +is far more popular; you know that the labour allotted to me has been +far more weighty; you know that the late Peace of Utrecht is entirely my +framing, that the foes to the measure direct all their venom against me, +that the friends of the measure heap upon me all the honour: when, +therefore, this exact time is chosen for breaking a promise formerly +made to me; when a pretended honour, known to be most unpalatable to me, +is thrust upon me; when, at this very time, too, six vacant ribbons of +the garter flaunt by me,--one resting on the knee of this Harley, who +was able to obtain an earldom for himself,--the others given to men of +far inferior pretensions, though not inferior rank to my own,--myself +markedly, glaringly passed by: how can I avoid feeling that things +despicable in themselves are become of a vital power, from the evident +intention that they should be insults to me? The insects we despise as +they buzz around us become dangerous when they settle on ourselves and +we feel their sting! But," added Bolingbroke, suddenly relapsing into a +smile, "I have long wanted a nickname: I have now found one for myself. +You know Oxford is called 'The Dragon;' well, henceforth call me 'St. +George;' for, as sure as I live, will I overthrow the Dragon. I say +this in jest, but I mean it in earnest. And now that I have discharged +my bile, let us talk of this wonderful poem, which, though I have read +it a hundred times, I am never wearied of admiring." + +"Ah--'The Rape of the Lock'. It is indeed beautiful, but I am not fond +of poetry now. By the way, how is it that all our modern poets speak to +the taste, the mind, the judgment, and never to the /feelings/? Are +they right in doing so?" + +"My friend, we are now in a polished age. What have feelings to do with +civilization?" + +"Why, more than you will allow. Perhaps the greater our civilization, +the more numerous our feelings. Our animal passions lose in excess, but +our mental gain; and it is to the mental that poetry should speak. Our +English muse, even in this wonderful poem, seems to me to be growing, +like our English beauties, too glitteringly artificial: it wears /rouge/ +and a hoop!" + +"Ha! ha!--yes, they ornament now, rather than create; cut drapery, +rather than marble. Our poems remind me of the ancient statues. +Phidias made them, and Bubo and Bombax dressed them in purple. But this +does not apply to young Pope, who has shown in this very poem that he +can work the quarry as well as choose the gems. But see, the carriage +awaits us. I have worlds to do; first there is Swift to see; next, +there is some exquisite Burgundy to taste; then, too, there is the new +actress: and, by the by, you must tell me what you think of Bentley's +Horace; we will drive first to my bookseller's to see it; Swift shall +wait; Heavens! how he would rage if he heard me. I was going to say +what a pity it is that that man should have so much littleness of +vanity; but I should have uttered a very foolish sentiment if I had!" + +"And why?" + +"Because, if he had not so much littleness perhaps he would not be so +great: what but vanity makes a man write and speak, and slave, and +become famous? Alas!" and here St. John's countenance changed from +gayety to thought; "'tis a melancholy thing in human nature that so +little is good and noble, both in itself and in its source! Our very +worst passions will often produce sublimer effects than our best. +Phidias (we will apply to him for another illustration) made the +wonderful statue of Minerva for his country; but, in order to avenge +himself on that country, he eclipsed it in the far more wonderful statue +of the Jupiter Olympius. Thus, from a vicious feeling emanated a +greater glory than from an exalted principle; and the artist was less +celebrated for the monument of his patriotism than for that of his +revenge! But, /allons, mon cher/, we grow wise and dull. Let us go to +choose our Burgundy and our comrades to share it." + +However with his characteristic affectation of bounding ambition, and +consequently hope, to no one object in particular, and of mingling +affairs of light importance with those of the most weighty, Lord +Bolingbroke might pretend not to recur to, or to dwell upon, his causes +of resentment, from that time they never ceased to influence him to a +great, and for a statesman an unpardonable, degree. We cannot, however, +blame politicians for their hatred, until, without hating anybody, we +have for a long time been politicians ourselves; strong minds have +strong passions, and men of strong passions must hate as well as love. + +The next two years passed, on my part, in perpetual intrigues of +diplomacy, combined with an unceasing though secret endeavour to +penetrate the mystery which hung over the events of that dreadful night. +All, however, was m vain. I know not what the English police may be +hereafter, but, in my time, its officers seem to be chosen, like honest +Dogberry's companions, among "the most senseless and fit men." They +are, however, to the full, as much knaves as fools; and perhaps a wiser +posterity will scarcely believe that, when things of the greatest value +are stolen, the owners, on applying to the chief magistrate, will often +be told that no redress can be given there, while one of the officers +will engage to get back the goods, upon paying the thieves a certain sum +in exchange: if this is refused, your effects are gone forever! A +pretty state of internal government! + +It was about a year after the murder that my mother informed me of an +event which tore from my heart its last private tie; namely, the death +of Aubrey. The last letter I had received from him has been placed +before the reader; it was written at Devereux Court, just before he left +it forever. Montreuil had been with him during the illness which proved +fatal, and which occurred in Ireland. He died of consumption; and when +I heard from my mother that Montreuil dwelt most glowingly upon the +devotion he had manifested during the last months of his life, I could +not help fearing that the morbidity of his superstition had done the +work of physical disease. On this fatal news, my mother retired from +Devereux Court to a company of ladies of our faith, who resided +together, and practised the most ascetic rules of a nunnery, though they +gave not to their house that ecclesiastical name. My mother had long +meditated this project, and it was now a melancholy pleasure to put it +into execution. From that period I rarely heard from her, and by little +and little she so shrank from all worldly objects that my visits, and I +believe even those of Gerald, became unwelcome and distasteful. + +As to my lawsuit, it went on gloriously, according to the assertions of +my brisk little lawyer, who had declared so emphatically that he liked +making quick work of a suit. And, at last, what with bribery and feeing +and pushing, a day was fixed for the final adjustment of my claim. It +came--the cause was heard and lost! I should have been ruined, but for +one circumstance; the old lady, my father's godmother, who had witnessed +my first and concealed marriage, left me a pretty estate near Epsom. I +turned it into gold, and it was fortunate that I did so soon, as the +reader is about to see. + +The queen died; and a cloud already began to look menacing to the eyes +of the Viscount Bolingbroke, and therefore to those of the Count +Devereux. "We will weather out the shower," said Bolingbroke. + +"Could not you," said I, "make our friend Oxford the Talapat?"* and +Bolingbroke laughed. All men find wit in the jests broken on their +enemies! + + +* A thing used by the Siamese for the same purpose as we now use the +umbrella. A work descriptive of Siam, by M. de la Loubere, in which the +Talapat is somewhat minutely described, having been translated into +English, and having excited some curiosity, a few years before Count +Devereux now uses the word, the allusion was probably familiar.--ED. + + +One morning, however, I received a laconic note from him, which, +notwithstanding its shortness and seeming gayety, I knew well signified +that something not calculated for laughter had occurred. I went, and +found that his new Majesty had deprived him of the seals and secured his +papers. We looked very blank at each other. At last, Bolingbroke +smiled. I must say that, culpable as he was in some points as a +politician,--culpable, not from being ambitious (for I would not give +much for the statesman who is otherwise), but from not having +inseparably linked his ambition to the welfare of his country, rather +than to that of a party; for, despite of what has been said of him, his +ambition was never selfish,--culpable as he was when glory allured him, +he was most admirable when danger assailed him!* and, by the shade of +that Tully whom he so idolized, his philosophy was the most conveniently +worn of any person's I ever met. When it would have been in the way--at +the supper of an actress, in the /levees/ of a court, in the boudoir of +a beauty, in the arena of the senate, in the intrigue of the +cabinet--you would not have observed a seam of the good old garment. +But directly it was wanted--in the hour of pain, in the day of peril, in +the suspense of exile, in (worst of all) the torpor of tranquillity--my +extraordinary friend unfolded it piece by piece, wrapped himself up in +it, sat down, defied the world, and uttered the most beautiful +sentiments upon the comfort and luxury of his raiment, that can possibly +be imagined. It used to remind me, that same philosophy of his, of the +enchanted tent in the Arabian Tale, which one moment lay wrapped in a +nut-shell, and the next covered an army. + + +* I know well that it has been said otherwise, and that Bolingbroke has +been accused of timidity for not staying in England, and making Mr. +Robert Walpole a present of his head. The elegant author of "De Vere" +has fallen into a very great though a very hackneyed error, in lauding +Oxford's political character, and condemning Bolingbroke's, because the +former awaited a trial and the latter shunned it. A very little +reflection might perhaps have taught the accomplished novelist that +there could be no comparison between the two cases, because there was no +comparison between the relative danger of Oxford and Bolingbroke. +Oxford, as their subsequent impeachment proved, was far more numerously +and powerfully supported than his illustrious enemy: and there is really +no earthly cause for doubting the truth of Bolingbroke's assertion; +namely, that "He had received repeated and certain information that a +resolution was taken, by those who had power to execute it, to pursue +him to the scaffold." There are certain situations in which a brave and +a good man should willingly surrender life--but I humbly opine that +there may sometimes exist a situation in which he should preserve it; +and if ever man was placed in that latter situation, it was Lord +Bolingbroke. To choose unnecessarily to put one's head under the axe, +without benefiting any but one's enemies by the act, is, in my eyes, the +proof of a fool, not a hero; and to attack a man for not placing his +head in that agreeable and most useful predicament--for preferring, in +short, to live for a world, rather than to perish by a faction--appears +to be a mode of arguing that has a wonderful resemblance to nonsense. +When Lord Bolingbroke was impeached, two men only out of those numerous +retainers in the Lower House who had been wont so loudly to applaud the +secretary of state, in his prosecution of those very measures for which +he was now to be condemned,--two men only, General Ross and Mr. +Hungerford, uttered a single syllable in defence of the minister +disgraced.--ED. + + +Bolingbroke smiled, and quoted Cicero, and after an hour's conversation, +which on his part was by no means like that of a person whose very head +was in no enviable state of safety, he slid at once from a sarcasm upon +Steele into a discussion as to the best measures to be adopted. Let me +be brief on this point. Throughout the whole of that short session, he +behaved in a manner more delicately and profoundly wise than, I think, +the whole of his previous administration can equal. He sustained with +the most unflagging, the most unwearied, dexterity, the sinking spirits +of his associates. Without an act, or the shadow of an act, that could +be called time-serving, he laid himself out to conciliate the king, and +to propitiate Parliament; with a dignified prudence which, while it +seemed above petty pique, was well calculated to remove the appearance +of that disaffection with which he was charged, and discriminated justly +between the king and the new administration, he lent his talents to the +assistance of the monarch by whom his impeachment was already resolved +on, and aided in the settlement of the civil list while he was in full +expectation of a criminal accusation. + +The new Parliament met, and all doubt was over. An impeachment of the +late administration was decided upon. I was settling bills with my +little lawyer one morning, when Bolingbroke entered my room. He took a +chair, nodded to me not to dismiss my assistant, joined our +conversation, and when conversation was merged in accounts, he took up a +book of songs, and amused himself with it till my business was over and +my disciple of Coke retired. He then said, very slowly, and with a +slight yawn, "You have never been at Paris, I think?" + +"Never: you are enchanted with that gay city." + +"Yes, but when I was last there, the good people flattered my vanity +enough to bribe my taste. I shall be able to form a more unbiased and +impartial judgment in a few days." + +"A few days!" + +"Ay, my dear Count: does it startle you? I wonder whether the pretty De +Tencin will be as kind to me as she was, and whether /tout le monde/ +(that most exquisite phrase for five hundred people) will rise now at +the Opera on my entrance. Do you think that a banished minister can +have any, the smallest resemblance to what he was when in power? By +Gumdragon, as our friend Swift so euphoniously and elegantly says, or +swears, by Gumdragon, I think not! What altered Satan so after his +fall? what gave him horns and a tail? Nothing but his disgrace. Oh! +years, and disease, plague, pestilence, and famine never alter a man so +much as the loss of power." + +"You say wisely; but what am I to gather from your words? is it all over +with us in real earnest?" + +"Us! with /me/ it is indeed all over: /you/ may stay here forever. I +must fly: a packet-boat to Calais, or a room in the Tower, I must choose +between the two. I had some thoughts of remaining and confronting my +trial: but it would be folly; there is a difference between Oxford and +me. He has friends, though out of power: I have none. If they impeach +him, he will escape; if they impeach me, they will either shut me up +like a rat in a cage, for twenty years, till, old and forgotten, I tear +my heart out with my confinement, or they will bring me at once to the +block. No, no: I must keep myself for another day; and, while they +banish me, I will leave the seeds of the true cause to grow up till my +return. Wise and exquisite policy of my foes,--'/Frustra Cassium +amovisti, si gliscere et vigere Brutorum emulos passurus es.'* But I +have no time to lose: farewell, my friend; God bless you; you are saved +from these storms; and even intolerance, which prevented the exercise of +your genius, preserves you now from the danger of having applied that +genius to the welfare of your country. Heaven knows, whatever my +faults, I have sacrificed what I loved better than all things--study and +pleasure--to her cause. In her wars I served even my enemy Marlborough, +in order to serve her; her peace I effected, and I suffer for it. Be it +so, I am + + + "'Fidens animi atque in utrumque paratus.'** + + +"Once more I embrace you; farewell." + + +* "Vainly have you banished Cassius, if you shall suffer the rivals of +the Brutuses to spread themselves and flourish." + + +** "Confident of soul and prepared for either fortune." + + +"Nay," said I, "listen to me; you shall not go alone. France is +already, in reality, my native country: there did I receive my birth; it +is no hardship to return to my /natale solum/; it is an honour to return +in the company of Henry St. John. I will have no refusal: my law case +is over; my papers are few; my money I will manage to transfer. +Remember the anecdote you told me yesterday of Anaxagoras, who, when +asked where his country was, pointed with his finger to heaven. It is +applicable, I hope, as well to me as to yourself: to me, uncelebrated +and obscure; to you, the senator and the statesman." + +In vain Bolingbroke endeavoured to dissuade me from this resolution; he +was the only friend fate had left me, and I was resolved that misfortune +should not part us. At last he embraced me tenderly, and consented to +what he could not resist. "But you cannot," he said, "quit England +to-morrow night, as I must." + +"Pardon me," I answered, "the briefer the preparation, the greater the +excitement, and what in life is equal to /that/?" + +"True," answered Bolingbroke; "to some natures, too restless to be +happy, excitement can compensate for all,--compensate for years wasted, +and hopes scattered,--compensate for bitter regret at talents perverted +and passions unrestrained. But we will talk philosophically when we +have more leisure. You will dine with me to-morrow: we will go to the +play together; I promised poor Lucy that I would see her at the theatre, +and I cannot break my word; and an hour afterwards we will commence our +excursion to Paris. And now I will explain to you the plan I have +arranged for our escape." + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE REAL ACTORS SPECTATORS TO THE FALSE ONES. + +IT was a brilliant night at the theatre. The boxes were crowded to +excess. Every eye was directed towards Lord Bolingbroke, who, with his +usual dignified and consummate grace of manner, conversed with the +various loiterers with whom, from time to time, his box was filled. + +"Look yonder," said a very young man, of singular personal beauty, "look +yonder, my Lord, what a panoply of smiles the Duchess wears to-night, +and how triumphantly she directs those eyes, which they say were once so +beautiful, to your box." + +"Ah," said Bolingbroke, "her Grace does me too much honour: I must not +neglect to acknowledge her courtesy; "and, leaning over the box, +Bolingbroke watched his opportunity till the Duchess of Marlborough, who +sat opposite to him, and who was talking with great and evidently joyous +vivacity to a tall, thin man, beside her, directed her attention, and +that of her whole party, in a fixed and concentrated stare, to the +imperilled minister. With a dignified smile Lord Bolingbroke then put +his hand to his heart, and bowed profoundly; the Duchess looked a little +abashed, but returned the courtesy quickly and slightly, and renewed her +conversation. + +"Faith, my Lord," cried the young gentleman who had before spoken, "you +managed that well! No reproach is like that which we clothe in a smile, +and present with a bow." + +"I am happy," said Lord Bolingbroke, "that my conduct receives the grave +support of a son of my political opponent." + +"/Grave/ support, my Lord! you are mistaken: never apply the epithet +grave to anything belonging to Philip Wharton. But, in sober earnest, I +have sat long enough with you to terrify all my friends, and must now +show my worshipful face in another part of the house. Count Devereux, +will you come with me to the Duchess's?" + +"What! the Duchess's immediately after Lord Bolingbroke's!--the Whig +after the Tory: it would be as trying to one's assurance as a change +from the cold bath to the hot to one's constitution." + +"Well, and what so delightful as a trial in which one triumphs? and a +change in which one does not lose even one's countenance?" + +"Take care, my Lord," said Bolingbroke, laughing; "those are dangerous +sentiments for a man like you, to whom the hopes of two great parties +are directed, to express so openly, even on a trifle and in a jest." + +"'Tis for that reason I utter them. I like being the object of hope and +fear to men, since my miserable fortune made me marry at fourteen, and +cease to be aught but a wedded thing to the women. But sup with me at +the Bedford,--you, my Lord, and the Count." + +"And you will ask Walpole, Addison, and Steele,* to join us, eh?" said +Bolingbroke. "No, we have other engagements for to-night; but we shall +meet again soon." + + +* All political opponents of Lord Bolingbroke. + + +And the eccentric youth nodded his adieu, disappeared, and a minute +afterwards was seated by the side of the Duchess of Marlborough. + +"There goes a boy," said Bolingbroke, "who, at the age of fifteen, has +in him the power to be the greatest man of his day, and in all +probability will only be the most singular. An obstinate man is sure of +doing well; a wavering or a whimsical one (which is the same thing) is +as uncertain, even in his elevation, as a shuttlecock. But look to the +box at the right: do you see the beautiful Lady Mary?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Trefusis, who was with us, "she has only just come to +town. 'Tis said she and Ned Montagu live like doves." + +"How!" said Lord Bolingbroke; "that quick, restless eye seems to have +very little of the dove in it." + +"But how beautiful she is!" said Trefusis, admiringly. "What a pity +that those exquisite hands should be so dirty! It reminds me" (Trefusis +loved a coarse anecdote) "of her answer to old Madame de Noailles, who +made exactly the same remark to her. 'Do you call my hands dirty?' +cried Lady Mary, holding them up with the most innocent /naivete/. 'Ah, +Madame, /si vous pouviez voir mes pieds!'" + +"/Fi donc/," said I, turning away; "but who is that very small, deformed +man behind her,--he with the bright black eye?" + +"Know you not?" said Bolingbroke; "tell it not in Gath!--'tis a rising +sun, whom I have already learned to worship,--the young author of the +'Essay on Criticism,' and 'The Rape of the Lock.' Egad, the little poet +seems to eclipse us with the women as much as with the men. Do you mark +how eagerly Lady Mary listens to him, even though the tall gentleman in +black, who in vain endeavours to win her attentions, is thought the +handsomest gallant in London? Ah, Genius is paid by smiles from all +females but Fortune; little, methinks, does that young poet, in his +first intoxication of flattery and fame, guess what a lot of contest and +strife is in store for him. The very breath which a literary man +respires is hot with hatred, and the youthful proselyte enters that +career which seems to him so glittering, even as Dame Pliant's brother +in the 'Alchemist' entered town,--not to be fed with luxury, and diet on +pleasure, but 'to learn to quarrel and live by his wits.'" + +The play was now nearly over. With great gravity Lord Bolingbroke +summoned one of the principal actors to his box, and bespoke a play for +the next week; leaning then on my arm, he left the theatre. We hastened +to his home, put on our disguises, and, without any adventure worth +recounting, effected our escape and landed safely at Calais. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +PARIS.--A FEMALE POLITICIAN AND AN ECCLESIASTICAL ONE.--SUNDRY OTHER +MATTERS. + +THE ex-minister was received both at Calais and at Paris with the most +gratifying honours: he was then entirely the man to captivate the +French. The beauty of his person, the grace of his manner, his +consummate taste in all things, the exceeding variety and sparkling +vivacity of his conversation, enchanted them. In later life he has +grown more reserved and profound, even in habitual intercourse; and +attention is now fixed to the solidity of the diamond, as at that time +one was too dazzled to think of anything but its brilliancy. + +While Bolingbroke was receiving visits of state, I busied myself in +inquiring after a certain Madame de Balzac. The reader will remember +that the envelope of that letter which Oswald had brought to me at +Devereux Court was signed by the letters C. de B. Now, when Oswald +disappeared, after that dreadful night to which even now I can scarcely +bring myself to allude, these initials occurred to my remembrance, and +Oswald having said they belonged to a lady formerly intimate with my +father, I inquired of my mother if she could guess to what French lady +such initials would apply. She, with an evident pang of jealousy, +mentioned a Madame de Balzac; and to this lady I now resolved to address +myself, with the faint hope of learning from her some intelligence +respecting Oswald. It was not difficult to find out the abode of one +who in her day had played no inconsiderable role in that 'Comedy of +Errors,'--the Great World. She was still living at Paris: what +Frenchwoman would, if she could help it, live anywhere else? "There are +a hundred gates," said the witty Madame de Choisi to me, "which lead +into Paris, but only two roads out of it,--the convent, or (odious +word!) the grave." + +I hastened to Madame Balzac's hotel. I was ushered through three +magnificent apartments into one which to my eyes seemed to contain a +throne: upon a nearer inspection I discovered it was a bed. Upon a +large chair, by a very bad fire--it was in the month of March--sat a +tall, handsome woman, excessively painted, and dressed in a manner which +to my taste, accustomed to English finery, seemed singularly plain. I +had sent in the morning to request permission to wait on her, so that +she was prepared for my visit. She rose, offered me her cheek, kissed +mine, shed several tears, and in short testified a great deal of +kindness towards me. Old ladies who have flirted with our fathers +always seem to claim a sort of property in the sons! + +Before she resumed her seat she held me out at arm's length. + +"You have a family likeness to your brave father," said she, with a +little disappointment; "but--" + +"Madame de Balzac would add," interrupted I, filling up the sentence +which I saw her /bienveillance/ had made her break off, "Madame de +Balzac would add that I am not so good-looking. It is true: the +likeness is transmitted to me within rather than without; and if I have +not my father's privilege to be admired, I have at least his capacities +to admire," and I bowed. + +Madame de Balzac took three large pinches of snuff. "That is very well +said," said she, gravely: "very well indeed! not at all like your +father, though, who never paid a compliment in his life. Your clothes, +by the by, are in exquisite taste: I had no idea that English people had +arrived at such perfection in the fine arts. Your face is a little too +long! You admire Racine, of course? How do you like Paris?" + +All this was not said gayly or quickly: Madame de Balzac was by no means +a gay or a quick person. She belonged to a peculiar school of +Frenchwomen, who affected a little languor, a great deal of stiffness, +an indifference to forms when forms were to be used by themselves, and +an unrelaxing demand of forms when forms were to be observed to them by +others. Added to this, they talked plainly upon all matters, without +ever entering upon sentiment. This was the school she belonged to; but +she possessed the traits of the individual as well as of the species. +She was keen, ambitious, worldly, not unaffectionate nor unkind; very +proud, a little of the devotee,--because it was the fashion to be +so,--an enthusiastic admirer of military glory, and a most prying, +searching, intriguing schemer of politics without the slightest talent +for the science. + +"Like Paris!" said I, answering only the last question, and that not +with the most scrupulous regard to truth. "Can Madame de Balzac think +of Paris, and not conceive the transport which must inspire a person +entering it for the first time? But I had something more endearing than +a stranger's interest to attach me to it: I longed to express to my +father's friend my gratitude for the interest which I venture to believe +she on one occasion manifested towards me." + +"Ah! you mean my caution to you against that terrible De Montreuil. +Yes, I trust I was of service to you /there/." + +And Madame de Balzac then proceeded to favour me with the whole history +of the manner in which she had obtained the letter she had sent me, +accompanied by a thousand anathemas against those /atroces Jesuites/ and +a thousand eulogies on her own genius and virtues. I brought her from +this subject so interesting to herself, as soon as decorum would allow +me; and I then made inquiry if she knew aught of Oswald or could suggest +any mode of obtaining intelligence respecting him. Madame de Balzac +hated plain, blunt, blank questions, and she always travelled through a +wilderness of parentheses before she answered them. But at last I did +ascertain her answer, and found it utterly unsatisfactory. She had +never seen nor heard anything of Oswald since he had left her charged +with her commission to me. I then questioned her respecting the +character of the man, and found Mr. Marie Oswald had little to plume +himself upon in that respect. He seemed, however, from her account of +him, to be more a rogue than a villain; and from two or three stories of +his cowardice, which Madame de Balzac related, he appeared to me utterly +incapable of a design so daring and systematic as that of which it +pleased all persons who troubled themselves about my affairs to suspect +him. + +Finding at last that no further information was to be gained on this +point, I turned the conversation to Montreuil. I found, from Madame de +Balzac's very abuse of him, that he enjoyed a great reputation in the +country and a great favour at court. He had been early befriended by +Father la Chaise, and he was now especially trusted and esteemed by the +successor of that Jesuit Le Tellier,--Le Tellier, that rigid and bigoted +servant of Loyola, the sovereign of the king himself, the destroyer of +the Port Royal, and the mock and terror of the bedevilled and persecuted +Jansenists. Besides this, I learned what has been before pretty clearly +evident; namely, that Montreuil was greatly in the confidence of the +Chevalier, and that he was supposed already to have rendered essential +service to the Stuart cause. His reputation had increased with every +year, and was as great for private sanctity as for political talent. + +When this information, given in a very different spirit from that in +which I retail it, was over, Madame de Balzac observed, "Doubtless you +will obtain a private audience with the king?" + +"Is it possible, in his present age and infirmities?" + +"It ought to be, to the son of the brave Marshal Devereux." + +"I shall be happy to receive Madame's instructions how to obtain the +honour: her name would, I feel, be a greater passport to the royal +presence than that of a deceased soldier; and Venus's cestus may obtain +that grace which would never be accorded to the truncheon of Mars!" + +Was there ever so natural and so easy a compliment? My Venus of fifty +smiled. + +"You are mistaken, Count," said she; "I have no interest at court: the +Jesuits forbid that to a Jansenist, but I will speak this very day to +the Bishop of Frejus; he is related to me, and will obtain so slight a +boon for you with ease. He has just left his bishopric; you know how he +hated it. Nothing could be pleasanter than his signing himself, in a +letter to Cardinal Quirini, 'Fleuri, Eveque de Frejus par l'indignation +divine.' The King does not like him much; but he is a good man on the +whole, though jesuitical; he shall introduce you." + +I expressed my gratitude for the favour, and hinted that possibly the +relations of my father's first wife, the haughty and ancient house of La +Tremouille, might save the Bishop of Frejus from the pain of exerting +himself on my behalf. + +"You are very much mistaken," answered Madame de Balzac: "priests point +the road to court as well as to Heaven; and warriors and nobles have as +little to do with the former as they have with the latter, the unlucky +Duc de Villars only excepted,--a man whose ill fortune is enough to +destroy all the laurels of France. /Ma foi/! I believe the poor Duke +might rival in luck that Italian poet who said, in a fit of despair, +that if he had been bred a hatter, men would have been born without +heads." + +And Madame de Balzac chuckled over this joke, till, seeing that no +further news was to be gleaned from her, I made my adieu and my +departure. + +Nothing could exceed the kindness manifested towards me by my father's +early connections. The circumstance of my accompanying Bolingbroke, +joined to my age, and an address which, if not animated nor gay, had not +been acquired without some youthful cultivation of the graces, gave me a +sort of /eclat/ as well as consideration. And Bolingbroke, who was only +jealous of superiors in power, and who had no equals in anything else, +added greatly to my reputation by his panegyrics. + +Every one sought me; and the attention of society at Paris would, to +most, be worth a little trouble to repay. Perhaps, if I had liked it, I +might have been the rage; but that vanity was over. I contented myself +with being admitted into society as an observer, without a single wish +to become the observed. When one has once outlived the ambition of +fashion I know not a greater affliction than an over-attention; and the +Spectator did just what I should have done in a similar case, when he +left his lodgings "because he was asked every morning how he had slept." +In the immediate vicinity of the court, the King's devotion, age, and +misfortunes threw a damp over society; but there were still some +sparkling circles, who put the King out of the mode, and declared that +the defeats of his generals made capital subjects for epigrams. What a +delicate and subtle air did hang over those /soirees/, where all that +were bright and lovely, and noble and gay, and witty and wise, were +assembled in one brilliant cluster! Imperfect as my rehearsals must be, +I think the few pages I shall devote to a description of these +glittering conversations must still retain something of that original +piquancy which the /soirees/ of no other capital could rival or +appreciate. + +One morning, about a week after my interview with Madame de Balzac, I +received a note from her requesting me to visit her that day, and +appointing the hour. + +Accordingly I repaired to the house of the fair politician. I found her +with a man in a clerical garb, and of a benevolent and prepossessing +countenance. She introduced him to me as the Bishop of Frejus; and he +received me with an air very uncommon to his countrymen, namely, with an +ease that seemed to result from real good-nature, rather than artificial +grace. + +"I shall feel," said he, quietly, and without the least appearance of +paying a compliment, "very glad to mention your wish to his Majesty; and +I have not the least doubt but that he will admit to his presence one +who has such hereditary claims on his notice. Madame de Maintenon, by +the way, has charged me to present you to her whenever you will give me +the opportunity. She knew your admirable mother well, and for her sake +wishes once to see you. You know perhaps, Monsieur, that the extreme +retirement of her life renders this message from Madame de Maintenon an +unusual and rare honour." + +I expressed my thanks; the Bishop received them with a paternal rather +than a courtier-like air, and appointed a day for me to attend him to +the palace. We then conversed a short time upon indifferent matters, +which I observed the good Bishop took especial pains to preserve clear +from French politics. He asked me, however, two or three questions +about the state of parties in England,--about finance and the national +debt, about Ormond and Oxford; and appeared to give the most close +attention to my replies. He smiled once or twice, when his relation, +Madame de Balzac, broke out into sarcasms against the Jesuits, which had +nothing to do with the subjects in question. + +"Ah, /ma chere cousine/," said he: "you flatter me by showing that you +like me not as the politician, but the private relation,--not as the +Bishop of Frejus, but as Andre de Fleuri." + +Madame de Balzac smiled, and answered by a compliment. She was a +politician for the kingdom, it is true, but she was also a politician +for herself. She was far from exclaiming, with Pindar, "Thy business, O +my city, I prefer willingly to my own." Ah, there is a nice distinction +between politics and policy, and Madame de Balzac knew it. The +distinction is this. Politics is the art of being wise for others: +policy is the art of being wise for one's self. + +From Madame de Balzac's I went to Bolingbroke. "I have just been +offered the place of Secretary of State by the English king on this side +of the water," said he; "I do not, however, yet like to commit myself so +fully. And, indeed, I am not unwilling to have a little relaxation of +pleasure, after all these dull and dusty travails of state. What say +you to Boulainvilliers to-night? you are asked?" + +"Yes! all the wits are to be there,--Anthony Hamilton, and Fontenelle, +young Arouet, Chaulieu, that charming old man. Let us go, and polish +away the wrinkles of our hearts. What cosmetics are to the face wit is +to the temper; and, after all, there is no wisdom like that which +teaches us to forget." + +"Come then," said Bolingbroke, rising, "we will lock up these papers, +and take a melancholy drive, in order that we may enjoy mirth the better +by and by." + + + +CHAPTER V. + +A MEETING OF WITS.--CONVERSATION GONE OUT TO SUPPER IN HER DRESS OF +VELVET AND JEWELS. + +BOULAINVILLIERS! Comte de St. Saire! What will our great-grandchildren +think of that name? Fame is indeed a riddle! At the time I refer to, +wit, learning, grace--all things that charm and enlighten--were supposed +to centre in one word,-/Boulainvilliers/! The good Count had many +rivals, it is true, but he had that exquisite tact peculiar to his +countrymen, of making the very reputations of those rivals contribute to +his own. And while he assembled them around him, the lustre of their +/bons mots/, though it emanated from themselves, was reflected upon him. + +It was a pleasant though not a costly apartment in which we found our +host. The room was sufficiently full of people to allow scope and +variety to one group of talkers, without being full enough to permit +those little knots and /coteries/ which are the destruction of literary +society. An old man of about seventy, of a sharp, shrewd, yet polished +and courtly expression of countenance, of a great gayety of manner, +which was now and then rather displeasingly contrasted by an abrupt +affectation of dignity, that, however, rarely lasted above a minute, and +never withstood the shock of a /bon mot/, was the first person who +accosted us. This old man was the wreck of the once celebrated Anthony +Count Hamilton! + +"Well, my Lord," said he to Bolingbroke, "how do you like the weather at +Paris? It is a little better than the merciless air of London; is it +not? 'Slife!--even in June one could not go open breasted in those +regions of cold and catarrh,--a very great misfortune, let me tell you, +my Lord, if one's cambric happened to be of a very delicate and +brilliant texture, and one wished to penetrate the inward folds of a +lady's heart, by developing to the best advantage the exterior folds +that covered his own." + +"It is the first time," answered Bolingbroke, "that I ever heard so +accomplished a courtier as Count Hamilton repine, with sincerity, that +he could not bare his bosom to inspection." + +"Ah!" cried Boulainvilliers, "but vanity makes a man show much that +discretion would conceal." + +"/Au diable/ with your discretion!" said Hamilton, "'tis a vulgar +virtue. Vanity is a truly aristocratic quality, and every way fitted to +a gentleman. Should I ever have been renowned for my exquisite lace and +web-like cambric, if I had not been vain? Never, /mon cher/! I should +have gone into a convent and worn sackcloth, and from /Count Antoine/ I +should have thickened into /Saint Anthony/." + +"Nay," cried Lord Bolingbroke, "there is as much scope for vanity in +sackcloth as there is in cambric; for vanity is like the Irish ogling +master in the "Spectator," and if it teaches the play-house to ogle by +candle-light, it also teaches the church to ogle by day! But, pardon +me, Monsieur Chaulieu, how well you look! I see that the myrtle sheds +its verdure, not only over your poetry, but the poet. And it is right +that, to the modern Anacreon, who has bequeathed to Time a treasure it +will never forego, Time itself should be gentle in return." + +"Milord," answered Chaulieu, an old man who, though considerably past +seventy, was animated, in appearance and manner, with a vivacity and +life that would have done honour to a youth,--"Milord, it was +beautifully said by the Emperor Julian that Justice retained the Graces +in her vestibule. I see, now, that he should have substituted the word +/Wisdom/ for that of Justice." + +"Come," cried Anthony Hamilton, "this will never do: compliments are the +dullest things imaginable. For Heaven's sake, let us leave panegyric to +blockheads, and say something bitter to one another, or we shall die of +/ennui/." + +"Right," said Boulainvilliers; "let us pick out some poor devil to begin +with. Absent or present?--Decide which." + +"Oh, absent," cried Chaulieu, "'tis a thousand times more piquant to +slander than to rally! Let us commence with his Majesty: Count +Devereux, have you seen Madame Maintenon and her devout infant since +your arrival?" + +"No! the priest must be petitioned before the miracle is made public." + +"What!" cried Chaulieu, "would you insinuate that his Majesty's piety is +really nothing less than a miracle?" + +"Impossible!" said Boulainvilliers, gravely,--"piety is as natural to +kings as flattery to their courtiers: are we not told that they are made +in God's own image?" + +"If that were true," said Count Hamilton, somewhat profanely,--"if that +were true, I should no longer deny the impossibility of Atheism!" + +"Fie, Count Hamilton," said an old gentleman, in whom I recognized the +great Huet, "fie: wit should beware how it uses wings; its province is +earth, not Heaven." + +"Nobody can better tell what wit is /not/ than the learned Abbe Huet!" +answered Hamilton, with a mock air of respect. + +"Pshaw!" cried Chaulieu, "I thought when we once gave the rein to satire +it would carry us /pele-mele/ against one another. But, in order to +sweeten that drop of lemon-juice for you, my dear Huet, let me turn to +Milord Bolingbroke, and ask him whether England can produce a scholar +equal to Peter Huet, who in twenty years wrote notes to sixty-two +volumes of Classics,* for the sake of a prince who never read a line in +one of them?" + + +* The Delphin Classics. + + +"We have some scholars," answered Bolingbroke; "but we certainly have no +Huet. It is strange enough, but learning seems to me like a circle: it +grows weaker the more it spreads. We now see many people capable of +reading commentaries, but very few indeed capable of writing them." + +"True," answered Huet; and in his reply he introduced the celebrated +illustration which is at this day mentioned among his most felicitous +/bons mots/. "Scholarship, formerly the most difficult and unaided +enterprise of Genius, has now been made, by the very toils of the first +mariners, but an easy and commonplace voyage of leisure. But who would +compare the great men, whose very difficulties not only proved their +ardour, but brought them the patience and the courage which alone are +the parents of a genuine triumph, to the indolent loiterers of the +present day, who, having little of difficulty to conquer, have nothing +of glory to attain? For my part, there seems to me the same difference +between a scholar of our days and one of the past as there is between +Christopher Columbus and the master of a packet-boat from Calais to +Dover!" + +"But," cried Anthony Hamilton, taking a pinch of snuff with the air of a +man about to utter a witty thing, "but what have we--we spirits of the +world, not imps of the closet," and he glanced at Huet--"to do with +scholarship? All the waters of Castaly, which we want to pour into our +brain, are such as will flow the readiest to our tongue." + +"In short, then," said I, "you would assert that all a friend cares for +in one's head is the quantity of talk in it?" + +"Precisely, my dear Count," said Hamilton, seriously; "and to that maxim +I will add another applicable to the opposite sex. All that a mistress +cares for in one's heart is the quantity of love in it." + +"What! are generosity, courage, honour, to go for nothing with our +mistress, then?" cried Chaulieu. + +"No: for she will believe, if you are a passionate lover, that you have +all those virtues; and if not, she will never believe that you have +one." + +"Ah! it was a pretty court of love in which the friend and biographer of +Count Grammont learned the art!" said Bolingbroke. + +"We believed so at the time, my Lord; but there are as many changes in +the fashion of making love as there are in that of making dresses. +Honour me, Count Devereux, by using my snuff-box and then looking at the +lid." + +"It is the picture of Charles the Second which adorns it; is it not?" + +"No, Count Devereux, it is the diamonds which adorn it. His Majesty's +face I thought very beautiful while he was living; but now, on my +conscience, I consider it the ugliest phiz I ever beheld. But I +directed your notice to the picture because we were talking of love; and +Old Rowley believed that he could make it better than any one else. All +his courtiers had the same opinion of themselves; and I dare say the +/beaux garcons/ of Queen Anne's reign would say that not one of King +Charley's gang knew what love was. Oh! 'tis a strange circle of +revolutions, that love! Like the earth, it always changes, and yet +always has the same materials." + +"/L'amour, l'amour, toujours l'amour/, with Count Anthony Hamilton!" +said Boulainvilliers. "He is always on that subject; and, /sacre bleu/! +when he was younger, I am told he was like Cacus, the son of Vulcan, and +breathed nothing but flames." + +"You flatter me," said Hamilton. "Solve me now a knotty riddle, my Lord +Bolingbroke. Why does a young man think it the greatest compliment to +be thought wise, while an old man thinks it the greatest compliment to +be told he has been foolish?" + +"Is love foolish then?" said Lord Bolingbroke. + +"Can you doubt it?" answered Hamilton; "it makes a man think more of +another than himself! I know not a greater proof of folly!" + +"Ah! /mon aimable ami/," cried Chaulieu; "you are the wickedest witty +person I know. I cannot help loving your language, while I hate your +sentiments." + +"My language is my own; my sentiments are those of all men," answered +Hamilton: "but are we not, by the by, to have young Arouet here +to-night? What a charming person he is!" + +"Yes," said Boulainvilliers. "He said he should be late; and I expect +Fontenelle, too, but /he/ will not come before supper. I found +Fontenelle this morning conversing with my cook on the best manner of +dressing asparagus. I asked him the other day what writer, ancient or +modern, had ever given him the most sensible pleasure? After a little +pause, the excelient old man said, 'Daphnus.' 'Daphnus!' repeated I, +'who the devil is he?' 'Why,' answered Fontenelle, with tears of +gratitude in his benevolent eyes, 'I had some hypochondriacal ideas that +suppers were unwholesome; and Daphnus is an ancient physician, who +asserts the contrary; and declares,--think, my friend, what a charming +theory!--that the moon is a great assistant of the digestion!'" + +"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the Abbe de Chaulieu. "How like Fontenelle! what +an anomalous creature 'tis! He has the most kindness and the least +feeling of any man I ever knew. Let Hamilton find a pithier description +for him if he can!" + +Whatever reply the friend of the /preux Grammont/ might have made was +prevented by the entrance of a young man of about twenty-one. + +In person he was tall, slight, and very thin. There was a certain +affectation of polite address in his manner and mien which did not quite +become him; and though he was received by the old wits with great +cordiality, and on a footing of perfect equality, yet the inexpressible +air which denotes birth was both pretended to and wanting. This, +perhaps, was however owing to the ordinary inexperience of youth; which, +if not awkwardly bashful, is generally awkward in its assurance. +Whatever its cause, the impression vanished directly he entered into +conversation. I do not think I ever encountered a man so brilliantly, +yet so easily, witty. He had but little of the studied allusion, the +antithetical point, the classic metaphor, which chiefly characterize the +wits of my day. On the contrary, it was an exceeding and naive +simplicity, which gave such unrivalled charm and piquancy to his +conversation. And while I have not scrupled to stamp on my pages some +faint imitation of the peculiar dialogue of other eminent characters, I +must confess myself utterly unable to convey the smallest idea of his +method of making words irresistible. Contenting my efforts, therefore, +with describing his personal appearance,--interesting, because that of +the most striking literary character it has been my lot to meet,--I +shall omit his share in the remainder of the conversation I am +rehearsing, and beg the reader to recall that passage in Tacitus in +which the great historian says that, in the funeral of Junia, "the +images of Brutus and Cassius outshone all the rest, from the very +circumstance of their being the sole ones excluded from the rite." + +The countenance, then, of Marie Francois Arouet (since so celebrated +under the name of Voltaire) was plain in feature, but singularly +striking in effect; its vivacity was the very perfection of what Steele +once happily called "physiognomical eloquence." His eyes were blue, +fiery rather than bright, and so restless that they never dwelt in the +same place for a moment:* his mouth was at once the worst and the most +peculiar feature of his face; it betokened humour, it is true; but it +also betrayed malignancy, nor did it ever smile without sarcasm. Though +flattering to those present, his words against the absent, uttered by +that bitter and curling lip, mingled with your pleasure at their wit a +little fear at their causticity. I believe no one, be he as bold, as +callous, or as faultless as human nature can be, could be one hour with +that man and not feel apprehension. Ridicule, so lavish, yet so true to +the mark; so wanton, yet so seemingly just; so bright, that while it +wandered round its target, in apparent though terrible playfulness, it +burned into the spot, and engraved there a brand, and a token indelible +and perpetual,--this no man could witness, when darted towards another, +and feel safe for himself. The very caprice and levity of the jester +seemed more perilous, because less to be calculated upon, than a +systematic principle of bitterness or satire. Bolingbroke compared him, +not unaptly, to a child who has possessed himself of Jupiter's bolts, +and who makes use of those bolts in sport which a god would only have +used in wrath. + + +* The reader will remember that this is a description of Voltaire as a +very young man. I do not know anywhere a more impressive, almost a more +ghastly, contrast than that which the pictures of Voltaire, grown old, +present to Largilliere's picture of him at the age of twenty-four; and +he was somewhat younger than twenty-four at the time of which the Count +now speaks.--ED. + + +Arouet's forehead was not remarkable for height, but it was nobly and +grandly formed, and, contradicting that of the mouth, wore a benevolent +expression. Though so young, there was already a wrinkle on the surface +of the front, and a prominence on the eyebrow, which showed that the wit +and the fancy of his conversation were, if not regulated, at least +contrasted, by more thoughtful and lofty characteristics of mind. At +the time I write, this man has obtained a high throne among the powers +of the lettered world. What he may yet be, it is in vain to guess: he +may be all that is great and good, or--the reverse; but I cannot but +believe that his career is only begun. Such men are born monarchs of +the mind; they may be benefactors or tyrants: in either case, they are +greater than the kings of the physical empire, because they defy armies +and laugh at the intrigues of state. From themselves only come the +balance of their power, the laws of their government, and the boundaries +of their realm. We sat down to supper. "Count Hamilton," said +Boulainvilliers, "are we not a merry set for such old fellows? Why, +excepting Arouet, Milord Bolingbroke, and Count Devereux, there is +scarcely one of us under seventy. Where but at Paris would you see +/bons vivans/ of our age? /Vivent la joie, la bagatelle, l'amour/!" + +"/Et le vin de Champagne/!" cried Chaulieu, filling his glass; "but what +is there strange in our merriment? Philemon, the comic poet, laughed at +ninety-seven. May we all do the same!" + +"You forget," cried Bolingbroke, "that Philemon died of the laughing." + +"Yes," said Hamilton; "but if I remember right, it was at seeing an ass +eat figs. Let us vow, therefore, never to keep company with asses!" + +"Bravo, Count," said Boulainvilliers, "you have put the true moral on +the story. Let us swear by the ghost of Philemon that we will never +laugh at an ass's jokes,--practical or verbal." + +"Then we must always be serious, except when we are with each other," +cried Chaulieu. "Oh, I would sooner take my chance of dying prematurely +at ninety-seven than consent to such a vow!" + +"Fontenelle," cried our host, "you are melancholy. What is the matter?" + +"I mourn for the weakness of human nature," answered Fontenelle, with an +air of patriarchal philanthropy. "I told your cook three times about +the asparagus; and now--taste it. I told him not to put too much sugar, +and he has put none. Thus it is with mankind,--ever in extremes, and +consequently ever in error. Thus it was that Luther said, so +felicitously and so truly, that the human mind was like a drunken +peasant on horseback: prop it on one side, and it falls on the other." + +"Ha! ha! ha!" cried Chaulieu. "Who would have thought one could have +found so much morality in a plate of asparagus! Taste this /salsifis/." + +"Pray, Hamilton," said Huet, "what /jeu de mot/ was that you made +yesterday at Madame d'Epernonville's which gained you such applause?" + +"Ah, repeat it, Count," cried Boulainvilliers; "'t was the most +classical thing I have heard for a long time." + +"Why," said Hamilton, laying down his knife and fork, and preparing +himself by a large draught of the champagne, "why, Madame d'Epernonville +appeared without her /tour/; you know, Lord Bolingbroke, that /tour/ is +the polite name for false hair. 'Ah, sacre!' cried her brother, +courteously, 'ma soeur, que vous etes laide aujourd'hui: vous n'avez pas +votre tour!' 'Voila pourquoi elle n'est pas si-belle (Cybele),' +answered I." + +"Excellent! famous!" cried we all, except Huet, who seemed to regard the +punster with a very disrespectful eye. Hamilton saw it. "You do not +think, Monsieur Huet, that there is wit in these /jeux de mots/: perhaps +you do not admire wit at all?" + +"Yes, I admire wit as I do the wind. When it shakes the trees it is +fine; when it cools the wave it is refreshing; when it steals over +flowers it is enchanting: but when, Monsieur Hamilton, it whistles +through the key-hole it is unpleasant." + +"The very worst illustration I ever heard," said Hamilton, coolly. +"Keep to your classics, my dear Abbe. When Jupiter edited the work of +Peter Huet, he did with wit as Peter Huet did with Lucan when he edited +the classics: he was afraid it might do mischief, and so left it out +altogether." + +"Let us drink!" cried Chaulieu; "let us drink!" and the conversation was +turned again. + +"What is that you say of Tacitus, Huet?" said Boulainvilliers. + +"That his wisdom arose from his malignancy," answered Huet. "He is a +perfect penetrator* into human vices, but knows nothing of human +virtues. Do you think that a good man would dwell so constantly on what +is evil? Believe me--no. A man cannot write much and well upon virtue +without being virtuous, nor enter minutely and profoundly into the +causes of vice without being vicious himself." + + +* A remark similar to this the reader will probably remember in the +"Huetiana," and will, I hope, agree with me in thinking it showy and +untrue.--ED. + + +"It is true," said Hamilton; "and your remark, which affects to be so +deep, is but a natural corollary from the hackneyed maxim that from +experience comes wisdom." + +"But, for my part," said Boulainvilliers, "I think Tacitus is not so +invariably the analyzer of vice as you would make him. Look at the +'Agricola' and the 'Germania.'" + +"Ah! the 'Germany,' above all things!" cried Hamilton, dropping a +delicious morsel of /sanglier/ in its way from hand to mouth, in his +hurry to speak. "Of course, the historian, Boulainvilliers, advocates +the 'Germany,' from its mention of the origin of the feudal +system,--that incomparable bundle of excellences, which Le Comte de +Boulainvilliers has declared to be /le chef d'oeuvre de l'esprit +humain/; and which the same gentleman regrets, in the most pathetic +terms, no longer exists in order that the seigneur may feed upon /des +gros morceaux de boeuf demi-cru/, may hang up half his peasants /pour +encourager les autres/, and ravish the daughters of the defunct /pour +leur donner quelque consolation./" + +"Seriously though," said the old Abbe de Chaulieu, with a twinkling eye, +"the last mentioned evil, my dear Hamilton, was not without a little +alloy of good." + +"Yes," said Hamilton, "if it was only the daughters; but perhaps the +seigneur was not too scrupulous with regard to the wives." + +"Ah! shocking, shocking!" cried Chaulieu, solemnly. "Adultery is, +indeed, an atrocious crime. I am sure I would most conscientiously cry +out with the honest preacher, 'Adultery, my children, is the blackest of +sins. I do declare that I would rather have /ten/ virgins in love with +me than /one/ married woman!'" + +We all laughed at this enthusiastic burst of virtue from the chaste +Chaulieu. And Arouet turned our conversation towards the ecclesiastical +dissensions between Jesuits and Jansenists that then agitated the +kingdom. "Those priests," said Bolingbroke, "remind me of the nurses of +Jupiter: they make a great clamour in order to drown the voice of their +God." + +"Bravissimo!" cried Hamilton. "Is it not a pity, Messieurs, that my +Lord Bolingbroke was not a Frenchman? He is almost clever enough to be +one." + +"If he would drink a little more, he would be," cried Chaulieu, who was +now setting us all a glorious example. + +"What say you, Morton?" exclaimed Bolingbroke; "must we not drink these +gentlemen under the table for the honour of our country?" + +"A challenge! a challenge!" cried Chaulieu. "I march first to the +field!" + +"Conquest or death!" shouted Bolingbroke. And the rites of Minerva were +forsaken for those of Bacchus. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +A COURT, COURTIERS, AND A KING. + +I THINK it was the second day after this "feast of reason" that Lord +Bolingbroke deemed it advisable to retire to Lyons till his plans of +conduct were ripened into decision. We took an affectionate leave of +each other; but before we parted, and after he had discussed his own +projects of ambition, we talked a little upon mine. Although I was a +Catholic and a pupil of Montreuil, although I had fled from England and +had nothing to expect from the House of Hanover, I was by no means +favourably disposed towards the Chevalier and his cause. I wonder if +this avowal will seem odd to Englishmen of the next century! To +Englishmen of the present one, a Roman Catholic and a lover of +priestcraft and tyranny are two words for the same thing; as if we could +not murmur at tithes and taxes, insecurity of property or arbitrary +legislation, just as sourly as any other Christian community. No! I +never loved the cause of the Stuarts,--unfortunate, and therefore +interesting, as the Stuarts were; by a very stupid and yet uneffaceable +confusion of ideas, I confounded it with the cause of Montreuil, and I +hated the latter enough to dislike the former: I fancy all party +principles are formed much in the same manner. I frankly told +Bolingbroke my disinclination to the Chevalier. + +"Between ourselves be it spoken," said he, "there is but little to +induce a wise man in /your/ circumstances to join James the Third. I +would advise you rather to take advantage of your father's reputation at +the French court, and enter into the same service he did. Things wear a +dark face in England for you, and a bright one everywhere else." + +"I have already," said I, "in my own mind, perceived and weighed the +advantages of entering into the service of Louis. But he is old: he +cannot live long. People now pay court to parties, not to the king. +Which party, think you, is the best,--that of Madame de Maintenon?" + +"Nay, I think not; she is a cold friend, and never asks favours of Louis +for any of her family. A bold game might be played by attaching +yourself to the Duchesse d'Orleans (the Duke's mother). She is at +daggers-drawn with Maintenon, it is true, and she is a violent, haughty, +and coarse woman; but she has wit, talent, strength of mind, and will +zealously serve any person of high birth who pays her respect. But she +can do nothing for you till the king's death, and then only on the +chance of her son's power. But--let me see--you say Fleuri, the Bishop +of Frejus, is to introduce you to Madame de Maintenon?" + +"Yes; and has appointed the day after to-morrow for that purpose." + +"Well, then, make close friends with him: you will not find it +difficult; he has a delightful address, and if you get hold of his weak +points you may win his confidence. Mark me: Fleuri has no +/faux-brillant/, no genius, indeed, of very prominent order; but he is +one of those soft and smooth minds which, in a crisis like the present, +when parties are contending and princes wrangling, always slip silently +and unobtrusively into one of the best places. Keep in with Frejus: you +cannot do wrong by it; although you must remember that at present he is +in ill odour with the king, and you need not go with /him twice/ to +Versailles. But, above all, when you are introduced to Louis, do not +forget that you cannot please him better than by appearing +awe-stricken." + +Such was Bolingbroke's parting advice. The Bishop of Frejus carried me +with him (on the morning we had appointed) to Versailles. What a +magnificent work of royal imagination is that palace! I know not in any +epic a grander idea than terming the avenues which lead to it the roads +"to Spain, to Holland," etc. In London, they would have been the roads +to Chelsea and Pentonville! + +As we were driving slowly along in the Bishop's carriage, I had ample +time for conversation with that personage, who has since, as the +Cardinal de Fleuri, risen to so high a pitch of power. He certainly has +in him very little of the great man; nor do I know anywhere so striking +an instance of this truth,--that in that game of honours which is played +at courts, we obtain success less by our talents than our tempers. He +laughed, with a graceful turn of /badinage/, at the political +peculiarities of Madame de Balzac; and said that it was not for the +uppermost party to feel resentment at the chafings of the under one. +Sliding from this topic, he then questioned me as to the gayeties I had +witnessed. I gave him a description of the party at Boulainvilliers'. +He seemed much interested in this, and showed more shrewdness than I +should have given him credit for in discussing the various characters of +the /literati/ of the day. After some general conversation on works of +fiction, he artfully glided into treating on those of statistics and +politics, and I then caught a sudden but thorough insight into the +depths of his policy. I saw that, while he affected to be indifferent +to the difficulties and puzzles of state, he lost no opportunity of +gaining every particle of information respecting them; and that he made +conversation, in which he was skilled, a vehicle for acquiring that +knowledge which he had not the force of mind to create from his own +intellect, or to work out from the written labours of others. If this +made him a superficial statesman, it made him a prompt one; and there +was never so lucky a minister with so little trouble to himself.* + + +* At his death appeared the following pnnning epigram:-- + + "/Floruit/ sine fructu; + /Defloruit/ sine luctu." + +"He flowered without fruit, and faded without regret."--ED. + + +As we approached the end of our destination, we talked of the King. On +this subject he was jealously cautious. But I gleaned from him, despite +of his sagacity, that it was high time to make all use of one's +acquaintance with Madame de Maintenon that one could be enabled to do; +and that it was so difficult to guess the exact places in which power +would rest after the death of the old King that supineness and silence +made at present the most profound policy. + +As we alighted from the carriage and I first set my foot within the +palace, I could not but feel involuntarily yet powerfully impressed with +the sense of the spirit of the place. I was in the precincts of that +mighty court which had gathered into one dazzling focus all the rays of +genius which half a century had emitted,--the court at which time had +passed at once from the morn of civilization into its full noon and +glory,--the court of Conde and Turenne, of Villars and of +Tourville,--the court where, over the wit of Grammont, the profusion of +Fouquet, the fatal genius of Louvois (fatal to humanity and to France), +Love, real Love, had not disdained to shed its pathos and its truth, and +to consecrate the hollow pageantries of royal pomp, with the tenderness, +the beauty, and the repentance of La Valliere. Still over that scene +hung the spells of a genius which, if artificial and cold, was also +vast, stately, and magnificent,--a genius which had swelled in the rich +music of Racine, which had raised the nobler spirit and the freer +thought of Pierre Corneille,* which had given edge to the polished +weapon of Boileau, which had lavished over the bright page of +Moliere,--Moliere, more wonderful than all--a knowledge of the humours +and the hearts of men, which no dramatist, save Shakspeare, has +surpassed. Within those walls still glowed, though now waxing faint and +dim, the fame of that monarch who had enjoyed, at least till his later +day, the fortune of Augustus unsullied by the crimes of Octavius. Nine +times, since the sun of that monarch rose, had the Papal Chair received +a new occupant! Six sovereigns had reigned over the Ottoman hordes! +The fourth emperor since the birth of the same era bore sway over +Germany! Five czars, from Michael Romanoff to the Great Peter, had +held, over their enormous territory, the precarious tenure of their iron +power! Six kings had borne the painful cincture of the English crown;** +two of those kings had been fugitives to that court; to the son of the +last it was an asylum at that moment. + + +* Rigidly speaking, Corneille belongs to a period later than that of +Louis XIV., though he has been included in the era formed by that +reign.--ED. + + +** Besides Cromwell; namely, Charles I., Charles II., James II., William +and Mary, Anne, George I. + + +What wonderful changes had passed over the face of Europe during that +single reign! In England only, what a vast leap in the waste of events, +from the reign of the first Charles to that of George the First! I +still lingered, I still gazed, as these thoughts, linked to one another +in an electric chain, flashed over me! I still paused on the threshold +of those stately halls which Nature herself had been conquered to rear! +Where, through the whole earth, could I find so meet a symbol for the +character and the name which that sovereign would leave to posterity as +this palace itself afforded? A gorgeous monument of regal state raised +from a desert; crowded alike with empty pageantries and illustrious +names; a prodigy of elaborate artifice, grand in its whole effect, petty +in its small details; a solitary oblation to a splendid selfishness, and +most remarkable for the revenues which it exhausted and the poverty by +which it is surrounded! + +Fleuri, with his usual urbanity--an urbanity that, on a great scale, +would have been benevolence--had hitherto indulged me in my emotions: he +now laid his hand upon my arm, and recalled me to myself. Before I +could apologize for my abstraction, the Bishop was accosted by an old +man of evident rank, but of a countenance more strikingly demonstrative +of the little cares of a mere courtier than any I ever beheld. "What +news, Monsieur le Marquis?" said Fleuri, smiling. + +"Oh! the greatest imaginable! the King talks of receiving the Danish +minister on /Thursday/, which, you know, is his day of /domestic +business/! What /can/ this portend? Besides," and here the speaker's +voice lowered into a whisper, "I am told by the Duc de la Rochefoucauld +that the king intends, out of all ordinary rule and practice, to take +physic to-morrow: I can't believe it; no, I positively can't; but don't +let this go further!" + +"Heaven forbid!" answered Fleuri, bowing, and the courtier passed on to +whisper his intelligence to others. "Who's that gentleman?" I asked. + +"The Marquis de Dangeau," answered Fleuri; "a nobleman of great quality, +who keeps a diary of all the king says and does. It will perhaps be a +posthumous publication, and will show the world of what importance +nothings can be made. I dare say, Count, you have already, in England, +seen enough of a court to know that there are some people who are as +human echoes, and have no existence except in the noise occasioned by +another." + +I took care that my answer should not be a witticism, lest Fleuri should +think I was attempting to rival him; and so we passed on in an excellent +humour with each other. + +We mounted the grand staircase, and came to an ante-chamber, which, +though costly and rich, was not remarkably conspicuous for splendour. +Here the Bishop requested me to wait for a moment. Accordingly, I +amused myself with looking over some engravings of different saints. +Meanwhile, my companion passed through another door, and I was alone. + +After an absence of nearly ten minutes, he returned. "Madame de +Maintenon," said he in a whisper, "is but poorly to-day. However, she +has eagerly consented to see you; follow me!" + +So saying, the ecclesiastical courtier passed on, with myself at his +heels. We came to the door of a second chamber, at which Fleuri +/scraped/ gently. We were admitted, and found therein three ladies, one +of whom was reading, a second laughing, and a third yawning, and entered +into another chamber, where, alone and seated by the window in a large +chair, with one foot on a stool, in an attitude that rather reminded me +of my mother, and which seems to me a favourite position with all +devotees, we found an old woman without /rouge/, plainly dressed, with +spectacles on her nose and a large book on a little table before her. +With a most profound salutation, Frejus approached, and taking me by the +hand, said,-- + +"Will Madame suffer me to present to her the Count Devereux?" + +Madame de Maintenon, with an air of great meekness and humility, bowed a +return to the salutation. "The son of Madame la Marechale de Devereux +will always be most welcome to me!" Then, turning towards us, she +pointed to two stools, and, while we were seating ourselves, said,-- + +"And how did you leave my excellent friend?" + +"When, Madame, I last saw my mother, which is now nearly a year ago, she +was in health, and consoling herself for the advance of years by that +tendency to wean the thoughts from this world which (in her own +language) is the divinest comfort of old age!" + +"Admirable woman!" said Madame de Maintenon, casting down her eyes; +"such are indeed the sentiments in which I recognize the Marechale. And +how does her beauty wear? Those golden locks, and blue eyes, and that +snowy skin, are not yet, I suppose, wholly changed for an adequate +compensation of the beauties within?" + +"Time, Madame, has been gentle with her; and I have often thought, +though never perhaps more strongly than at this moment, that there is in +those divine studies, which bring calm and light to the mind, something +which preserves and embalms, as it were, the beauty of the body." + +A faint blush passed over the face of the devotee. No, no,--not even at +eighty years of age is a compliment to a woman's beauty misplaced! +There was a slight pause. I thought that respect forbade me to break +it. + +"His Majesty," said the Bishop, in the tone of one who is sensible that +he encroaches a little, and does it with consequent reverence, "his +Majesty, I hope, is well?" + +"God be thanked, yes, as well as we can expect. It is now nearly the +hour in which his Majesty awaits your personal inquiries." + +Fleuri bowed as he answered,-- + +"The King, then, will receive us to-day? My young companion is very +desirous to see the greatest monarch, and, consequently, the greatest +man, of the age." + +"The desire is natural," said Madame de Maintenon; and then, turning to +me, she asked if I had yet seen King James the Third. + +I took care, in my answer, to express that even if I had resolved to +make that stay in Paris which allowed me to pay my respects to him at +all, I should have deemed that both duty and inclination led me, in the +first instance, to offer my homage to one who was both the benefactor of +my father and the monarch whose realms afforded me protection. + +"You have not, then," said Madame de Maintenon, "decided on the length +of your stay in France?" + +"No," said I,--and my answer was regulated by my desire to see how far I +might rely on the services of one who expressed herself so warm a friend +of that excellent woman, Madame la Marechale,--"no, Madame. France is +the country of my birth, if England is that of my parentage; and could I +hope for some portion of that royal favour which my father enjoyed, I +would rather claim it as the home of my hopes than the refuge of my +exile. But"--and I stopped short purposely. + +The old lady looked at me very earnestly through her spectacles for one +moment, and then, hemming twice with a little embarrassment, again +remarked to the Bishop that the time for seeing the King was nearly +arrived. Fleuri, whose policy at that period was very like that of the +concealed Queen, and who was, besides, far from desirous of introducing +any new claimants on Madame de Maintenon's official favour, though he +might not object to introduce them to a private friend, was not slow in +taking the hint. He rose, and I was forced to follow his example. + +Madame de Maintenon thought she might safely indulge in a little +cordiality when I was just on the point of leaving her, and accordingly +blessed me, and gave me her hand, which I kissed very devoutly. An +extremely pretty hand it was, too, notwithstanding the good Queen's age. +We then retired, and, repassing the three ladies, who were now all +yawning, repaired to the King's apartments. + +"What think you of Madame?" asked Fleuri. + +"What can I think of her," said I, cautiously, "but that greatness seems +in her to take its noblest form,--that of simplicity?" + +"True," rejoined Fleuri; "never was there so meek a mind joined to so +lowly a carriage! Do you remark any trace of former beauty?" + +"Yes, indeed, there is much that is soft in her countenance, and much +that is still regular in her features; but what struck me most was the +pensive and even sad tranquillity that rests upon her face when she is +silent." + +"The expression betrays the mind," answered Fleuri; "and the curse of +the great is /ennui/." + +"Of the great in station," said I, "but not necessarily of the great in +mind. I have heard that the Bishop of Frejus, notwithstanding his rank +and celebrity, employs every hour to the advantage of others, and +consequently without tedium to himself." + +"Aha!" said Fleuri, smiling gently and patting my cheek: "see now if the +air of palaces is not absolutely prolific of pretty speeches." And, +before I could answer, we were in the apartments of the King. + +Leaving me a while to cool my heels in a gallery, filled with the +butterflies who bask in the royal sunshine, Frejus then disappeared +among the crowd; he was scarcely gone when I was agreeably surprised by +seeing Count Hamilton approach towards me. + +"/Mort diable/!" said he, shaking me by the hand /a l'Anglaise/; "I am +really delighted to see any one here who does not insult my sins with +his superior excellence. Eh, now, look round this apartment for a +moment! Whether would you believe yourself at the court of a great king +or the /levee/ of a Roman cardinal! Whom see you chiefly? Gallant +soldiers, with worn brows and glittering weeds? wise statesmen with ruin +to Austria and defiance to Rome in every wrinkle? gay nobles in costly +robes, and with the bearing that so nicely teaches mirth to be dignified +and dignity to be merry? No! cassock and hat, rosary and gown, decking +sly, demure, hypocritical faces, flit, and stalk, and sadden round us. +It seems to me," continued the witty Count, in a lower whisper, "as if +the old king, having fairly buried his glory at Ramilies and Blenheim, +had summoned all these good gentry to sing psalms over it! But are you +waiting for a private audience?" + +"Yes, under the auspices of the Bishop of Frejus." + +"You might have chosen a better guide: the King has been too much teased +about him," rejoined Hamilton; "and now that we are talking of him, I +will show you a singular instance of what good manners can do at court +in preference to good abilities. You observe yon quiet, modest-looking +man, with a sensible countenance and a clerical garb; you observe how he +edges away when any one approaches to accost him; and how, from his +extreme disesteem of himself, he seems to inspire every one with the +same sentiment. Well, that man is a namesake of Fleuri, the Prior of +Argenteuil; he has come here, I suppose, for some particular and +temporary purpose, since, in reality, he has left the court. Well, that +worthy priest--do remark his bow; did you ever see anything so +awkward?--is one of the most learned divines that the Church can boast +of; he is as immeasurably superior to the smooth-faced Bishop of Frejus +as Louis the Fourteenth is to my old friend Charles the Second. He has +had equal opportunities with the said Bishop; been preceptor to the +princes of Conti and the Count de Vermandois; and yet I will wager that +he lives and dies a tutor, a bookworm--and a prior; while t' other +Fleuri, without a particle of merit but of the most superficial order, +governs already kings through their mistresses, kingdoms through the +kings, and may, for aught I know, expand into a prime minister and ripen +into a cardinal." + +"Nay," said I, smiling, "there is little chance of so exalted a lot for +the worthy Bishop." + +"Pardon me," interrupted Hamilton, "I am an old courtier, and look +steadily on the game I no longer play. Suppleness, united with art, may +do anything in a court like this; and the smooth and unelevated craft of +a Fleuri may win even to the same height as the deep wiles of the +glittering Mazarin, or the superb genius of the imperious Richelieu." + +"Hist!" said I, "the Bishop has reappeared. Who is that old priest with +a fine countenance and an address that will, at least, please you better +than that of the Prior of Argenteuil, who has just stopped our episcopal +courtier?" + +"What! do you not know? It is the most celebrated preacher of the +day,--the great Massillon. It is said that that handsome person goes a +great way towards winning converts among the court ladies; it is +certain, at least, that when Massillon first entered the profession he +was to the soul something like the spear of Achilles to the body; and, +though very efficacious in healing the wounds of conscience, was equally +ready in the first instance to inflict them." + +"Ah," said I, "see the malice of wit; and see, above all, how much more +ready one is to mention a man's frailties than to enlarge upon his +virtues." + +"To be sure," answered Hamilton, coolly, and patting his snuff-box, "to +be sure, we old people like history better than fiction; and frailty is +certain, while virtue is always doubtful." + +"Don't judge of all people," said I, "by your experience among the +courtiers of Charles the Second." + +"Right," said Hamilton. "Providence never assembled so many rascals +together before without hanging them. And he would indeed be a bad +judge of human nature who estimated the characters of men in general by +the heroes of Newgate and the victims of Tyburn. But your Bishop +approaches. Adieu!" + +"What!" said Fleuri, joining me and saluting Hamilton, who had just +turned to depart, "what, Count Antoine! Does anything but whim bring +you here to-day?" + +"No," answered Hamilton; "I am only here for the same purpose as the +poor go to the temples of Caitan,--/to inhale the steam of those good +things which I see the priests devour/." + +"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the good-natured Bishop, not in the least +disconcerted; and Count Hamilton, congratulating himself on his /bon +mot/, turned away. + +"I have spoken to his Most Christian Majesty," said the Bishop; "he is +willing, as he before ordained, to admit you to his presence. The Duc +de Maine is with the King, as also some other members of the royal +family; but you will consider this a private audience." + +I expressed my gratitude: we moved on; the doors of an apartment were +thrown open; and I saw myself in the presence of Louis XIV. + +The room was partially darkened. In the centre of it, on a large sofa, +reclined the King; he was dressed (though this, if I may so speak, I +rather remembered than noted) in a coat of black velvet, slightly +embroidered; his vest was of white satin; he wore no jewels nor orders, +for it was only on grand or gala days that he displayed personal pomp. +At some little distance from him stood three members of the royal +family; them I never regarded: all my attention was bent upon the King. +My temperament is not that on which greatness, or indeed any external +circumstances, make much impression; but as, following at a little +distance the Bishop of Frejus, I approached the royal person, I must +confess that Bolingbroke had scarcely need to have cautioned me not to +appear too self-possessed. Perhaps, had I seen that great monarch in +his /beaux jours/; in the plenitude of his power, his glory, the +dazzling and meridian splendour of his person, his court, and his +renown,--pride might have made me more on my guard against too deep, or +at least too apparent, an impression; but the many reverses of that +magnificent sovereign,--reverses in which he had shown himself more +great than in all his previous triumphs and early successes; his age, +his infirmities, the very clouds round the setting sun, the very howls +of joy at the expiring lion,--all were calculated, in my mind, to deepen +respect into reverence, and tincture reverence itself with awe. I saw +before me not only the majesty of Louis le Grand, but that of +misfortune, of weakness, of infirmity, and of age; and I forgot at once, +in that reflection, what otherwise would have blunted my sentiments of +deference, namely, the crimes of his ministers and the exactions of his +reign. Endeavouring to collect my mind from an embarrassment which +surprised myself, I lifted my eyes towards the King, and saw a +countenance where the trace of the superb beauty for which his manhood +had been celebrated still lingered, broken, not destroyed, and borrowing +a dignity even more imposing from the marks of encroaching years and +from the evident exhaustion of suffering and disease. + +Fleuri said, in a low tone, something which my ear did not catch. There +was a pause,--only a moment's pause; and then, in a voice, the music of +which I had hitherto deemed exaggerated, the King spoke; and in that +voice there was something so kind and encouraging that I felt reassured +at once. Perhaps its tone was not the less conciliating from the +evident effect which the royal presence had produced upon me. + +"You have given us, Count Devereux," said the King, "a pleasure which we +are glad, in person, to acknowledge to you. And it has seemed to us +fitting that the country in which your brave father acquired his fame +should also be the asylum of his son." + +"Sire," answered I, "Sire, it shall not be my fault if that country is +not henceforth my own; and in inheriting my father's name, I inherit +also his gratitude and his ambition." + +"It is well said, Sir," said the King; and I once more raised my eyes, +and perceived that his were bent upon me. "It is well said," he +repeated after a short pause; "and in granting to you this audience, we +were not unwilling to hope that you were desirous to attach yourself to +our court. The times do not require" (here I thought the old King's +voice was not so firm as before) "the manifestation of your zeal in the +same career as that in which your father gained laurels to France and to +himself. But we will not neglect to find employment for your abilities, +if not for your sword." + +"That sword which was given to me, Sire," said I, "by your Majesty, +shall be ever drawn (against all nations but one) at your command; and, +in being your Majesty's petitioner for future favours, I only seek some +channel through which to evince my gratitude for the past." + +"We do not doubt," said Louis, "that whatever be the number of the +ungrateful we may make by testifying our good pleasure on your behalf, +/you/ will not be among the number." The King here made a slight but +courteous inclination and turned round. The observant Bishop of Frejus, +who had retired to a little distance and who knew that the King never +liked talking more than he could help it, gave me a signal. I obeyed, +and backed, with all due deference, out of the royal presence. + +So closed my interview with Louis XIV. Although his Majesty did not +indulge in prolixity, I spoke of him for a long time afterwards as the +most eloquent of men. Believe me, there is no orator like a king; one +word from a royal mouth stirs the heart more than Demosthenes could have +done. There was a deep moral in that custom of the ancients, by which +the Goddess of Persuasion was always represented /with a diadem on her +head/. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +REFLECTIONS.--A SOIREE.--THE APPEARANCE OF ONE IMPORTANT IN THE +HISTORY.--A CONVERSATION WITH MADAME DE BALZAC HIGHLY SATISFACTORY AND +CHEERING.--A RENCONTRE WITH A CURIOUS OLD SOLDIER.--THE EXTINCTION OF A +ONCE GREAT LUMINARY. + +I HAD now been several weeks at Paris; I had neither eagerly sought nor +sedulously avoided its gayeties. It is not that one violent sorrow +leaves us without power of enjoyment; it only lessens the power, and +deadens the enjoyment: it does not take away from us the objects of +life; it only forestalls the more indifferent calmness of age. The +blood no longer flows in an irregular but delicious course of vivid and +wild emotion; the step no longer spurns the earth; nor does the ambition +wander, insatiable, yet undefined, over the million paths of existence: +but we lose not our old capacities; they are quieted, not extinct. The +heart can never utterly and long be dormant: trifles may not charm it +any more, nor levities delight; but its pulse has not yet ceased to +beat. We survey the scene that moves around, with a gaze no longer +distracted by every hope that flutters by; and it is therefore that we +find ourselves more calculated than before for the graver occupations of +our race. The overflowing temperament is checked to its proper level, +the ambition bounded to its prudent and lawful goal. The earth is no +longer so green, nor the heaven so blue, nor the fancy that stirs within +us so rich in its creations; but we look more narrowly on the living +crowd, and more rationally on the aims of men. The misfortune which has +changed us has only adapted us the better to a climate in which +misfortune is a portion of the air. The grief that has thralled our +spirit to a more narrow and dark cell has also been a change that has +linked us to mankind with a strength of which we dreamed not in the day +of a wilder freedom and more luxuriant aspirings. In later life, a new +spirit, partaking of that which was our earliest, returns to us. The +solitude which delighted us in youth, but which, when the thoughts that +make solitude a fairy land are darkened by affliction, becomes a fearful +and sombre void, resumes its old spell, as the more morbid and urgent +memory of that affliction crumbles away by time. Content is a hermit; +but so also is Apathy. Youth loves the solitary couch, which it +surrounds with dreams. Age, or Experience (which is the mind's age), +loves the same couch for the rest which it affords; but the wide +interval between is that of exertion, of labour, and of labour among +men. The woe which makes our /hearts/ less social, often makes our +/habits/ more so. The thoughts, which in calm would have shunned the +world, are driven upon it by the tempest, even as the birds which +forsake the habitable land can, so long as the wind sleeps and the +thunder rests within its cloud, become the constant and solitary +brooders over the waste sea: but the moment the storm awakes and the +blast pursues them, they fly, by an overpowering instinct, to some +wandering bark, some vestige of human and social life; and exchange, +even for danger from the hands of men, the desert of an angry Heaven and +the solitude of a storm. + +I heard no more either of Madame de Maintenon or the King. Meanwhile, +my flight and friendship with Lord Bolingbroke had given me a +consequence in the eyes of the exiled Prince which I should not +otherwise have enjoyed; and I was honoured by very flattering overtures +to enter actively into his service. I have before said that I felt no +enthusiasm in his cause, and I was far from feeling it for his person. +My ambition rather directed its hope towards a career in the service of +France. France was the country of my birth, and the country of my +father's fame. There no withering remembrances awaited me; no private +regrets were associated with its scenes, and no public penalties with +its political institutions. And although I had not yet received any +token of Louis's remembrance, in the ordinary routine of court favours +expectation as yet would have been premature; besides, his royal +fidelity to his word was proverbial; and, sooner or later, I indulged +the hope to profit by the sort of promise he had insinuated to me. I +declined, therefore, with all due respect, the offers of the Chevalier, +and continued to live the life of idleness and expectation, until Lord +Bolingbroke returned to Paris, and accepted the office of secretary of +state in the service of the Chevalier. As he has publicly declared his +reasons in this step, I do not mean to favour the world with his private +conversations on the same subject. + +A day or two after his return, I went with him to a party given by a +member of the royal family. The first person by whom we were +accosted--and I rejoiced at it, for we could not have been accosted by a +more amusing one--was Count Anthony Hamilton. + +"Ah! my Lord Bolingbroke," said he, sauntering up to us; "how are +you?--delighted to see you again. Do look at Madame la Duchesse +d'Orleans! Saw you ever such a creature? Whither are you moving, my +Lord? Ah! see him, Count, see him, gliding off to that pretty duchess, +of course; well, he has a beautiful bow, it must be owned; why, you are +not going too?--what would the world say if Count Anthony Hamilton were +seen left to himself? No, no, come and sit down by Madame de Cornuel: +she longs to be introduced to you, and is one of the wittiest women in +Europe." + +"With all my heart! provided she employs her wit ill-naturedly, and uses +it in ridiculing other people, not praising herself." + +"Oh! nobody can be more satirical; indeed, what difference is there +between wit and satire? Come, Count!" + +And Hamilton introduced me forthwith to Madame de Cornuel. She received +me very politely; and, turning to two or three people who formed the +circle round her, said, with the greatest composure, "Messieurs, oblige +me by seeking some other object of attraction; I wish to have a private +conference with my new friend." + +"I may stay?" said Hamilton. + +"Ah! certainly; you are never in the way." + +"In that respect, Madame," said Hamilton, taking snuff, and bowing very +low, "in that respect, I must strongly remind you of your excellent +husband." + +"Fie!" cried Madame de Cornuel; then, turning to me, she said, "Ah! +Monsieur, if you /could/ have come to Paris some years ago, you would +have been enchanted with us: we are sadly changed. Imagine the fine old +King thinkinj it wicked not to hear plays, but to hear /players/ act +them, and so making the royal family a company of comedians. /Mon +Dieu!/ how villanously they perform! but do you know why I wished to be +introduced to you?" + +"Yes! in order to have a new listener: old listeners must be almost as +tedious as old news." + +"Very shrewdly said, and not far from the truth. The fact is, that I +wanted to talk about all these fine people present to some one for whose +ear my anecdotes would have the charm of novelty. Let us begin with +Louis Armand, Prince of Conti; you see him." + +"What, that short-sighted, stout, and rather handsome man, with a cast +of countenance somewhat like the pictures of Henri Quatre, who is +laughing so merrily?" + +"/O Ciel/! how droll! No! that handsome man is no less a person than +the Duc d'Orleans. You see a little ugly thing like an anatomized +ape,--there, see,--he has just thrown down a chair, and, in stooping to +pick it up, has almost fallen over the Dutch ambassadress,--that is +Louis Armand, Prince of Conti. Do you know what the Duc d'Orleans said +to him the other day? '/Mon bon ami/,' he said, pointing to the +prince's limbs (did you ever see such limbs out of a menagerie, by the +by?) '/mon bon ami/, it is a fine thing for you that the Psalmist has +assured us "that the Lord delighteth not in any man's legs."' Nay, +don't laugh, it is quite true!" + +It was now for Count Hamilton to take up the ball of satire; he was not +a whit more merciful than the kind Madame de Cornuel. "The Prince," +said he, "has so exquisite an awkwardness that, whenever the King hears +a noise, and inquires the cause, the invariable answer is that 'the +Prince of Conti has just tumbled down'! But, tell me, what do you think +of Madame d'Aumont? She is in the English headdress, and looks /triste +a la mort/." + +"She is rather pretty, to my taste." + +"Yes," cried Madame de Cornuel, interrupting the gentle Antoine (it did +one's heart good to see how strenuously each of them tried to talk more +scandal than the other), "yes, she is thought very pretty; but I think +her very like a /fricandeau/,--white, soft, and insipid. She is always +in tears," added the good-natured Cornuel, "after her prayers, both at +morning and evening. I asked why; and she answered, pretty simpleton, +that she was always forced to pray to be made good, and she feared +Heaven would take her at her word! However, she has many worshippers, +and they call her the evening star." + +"They should rather call her the Hyades!" said Hamilton, "if it be true +that she sheds tears every morning and night, and her rising and setting +are thus always attended by rain." + +"Bravo, Count Antoine! she shall be so called in future," said Madame de +Cornuel. "But now, Monsieur Devereux, turn your eyes to that hideous +old woman." + +"What! the Duchesse d'Orleans?" + +"The same. She is in full dress to-night; but in the daytime you +generally see her in a riding habit and a man's wig; she is--" + +"Hist!" interrupted Hamilton; "do you not tremble to think what she +would do if she overheard you? she is such a terrible creature at +fighting! You have no conception, Count, what an arm she has. She +knows her ugliness, and laughs at it, as all the rest of the world does. +The King took her hand one day, and said smiling, 'What could Nature +have meant when she gave this hand to a German princess instead of a +Dutch peasant?' 'Sire,' said the Duchesse, very gravely, 'Nature gave +this hand to a German princess for the purpose of boxing the ears of her +ladies in waiting!'" + +"Ha! ha! ha!" said Madame de Cornuel, laughing; "one is never at a loss +for jokes upon a woman who eats /salade au lard/, and declares that, +whenever she is unhappy, her only consolation is ham and sausages! Her +son treats her with the greatest respect, and consults her in all his +amours, for which she professes the greatest horror, and which she +retails to her correspondents all over the world, in letters as long as +her pedigree. But you are looking at her son, is he not of a good +mien?" + +"Yes, pretty well; but does not exhibit to advantage by the side of Lord +Bolingbroke, with whom he is now talking. Pray, who is the third +personage that has just joined them?" + +"Oh, the wretch! it is the Abbe Dubois; a living proof of the folly of +the French proverb, which says that Mercuries should /not/ be made /du +bois/. Never was there a Mercury equal to the Abbe,--but, do look at +that old man to the left,--he is one of the most remarkable persons of +the age." + +"What! he with the small features, and comely countenance, considering +his years?" + +"The same," said Hamilton; "it is the notorious Choisi. You know that +he is the modern Tiresias, and has been a woman as well as man." + +"How do you mean?" + +"Ah, you may well ask!" cried Madame de Cornuel. "Why, he lived for +many years in the disguise of a woman, and had all sorts of curious +adventures." + +"/Mort Diable/!" cried Hamilton; "it was entering your ranks, Madame, as +a spy. I hear he makes but a sorry report of what he saw there." + +"Come, Count Antoine," cried the lively de Cornuel, "we must not turn +our weapons against each other; and when you attack a woman's sex you +attack her individually. But what makes you look so intently, Count +Devereux, at that ugly priest?" + +The person thus flatteringly designated was Montreuil; he had just +caught my eye, among a group of men who were conversing eagerly. + +"Hush! Madame," said I, "spare me for a moment;" and I rose, and mingled +with the Abbe's companions. + +"So, you have only arrived to-day," I heard one of them say to him. + +"No, I could not despatch my business before." + +"And how are matters in England?" + +"Ripe! if the life of his Majesty (of France) be spared a year longer, +we will send the Elector of Hanover back to his principality." + +"Hist!" said the companion, and looked towards me. Montreuil ceased +abruptly: our eyes met; his fell. I affected to look among the group as +if I had expected to find there some one I knew, and then, turning away, +I seated myself alone and apart. There, unobserved, I kept my looks on +Montreuil. I remarked that, from time to time, his keen dark eye +glanced towards me, with a look rather expressive of vigilance than +anything else. Soon afterwards his little knot dispersed; I saw him +converse for a few moments with Dubois, who received him I thought +distantly; and then he was engaged in a long conference with the Bishop +of Frejus, whom, till then, I had not perceived among the crowd. + +As I was loitering on the staircase, where I saw Montreuil depart with +the Bishop, in the carriage of the latter, Hamilton, accosting me, +insisted on my accompanying him to Chaulieu's, where a late supper +awaited the sons of wine and wit. However, to the good Count's great +astonishment, I preferred solitude and reflection, for that night, to +anything else. + +Montreuil's visit to the French capital boded me no good. He possessed +great influence with Fleuri, and was in high esteem with Madame de +Maintenon, and, in effect, very shortly after his return to Paris, the +Bishop of Frejus looked upon me with a most cool sort of benignancy; and +Madame de Maintenon told her friend, the Duchesse de St. Simon, that it +was a great pity a young nobleman of my birth and prepossessing +appearance (ay! my prepossessing appearance would never have occurred to +the devotee, if I had not seemed so sensible of her own) should not only +be addicted to the wildest dissipation, but, worse still, to +Jansenistical tenets. After this there was no hope for me save in the +King's word, which his increasing infirmities, naturally engrossing his +attention, prevented my hoping too sanguinely would dwell very acutely +on his remembrance. I believe, however, so religiously scrupulous was +Louis upon a point of honour that, had he lived, I should have had +nothing to complain of. As it was--but I anticipate! Montreuil +disappeared from Paris, almost as suddenly as he had appeared there. +And, as drowning men catch at a straw, so, finding my affairs at a very +low ebb, I thought I would take advice, even from Madame de Balzac. + +I accordingly repaired to her hotel. She was at home, and, fortunately, +alone. + +"You are welcome, /mon fils/," said she; "suffer me to give you that +title: you are welcome; it is some days since I saw you." + +"I have numbered them, I assure you, Madame," said I, "and they have +crept with a dull pace; but you know that business has claims as well as +pleasure!" + +"True!" said Madame de Balzac, pompously: "I myself find the weight of +politics a little insupportable, though so used to it; to your young +brain I can readily imagine how irksome it must be!" + +"Would, Madame, that I could obtain your experience by contagion; as it +is, I fear that I have profited little by my visit to his Majesty. +Madame de Maintenon will not see me, and the Bishop of Frejus (excellent +man!) has been seized with a sudden paralysis of memory whenever I +present myself in his way." + +"That party will never do,--I thought not," said Madame de Balzae, who +was a wonderful imitator of the fly on the wheel; "/my/ celebrity, and +the knowledge that /I/ loved you for your father's sake, were, I fear, +sufficient to destroy your interest with the Jesuits and their tools. +Well, well, we must repair the mischief we have occasioned you. What +place would suit you best?" + +"Why, anything diplomatic. I would rather travel, at my age, than +remain in luxury and indolence even at Paris!" + +"Ah, nothing like diplomacy!" said Madame de Balzac, with the air of a +Richelieu, and emptying her snuff-box at a pinch; "but have you, my son, +the requisite qualities for that science, as well as the tastes? Are +you capable of intrigue? Can you say one thing and mean another? Are +you aware of the immense consequence of a look or a bow? Can you live +like a spider, in the centre of an inexplicable net--inexplicable as +well as dangerous--to all but the weaver? That, my son, is the art of +politics; that is to be a diplomatist!" + +"Perhaps, to one less penetrating than Madame de Balzac," answered I, "I +might, upon trial, not appear utterly ignorant of the noble art of state +duplicity which she has so eloquently depicted." + +"Possibly!" said the good lady; "it must indeed be a profound +dissimulator to deceive /me/." + +"But what would you advise me to do in the present crisis? What party +to adopt, what individual to flatter?" + +Nothing, I already discovered and have already observed, did the +inestimable Madame de Balzac dislike more than a downright question: she +never answered it. + +"Why, really," said she, preparing herself for a long speech, "I am +quite glad you consult me, and I will give you the best advice in my +power. /Ecoutez donc/; you have seen the Duc de Maine?" + +"Certainly!" + +"Hum! ha! it would be wise to follow him; but--you take me--you +understand. Then, you know, my son, there is the Duc d'Orleans, fond of +pleasure, full of talent; but you know--there is a little--what do you +call it? you understand. As for the Duc de Bourbon, 'tis quite a +simpleton; nevertheless we must consider: nothing like consideration; +believe me, no diplomatist ever hurries. As for Madame de Maintenon, +you know, and I know too, that the Duchesse d'Orleans calls her an old +hag; but then--a word to the wise--eh?--what shall we say to Madame the +Duchess herself?--what a fat woman she is, but excessively clever,--such +a letter writer!--Well--you see, my dear young friend, that it is a +very difficult matter to decide upon,--but you must already be fully +aware what plan I should advise." + +"Already, Madame?" + +"To be sure! What have I been saying to you all this time?--did you not +hear me? Shall I repeat my advice?" + +"Oh, no! I perfectly comprehend you now; you would advise me--in +short--to--to--do--as well as I can." + +"You have said it, my son. I thought you would understand me on a +little reflection." + +"To be sure,--to be sure," said I. + +And three ladies being announced, my conference with Madame de Balzac +ended. + +I now resolved to wait a little till the tides of power seemed somewhat +more settled, and I could ascertain in what quarter to point my bark of +enterprise. I gave myself rather more eagerly to society, in proportion +as my political schemes were suffered to remain torpid. My mind could +not remain quiet, without preying on itself; and no evil appeared to me +so great as tranquillity. Thus the spring and earlier summer passed on, +till, in August, the riots preceding the Rebellion broke out in +Scotland. At this time I saw but little of Lord Bolingbroke in private; +though, with his characteristic affectation, he took care that the load +of business with which he was really oppressed should not prevent his +enjoyment of all gayeties in public. And my indifference to the cause +of the Chevalier, in which he was so warmly engaged, threw a natural +restraint upon our conversation, and produced an involuntary coldness in +our intercourse: so impossible is it for men to be private friends who +differ on a public matter. + +One evening I was engaged to meet a large party at a country-house about +forty miles from Paris. I went, and stayed some days. My horses had +accompanied me; and, when I left the chateau, I resolved to make the +journey to Paris on horseback. Accordingly, I ordered my carriage to +follow me, and attended by a single groom, commenced my expedition. It +was a beautiful still morning,--the first day of the first month of +autumn. I had proceeded about ten miles, when I fell in with an old +French officer. I remember,--though I never saw him but that once,--I +remember his face as if I had encountered it yesterday. It was thin and +long, and yellow enough to have served as a caricature rather than a +portrait of Don Quixote. He had a hook nose, and a long sharp chin; and +all the lines, wrinkles, curves, and furrows of which the human visage +is capable seemed to have met in his cheeks. Nevertheless, his eye was +bright and keen, his look alert, and his whole bearing firm, gallant, +and soldier-like. He was attired in a sort of military undress; wore a +mustachio, which, though thin and gray, was carefully curled; and at the +summit of a very respectable wig was perched a small cocked hat, adorned +with a black feather. He rode very upright in his saddle; and his +horse, a steady, stalwart quadruped of the Norman breed, with a terribly +long tail and a prodigious breadth of chest, put one stately leg before +another in a kind of trot, which, though it seemed, from its height of +action and the proud look of the steed, a pretension to motion more than +ordinarily brisk, was in fact a little slower than a common walk. + +This noble cavalier seemed sufficiently an object of curiosity to my +horse to induce the animal to testify his surprise by shying, very +jealously and very vehemently, in passing him. This ill breeding on his +part was indignantly returned on the part of the Norman charger, who, +uttering a sort of squeak and shaking his long mane and head, commenced +a series of curvets and capers which cost the old Frenchman no little +trouble to appease. In the midst of these equine freaks, the horse came +so near me as to splash my nether garment with a liberality as little +ornamental as it was pleasurable. + +The old Frenchman seeing this, took off his cocked hat very politely and +apologized for the accident. I replied with equal courtesy; and, as our +horses slid into quiet, their riders slid into conversation. It was +begun and chiefly sustained by my new comrade; for I am little addicted +to commence unnecessary socialities myself, though I should think very +meanly of my pretensions to the name of a gentleman and a courtier, if I +did not return them when offered, even by a beggar. + +"It is a fine horse of yours, Monsieur," said the old Frenchman; "but I +cannot believe--pardon me for saying so--that your slight English steeds +are so well adapted to the purposes of war as our strong chargers,--such +as mine for example." + +"It is very possible, Monsieur," said I. "Has the horse you now ride +done service in the field as well as on the road?" + +"Ah! /le pauvre petit mignon/,--no!" (/petit/, indeed! this little +darling was seventeen hands high at the very least) "no, Monsieur: it is +but a young creature this; his grandfather served me well!" + +"I need not ask you, Monsieur, if you have borne arms: the soldier is +stamped upon you!" + +"Sir, you flatter me highly!" said the old gentleman, blushing to the +very tip of his long lean ears, and bowing as low as if I had called him +a Conde. "I have followed the profession of arms for more than fifty +years." + +"Fifty years! 'tis a long time." + +"A long time," rejoined my companion, "a long time to look back upon +with regret." + +"Regret! by Heaven, I should think the remembrance of fifty years' +excitement and glory would be a remembrance of triumph." + +The old man turned round on his saddle, and looked at me for some +moments very wistfully. "You are young, Sir," he said, "and at your +years I should have thought with you; but--" (then abruptly changing his +voice, he continued)--"Triumph, did you say? Sir, I have had three +sons: they are dead; they died in battle; I did not weep; I did not shed +a tear, Sir,--not a tear! But I will tell you when I did weep. I came +back, an old man, to the home I had left as a young one. I saw the +country a desert. I saw that the /noblesse/ had become tyrants; the +peasants had become slaves,--such slaves,--savage from despair,--even +when they were most gay, most fearfully gay, from constitution. Sir, I +saw the priest rack and grind, and the seigneur exact and pillage, and +the tax-gatherer squeeze out the little the other oppressors had left; +anger, discontent, wretchedness, famine, a terrible separation between +one order of people and another; an incredible indifference to the +miseries their despotism caused on the part of the aristocracy; a sullen +and vindictive hatred for the perpetration of those miseries on the part +of the people; all places sold--even all honours priced--at the court, +which was become a public market, a province of peasants, of living men +bartered for a few livres, and literally passed from one hand to +another, to be squeezed and drained anew by each new possessor: in a +word, Sir, an abandoned court; an unredeemed /noblesse/,--unredeemed, +Sir, by a single benefit which, in other countries, even the most +feudal, the vassal obtains from the master; a peasantry famished; a +nation loaded with debt which it sought to pay by tears,--these are what +I saw,--these are the consequences of that heartless and miserable +vanity from which arose wars neither useful nor honourable,--these are +the real components of that /triumph/, as you term it, which you wonder +that I regret." + +Now, although it was impossible to live at the court of Louis XIV. in +his latter days, and not feel, from the general discontent that +prevailed even there, what a dark truth the old soldier's speech +contained, yet I was somewhat surprised by an enthusiasm so little +military in a person whose bearing and air were so conspicuously +martial. + +"You draw a melancholy picture," said I; "and the wretched state of +culture which the lands that we now pass through exhibit is a witness +how little exaggeration there is in your colouring. However, these are +but the ordinary evils of war; and, if your country endures them, do not +forget that she has also inflicted them. Remember what France did to +Holland, and own that it is but a retribution that France should now +find that the injury we do to others is (among nations as well as +individuals) injury to ourselves." + +My old Frenchman curled his mustaches with the finger and thumb of his +left hand: this was rather too subtile a distinction for him. + +"That may be true enough, Monsieur," said he; "but, /morbleu/! those +/maudits/ Dutchmen deserved what they sustained at our hands. No, Sir, +no: I am not so base as to forget the glory my country acquired, though +I weep for her wounds." + +"I do not quite understand you, Sir," said I; "did you not just now +confess that the wars you had witnessed were neither honourable nor +useful? What glory, then, was to be acquired in a war of that +character, even though it was so delightfully animated by cutting the +throats of those /maudits/ Dutchmen?" + +"Sir," answered the Frenchman, drawing himself up, "you did /not/ +understand me. When we punished Holland, we did rightly. We +/conquered/." + +"Whether you conquered or not (for the good folk of Holland are not so +sure of the fact)," answered I, "that war was the most unjust in which +your king was ever engaged; but pray, tell me, Sir, what war it is that +you lament?" + +The Frenchman frowned, whistled, put out his under lip, in a sort of +angry embarrassment, and then, spurring his great horse into a curvet, +said,-- + +"That last war with the English!" + +"Faith," said I, "that was the justest of all." + +"Just!" cried the Frenchman, halting abruptly and darting at me a glance +of fire, "just! no more, Sir! no more! I was at Blenheim and at +Ramilies!" + +As the old warrior said the last words, his voice faltered; and though I +could not help inly smiling at the confusion of ideas by which wars were +just or unjust, according as they were fortunate or not, yet I respected +his feelings enough to turn away my face and remain silent. + +"Yes," renewed my comrade, colouring with evident shame and drawing his +cocked hat over his brows, "yes, I received my last wound at Ramilies. +/Then/ my eyes were opened to the horrors of war; /then/ I saw and +cursed the evils of ambition; /then/ I resolved to retire from the +armies of a king who had lost forever his name, his glory, and his +country." + +Was there ever a better type of the French nation than this old soldier? +As long as fortune smiles on them, it is "Marchons au diable!" and "Vive +la gloire!" Directly they get beaten, it is "Ma pauvre patrie!" and +"Les calamites affreuses de la guerre!" + +"However," said I, "the old King is drawing near the end of his days, +and is said to express his repentance at the evils his ambition has +occasioned." + +The old soldier shoved back his hat, and offered me his snuff-box. I +judged by this that he was a little mollified. + +"Ah!" he renewed, after a pause, "ah! times are sadly changed since the +year 1667; when the young King--he was young then--took the field in +Flanders, under the great Turenne. /Sacristie/! What a hero he looked +upon his white war-horse! I would have gone--ay, and the meanest and +backwardest soldier in the camp would have gone--into the very mouth of +the cannon for a look from that magnificent countenance, or a word from +that mouth which knew so well what words were! Sir, there was in the +war of '72, when we were at peace with Great Britain, an English +gentleman, then in the army, afterwards a marshal of France: I remember, +as if it were yesterday, how gallantly he behaved. The King sent to +compliment him after some signal proof of courage and conduct, and asked +what reward he would have. 'Sire,' answered the Englishman, 'give me +the white plume you wore this day.' From that moment the Englishman's +fortune was made." + +"The flattery went further than the valour!" said I, smiling, as I +recognized in the anecdote the first great step which my father had made +in the ascent of fortune. + +"/Sacristie/!" cried the Frenchman, "it was no flattery then. We so +idolized the King that mere truth would have seemed disloyalty; and we +no more thought that praise, however extravagant, was adulation, when +directed to him, than we should have thought there was adulation in the +praise we would have given to our first mistress. But it is all changed +now! Who now cares for the old priest-ridden monarch?" + +And upon this the veteran, having conquered the momentary enthusiasm +which the remembrance of the King's earlier glories had excited, +transferred all his genius of description to the opposite side of the +question, and declaimed, with great energy, upon the royal vices and +errors, which were so charming in prosperity, and were now so detestable +in adversity. + +While we were thus conversing we approached Versailles. We thought the +vicinity of the town seemed unusually deserted. We entered the main +street: crowds were assembled; a universal murmur was heard; excitement +sat on every countenance. Here an old crone was endeavouring to explain +something, evidently beyond his comprehension, to a child of three years +old, who, with open mouth and fixed eyes, seemed to make up in wonder +for the want of intelligence; there a group of old disbanded soldiers +occupied the way, and seemed, from their muttered conversations, to vent +a sneer and a jest at a priest who, with downward countenance and +melancholy air, was hurrying along. + +One young fellow was calling out, "At least, it is a holy-day, and I +shall go to Paris!" and, as a contrast to him, an old withered artisan, +leaning on a gold-headed cane, with sharp avarice eloquent in every line +of his face, muttered out to a fellow-miser, "No business to-day, no +money, John; no money!" One knot of women, of all ages, close by which +my horse passed, was entirely occupied with a single topic, and that so +vehemently that I heard the leading words of the discussion. +"Mourning--becoming--what fashion?--how long?--/O Ciel/!" Thus do +follies weave themselves round the bier of death! + +"What is the news, gentlemen?" said I. + +"News! what, you have not heard it?--the King is dead!" + +"Louis dead! Louis the Great, dead!" cried my companion. + +"Louis the Great?" said a sullen-looking man,--"Louis the persecutor!" + +"Ah, he's a Huguenot!" cried another with haggard cheeks and hollow +eyes, scowling at the last speaker. "Never mind what he says: the King +was right when he refused protection to the heretics; but was he right +when he levied such taxes on the Catholics?" + +"Hush!" said a third--"hush: it may be unsafe to speak; there are spies +about; for my part, I think it was all the fault of the /noblesse/." + +"And the Favourites!" cried a soldier, fiercely. + +"And the Harlots!" cried a hag of eighty. + +"And the Priests!" muttered the Huguenot. + +"And the Tax-gatherers!" added the lean Catholic. + +We rode slowly on. My comrade was evidently and powerfully affected. + +"So, he is dead!" said he. "Dead!--well, well, peace be with him! He +conquered in Holland; he humbled Genoa; he dictated to Spain; he +commanded Conde and Turenne; he--Bah! What is all this!--" then, +turning abruptly to me, my companion cried, "I did not speak against the +King, did I, Sir?" + +"Not much." + +"I am glad of that,--yes, very glad!" And the old man glared fiercely +round on a troop of boys who were audibly abusing the dead lion. + +"I would have bit out my tongue rather than it had joined in the base +joy of these yelping curs. Heavens! when I think what shouts I have +heard when the name of that man, then deemed little less than a god, was +but breathed!--and now--why do you look at me, Sir? My eyes are moist; +I know it, Sir,--I know it. The old battered broken soldier, who made +his first campaigns when that which is now dust was the idol of France +and the pupil of Turenne,--the old soldier's eyes shall not be dry, +though there is not another tear shed in the whole of this great +empire." + +"Your three sons?" said I; "you did not weep for them?" + +"No, Sir: I loved them when I was old; but I loved Louis /when I was +young/!" + +"Your oppressed and pillaged country?" said I, "think of that." + +"No, Sir, I will not think of it!" cried the old warrior in a passion. +"I will not think of it--to-day, at least." + +"You are right, my brave friend: in the grave let us bury even public +wrongs; but let us not bury their remembrance. May the joy we read in +every face that we pass--joy at the death of one whom idolatry once +almost seemed to deem immortal--be a lesson to future kings!" + +My comrade did not immediately answer; but, after a pause and we had +turned our backs upon the town, he said, "Joy, Sir,--you spoke of joy! +Yes, we are Frenchmen: we forgive our rulers easily for private vices +and petty faults; but we never forgive them if they commit the greatest +of faults, and suffer a stain to rest upon--" + +"What?" I asked, as my comrade broke off. + +"The national glory, Monsieur!" said he. + +"You have hit it," said I, smiling at the turgid sentiment which was so +really and deeply felt. "And had you written folios upon the character +of your countrymen, you could not have expressed it better." + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +IN WHICH THERE IS REASON TO FEAR THAT PRINCES ARE NOT INVARIABLY FREE +FROM HUMAN PECCADILLOES. + +ON entering Paris, my veteran fellow-traveller took leave of me, and I +proceeded to my hotel. When the first excitement of my thoughts was a +little subsided, and after some feelings of a more public nature, I +began to consider what influence the King's death was likely to have on +my own fortunes. I could not but see at a glance that for the cause of +the Chevalier, and the destiny of his present exertions in Scotland, it +was the most fatal event that could have occurred. + +The balance of power in the contending factions of France would, I +foresaw, lie entirely between the Duke of Orleans and the legitimatized +children of the late king: the latter, closely leagued as they were with +Madame de Maintenon, could not be much disposed to consider the welfare +of Count Devereux; and my wishes, therefore, naturally settled on the +former. I was not doomed to a long suspense. Every one knows that the +very next day the Duke of Orleans appeared before Parliament, and was +proclaimed Regent; that the will of the late King was set aside; and +that the Duke of Maine suddenly became as low in power as he had always +been despicable in intellect. A little hubbub ensued: people in general +laughed at the Regent's /finesse/; and the more sagacious admired the +courage and address of which the /finesse/ was composed. The Regent's +mother wrote a letter of sixty-nine pages about it; and the Duchess of +Maine boxed the Duke's ears very heartily for not being as clever as +herself. All Paris teemed with joyous forebodings; and the Regent, whom +every one some time ago had suspected of poisoning his cousins, every +one now declared to be the most perfect prince that could possibly be +imagined, and the very picture of Henri Quatre in goodness as well as +physiognomy. Three days after this event, one happened to myself with +which my public career may be said to commence. + +I had spent the evening at a house in a distant part of Paris, and, +invited by the beauty of the night, had dismissed my carriage, and was +walking home alone and on foot. Occupied with my reflections, and not +very well acquainted with the dangerous and dark streets of Paris, in +which it was very rare for those who have carriages to wander on foot, I +insensibly strayed from my proper direction. When I first discovered +this disagreeable fact, I was in a filthy and obscure lane rather than +street, which I did not remember having ever honoured with my presence +before. While I was pausing in the vain hope and anxious endeavour to +shape out some imaginary chart--some "map of the mind," by which to +direct my bewildered course--I heard a confused noise proceed from +another lane at right angles with the one in which I then was. I +listened: the sound became more distinct; I recognized human voices in +loud and angry altercation; a moment more and there was a scream. +Though I did not attach much importance to the circumstance, I thought I +might as well approach nearer to the quarter of noise. I walked to the +door of the house from which the scream proceeded; it was very small and +mean. Just as I neared it, a window was thrown open, and a voice cried, +"Help! help! for God's sake, help!" + +"What's the matter?" I asked. + +"Whoever you are, save us!" cried the voice, "and that instantly, or we +shall be murdered;" and, the moment after, the voice ceased abruptly, +and was succeeded by the clashing of swords. + +I beat loudly at the door; I shouted out,--no answer; the scuffle within +seemed to increase. I saw a small blind alley to the left; one of the +unfortunate women to whom such places are homes was standing in it. + +"What possibility is there of entering the house?" I asked. + +"Oh!" said she, "it does not matter; it is not the first time gentlemen +have cut each other's throats /there/." + +"What! is it a house of bad repute?" + +"Yes; and where there are bullies who wear knives, and take purses, as +well as ladies who--" + +"Good heavens!" cried I, interrupting her, "there is no time to be lost. +Is there no way of entrance but at this door?" + +"Yes, if you are bold enough to enter at another!" + +"Where?" + +"Down this alley." + +Immediately I entered the alley; the woman pointed to a small, dark, +narrow flight of stairs; I ascended; the sounds increased in loudness. +I mounted to the second flight; a light streamed from a door; the +clashing of swords was distinctly audible within; I broke open the door, +and found myself a witness and intruder on a scene at once ludicrous and +fearful. + +A table, covered with bottles and the remnants of a meal, was in the +centre of the room; several articles of women's dress were scattered +over the floor; two women of unequivocal description were clinging to a +man richly dressed, and who having fortunately got behind an immense +chair, that had been overthrown probably in the scuffle, managed to keep +off with awkward address a fierce-looking fellow, who had less scope for +the ability of his sword-arm, from the circumstance of his attempting to +pull away the chair with his left hand. Whenever he stooped to effect +this object his antagonist thrust at him very vigorously, and had it not +been for the embarrassment his female enemies occasioned him, the latter +would, in all probability, have despatched or disabled his besieger. +This fortified gentleman, being backed by the window, I immediately +concluded to be the person who had called to me for assistance. + +At the other corner of the apartment was another cavalier, who used his +sword with singular skill, but who, being hard pressed by two lusty +fellows, was forced to employ that skill rather in defence than attack. +Altogether, the disordered appearance of the room, the broken bottles, +the fumes with which the hot atmosphere teemed, the evident profligacy +of the two women, the half-undressed guise of the cavaliers, and the +ruffian air and collected ferocity of the assailants, plainly denoted +that it was one of those perilous festivals of pleasure in which +imprudent gallants were often, in that day, betrayed by treacherous +Delilahs into the hands of Philistines, who, not contented with +stripping them for the sake of plunder, frequently murdered them for the +sake of secrecy. + +Having taken a rapid but satisfactory survey of the scene, I did not +think it necessary to make any preparatory parley. I threw myself upon +the nearest bravo with so hearty a good will that I ran him through the +body before he had recovered his surprise at my appearance. This +somewhat startled the other two; they drew back and demanded quarter. + +"Quarter, indeed!" cried the farther cavalier, releasing himself from +his astonished female assailants, and leaping nimbly over his bulwark +into the centre of the room, "quarter, indeed, rascally /ivrognes/! No; +it is our turn now! and, by Joseph of Arimathea! you shall sup with +Pilate to-night." So saying, he pressed his old assailant so fiercely +that, after a short contest, the latter retreated till he had backed +himself to the door; he then suddenly turned round, and vanished in a +twinkling. The third and remaining ruffian was far from thinking +himself a match for three men; he fell on his knees, and implored mercy. +However, the /ci-devant/ sustainer of the besieged chair was but little +disposed to afford him the clemency he demanded, and approached the +crestfallen bravo with so grim an air of truculent delight, brandishing +his sword and uttering the most terrible threats, that there would have +been small doubt of the final catastrophe of the trembling bully, had +not the other gallant thrown himself in the way of his friend. + +"Put up thy sword," said he, laughing, and yet with an air of command; +"we must not court crime, and then punish it." Then, turning to the +bully, he said, "Rise, Sir Rascal! the devil spares thee a little +longer, and this gentleman will not disobey /his/ as well as /thy/ +master's wishes. Begone!" + +The fellow wanted no second invitation: he sprang to his legs, and to +the door. The disappointed cavalier assisted his descent down the +stairs with a kick that would have done the work of the sword to any +flesh not accustomed to similar applications. Putting up his rapier, +the milder gentleman then turned to /the ladies/, who lay huddled +together under shelter of the chair which their intended victim had +deserted. + +"Ah, Mesdames," said he, gravely, and with a low bow, "I am sorry for +your disappointment. As long as you contented yourselves with robbery, +it were a shame to have interfered with your innocent amusements; but +cold steel becomes serious. Monsieur D'Argenson will favour you with +some inquiries to-morrow; at present, I recommend you to empty what +remains in the bottle. Adieu! Monsieur, to whom I am so greatly +indebted, honour me with your arm down these stairs. You" (turning to +his friend) "will follow us, and keep a sharp look behind. /Allons! +Vive Henri Quatre/!" + +As we descended the dark and rough stairs, my new companion said, "What +an excellent antidote to the effects of the /vin de champagne/ is this +same fighting! I feel as if I had not tasted a drop these six hours. +What fortune brought you hither, Monsieur?" addressing me. + +We were now at the foot of the first flight of stairs; a high and small +window admitted the moonlight, and we saw each other's faces clearly. + +"That fortune," answered I, looking at my acquaintance steadily, but +with an expression of profound respect,--"that fortune which watches +over kingdoms, and which, I trust, may in no place or circumstance be a +deserter from your Highness." + +"Highness!" said my companion, colouring, and darting a glance, first at +his friend and then at me. "Hist, Sir, you know me, then,--speak +low,--you know, then, for whom you have drawn your sword?" + +"Yes, so please your Highness. I have drawn it this night for Philip of +Orleans; I trust yet, in another scene and for another cause, to draw it +for the Regent of France!" + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +A PRINCE, AN AUDIENCE, AND A SECRET EMBASSY. + +THE Regent remained silent for a moment: he then said in an altered and +grave voice, "/C'est bien, Monsieur/! I thank you for the distinction +you have made. It were not amiss" (he added, turning to his comrade) +"that /you/ would now and then deign, henceforward, to make the same +distinction. But this is neither time, nor place for parlance. On, +gentlemen!" We left the house, passed into the street, and moved on +rapidly, and in silence, till the constitutional gayety of the Duke +recovering its ordinary tone, he said with a laugh,-- + +"Well, now, it is a little hard that a man who has been toiling all day +for the public good should feel ashamed of indulging for an hour or two +at night in his private amusements; but so it is. 'Once grave, always +grave!' is the maxim of the world; eh, Chatran?" + +The companion bowed. "'Tis a very good saying, please your Royal +Highness, and is intended to warn us from the sin of /ever/ being +grave!" + +"Ha! ha! you have a great turn for morality, my good Chatran!" cried the +Duke, "and would draw a rule for conduct out of the wickedest /bon mot/ +of Dubois. Monsieur, pardon me, but I have seen you before: you are the +Count--" + +"Devereux, Monseigneur." + +"True, true! I have heard much of you: you are intimate with Milord +Bolingbroke. Would that I had fifty friends like /him/." + +"Monseigneur would have little trouble in his regency if his wish were +realized," said Chatran. + +"/Tant mieux/, so long as I had little odium, as well as little +trouble,--a happiness which, thanks to you and Dubois, I am not likely +to enjoy,--but there is the carriage!" + +And the Duke pointed to a dark, plain carriage, which we had suddenly +come upon. + +"Count Devereux," said the merry Regent, "you will enter; my duty +requires that, at this seductive hour, I should see a young gentleman of +your dangerous age safely lodged at his hotel!" + +We entered, Chatran gave the orders, and we drove off rapidly. + +The Regent hummed a tune, and his two companions listened to it in +respectful silence. + +"Well, well, Messieurs," said he, bursting out at last into open voice, +"I will ever believe, in future, that the gods /do/ look benignantly on +us worshippers of the Alma Venus! Do you know much of Tibullus, +Monsieur Devereux? And can you assist my memory with the continuation +of the line-- + + + "'Quisquis amore tenetur, eat--'" + + + "'tutusque sacerque + Qualibet, insidias non timuisse decet,'"* + + +answered I. + + +* "Whosoever is possessed by Love may go safe and holy withersoever he +likes. It becomes not him to fear snares." + + +"/Bon/!" cried the Duke. "I love a gentleman, from my very soul, when +he can both fight well and read Latin! I hate a man who is merely a +winebibber and blade-drawer. By Saint Louis, though it is an excellent +thing to fill the stomach, especially with Tokay, yet there is no reason +in the world why we should not fill the head too. But here we are. +Adieu, Monsieur Devereux: we shall see you at the Palace." + +I expressed my thanks briefly at the Regent's condescension, descended +from the carriage (which instantly drove off with renewed celerity), and +once more entered my hotel. + +Two or three days after my adventure with the Regent, I thought it +expedient to favour that eccentric prince with a visit. During the +early part of his regency, it is well known how successfully he combated +with his natural indolence, and how devotedly his mornings were +surrendered to the toils of his new office; but when pleasure has grown +habit, it requires a stronger mind than that of Philippe le Debonnaire +to give it a permanent successor in business. Pleasure is, indeed, like +the genius of the fable, the most useful of slaves, while you subdue it; +the most intolerable of tyrants the moment your negligence suffers it to +subdue you. + +The hours in which the Prince gave audience to the comrades of his +lighter rather than graver occupations were those immediately before and +after his /levee/. I thought that this would be the best season for me +to present myself. Accordingly, one morning after the /levee/, I +repaired to his palace. + +The ante-chamber was already crowded. I sat myself quietly down in one +corner of the room, and looked upon the motley groups around. I smiled +inly as they reminded me of the scenes my own anteroom, in my younger +days of folly and fortune, was wont to exhibit; the same heterogeneous +assemblage (only upon a grander scale) of the ministers to the physical +appetites and the mental tastes. There was the fretting and impudent +mountebank, side by side with the gentle and patient scholar; the +harlot's envoy and the priest's messenger; the agent of the police and +the licensed breaker of its laws; there--but what boots a more prolix +description? What is the anteroom of a great man, who has many wants +and many tastes, but a panorama of the blended disparities of this +compounded world? + +While I was moralizing, a gentleman suddenly thrust his head out of a +door, and appeared to reconnoitre us. Instantly the crowd swept up to +him. I thought I might as well follow the general example, and pushing +aside some of my fellow-loiterers, I presented myself and my name to the +gentleman, with the most ingratiating air I could command. + +The gentleman, who was tolerably civil for a great man's great man, +promised that my visit should be immediately announced to the Prince; +and then, with the politest bow imaginable, slapped the door in my face. +After I had waited about seven or eight minutes longer, the gentleman +reappeared, singled me from the crowd, and desired me to follow him; I +passed through another room, and was presently in the Regent's presence. + +I was rather startled when I saw, by the morning light, and in +deshabille, the person of that royal martyr to dissipation. His +countenance was red, but bloated, and a weakness in his eyes added +considerably to the jaded and haggard expression of his features. A +proportion of stomach rather inclined to corpulency seemed to betray the +taste for the pleasures of the table, which the most radically coarse, +and yet (strange to say) the most generally accomplished and really +good-natured of royal profligates, combined with his other +qualifications. He was yawning very elaborately over a great heap of +papers when I entered. He finished his yawn (as if it were too brief +and too precious a recreation to lose), and then said, "Good morning, +Monsieur Devereux; I am glad that you have found me out /at last/." + +"I was afraid, Monseigneur, of appearing an intruder on your presence, +by offering my homage to you before." + +"So like my good fortune," said the Regent, turning to a man seated at +another table at some distance, whose wily, astute countenance, piercing +eye, and licentious expression of lip and brow, indicated at once the +ability and vice which composed his character. "So like my good +fortune, is it not, Dubois? If ever I meet with a tolerably pleasant +fellow, who does not disgrace me by his birth or reputation, he is +always so terribly afraid of intruding! and whenever I pick up a +respectable personage without wit, or a wit without respectability, he +attaches himself to me like a burr, and can't live a day without +inquiring after my health." + +Dubois smiled, bowed, but did not answer, and I saw that his look was +bent darkly and keenly upon me. + +"Well," said the Prince, "what think you of our opera, Count Devereux? +It beats your English one--eh?" + +"Ah, certainly, Monseigneur; ours is but a reflection of yours." + +"So says your friend, Milord Bolingbroke, a person who knows about +operas almost as much as I do, which, vanity apart, is saying a great +deal. I should like very well to visit England; what should I learn +best there? In Spain (I shall always love Spain) I learned to cook." + +"Monseigneur, I fear," answered I, smiling, "could obtain but little +additional knowledge in that art in our barbarous country. A few rude +and imperfect inventions have, indeed, of late years, astonished the +cultivators of the science; but the night of ignorance rests still upon +its main principles and leading truths. Perhaps, what Monseigneur would +find best worth studying in England would be--the women." + +"Ah, the women all over the world!" cried the Duke, laughing; "but I +hear your /belles Anglaises/ are sentimental, and love /a +l'Arcadienne/." + +"It is true at present; but who shall say how far Monseigneur's example +might enlighten them in a train of thought so erroneous?" + +"True. Nothing like example, eh, Dubois? What would Philip of Orleans +have been but for thee?" + + + "'L'exemple souvent n'est qu'un miroir trompeur; + Quelquefois l'un se brise ou l'autre s'est sauve, + Et par ou l'un perit, un autre est conserve,'"* + + +answered Dubois, out of "Cinna." + + +* "Example is often but a deceitful mirror, where sometimes one destroys +himself, while another comes off safe; and where one perishes, another +is preserved." + + +"Corneille is right," rejoined the Regent. "After all, to do thee +justice, /mon petit Abbe/, example has little to do with corrupting us. +Nature pleads the cause of pleasure as Hyperides pleaded that of Phryne. +She has no need of eloquence: she unveils the bosom of her client, and +the client is acquitted." + +"Monseigneur shows at least that he has learned to profit by my humble +instructions in the classics," said Dubois. + +The Duke did not answer. I turned my eyes to some drawings on the +table; I expressed my admiration of them. "They are mine," said the +Regent. "Ah! I should have been much more accomplished as a private +gentleman than I fear I ever shall be as a public man of toil and +business. Business--bah! But Necessity is the only real sovereign in +the world, the only despot for whom there is no law. What! are you +going already, Count Devereux?" + +"Monseigneur's anteroom is crowded with less fortunate persons than +myself, whose sins of envy and covetousness I am now answerable for." + +"Ah--well! I must hear the poor devils; the only pleasure I have is in +seeing how easily I can make them happy. Would to Heaven, Dubois, that +one could govern a great kingdom only by fair words! Count Devereux, +you have seen me to-day as my acquaintance; see me again as my +petitioner. /Bon jour, Monsieur/." + +And I retired, very well pleased with my reception; from that time, +indeed, during the rest of my short stay at Paris, the Prince honoured +me with his especial favour. But I have dwelt too long on my sojourn at +the French court. The persons whom I have described, and who alone made +that sojourn memorable, must be my apology. + +One day I was honoured by a visit from the Abbe Dubois. After a short +conversation upon indifferent things, he accosted me thus:-- + +"You are aware, Count Devereux, of the partiality which the Regent has +conceived towards you. Fortunate would it be for the Prince" (here +Dubois elevated his brows with an ironical and arch expression), "so +good by disposition, so injured by example, if his partiality had been +more frequently testified towards gentlemen of your merit. A mission of +considerable importance, and one demanding great personal address, gives +his Royal Highness an opportunity of testifying his esteem for you. He +honoured me with a conference on the subject yesterday, and has now +commissioned me to explain to you the technical objects of this mission, +and to offer to you the honour of undertaking it. Should you accept the +proposals, you will wait upon his Highness before his /levee/ +to-morrow." + +Dubois then proceeded, in the clear, rapid manner peculiar to him, to +comment on the state of Europe. "For France," said he, in concluding +his sketch, "peace is absolutely necessary. A drained treasury, an +exhausted country, require it. You see, from what I have said, that +Spain and England are the principal quarters from which we are to dread +hostilities. Spain we must guard against; England we must propitiate: +the latter object is easy in England in any case, whether James or +George be uppermost. For whoever is king in England will have quite +enough to do at home to make him agree willingly enough to peace abroad. +The former requires a less simple and a more enlarged policy. I fear +the ambition of the Queen of Spain and the turbulent genius of her +minion Alberoni. We must fortify ourselves by new forms of alliance, at +various courts, which shall at once defend us and intimidate our +enemies. We wish to employ some nobleman of ability and address, on a +secret mission to Russia: will you be that person? Your absence from +Paris will be but short; you will see a very droll country, and a very +droll sovereign; you will return hither, doubly the rage, and with a +just claim to more important employment hereafter. What say you to the +proposal?" + +"I must hear more," said I, "before I decide." + +The Abbe renewed. It is needless to repeat all the particulars of the +commission that he enumerated. Suffice it that, after a brief +consideration, I accepted the honour proposed to me. The Abbe wished me +joy, relapsed into his ordinary strain of coarse levity for a few +minutes, and then, reminding me that I was to attend the Regent on the +morrow, departed. It was easy to see that in the mind of that subtle +and crafty ecclesiastic, with whose manoeuvres private intrigues were +always blended with public, this offer of employment veiled a desire to +banish me from the immediate vicinity of the good-natured Regent, whose +favour the aspiring Abbe wished at that exact moment exclusively to +monopolize. Mere men of pleasure he knew would not interfere with his +aims upon the Prince; mere men of business still less: but a man who was +thought to combine the capacities of both, and who was moreover +distinguished by the Regent, he deemed a more dangerous rival than the +inestimable person thus suspected really was. + +However, I cared little for the honest man's motives. Adventure to me +had always greater charms than dissipation, and it was far more +agreeable to the nature of my ambition, to win distinction by any +honourable method, than by favouritism at a court so hollow, so +unprincipled, and so grossly licentious as that of the Regent. There to +be the most successful courtier was to be the most amusing profligate. +Alas, when the heart is away from its objects, and the taste revolts at +its excess, Pleasure is worse than palling: it is a torture! and the +devil in Jonson's play did not perhaps greatly belie the truth when he +averred "that the pains in his native country were pastimes to the life +of a person of fashion." + +The Duke of Orleans received me the next morning with more than his +wonted /bonhomie/. What a pity that so good-natured a prince should +have been so bad a man! He enlarged more easily and carelessly than his +worthy preceptor had done upon the several points to be observed in my +mission; then condescendingly told me he was very sorry to lose me from +his court, and asked me, at all events, before I left Paris, to be a +guest at one of his select suppers. I appreciated this honour at its +just value. To these suppers none were asked but the Prince's chums, or +/roues/,* as he was pleased to call them. As, /entre nous/, these chums +were for the most part the most good-for-nothing people in the kingdom, +I could not but feel highly flattered at being deemed, by so deep a +judge of character as the Regent, worthy to join them. I need not say +that the invitation was eagerly accepted, nor that I left Philippe le +Debonnaire impressed with the idea of his being the most admirable +person in Europe. What a fool a great man is if he does not study to be +affable: weigh a prince's condescension in one scale, and all the +cardinal virtues in the other, and the condescension will outweigh them +all! The Regent of France ruined his country as much as he well could +do, and there was not a dry eye when he died! + + +* The term /roue/, now so comprehensive, was first given by the Regent +to a select number of his friends; according to them, because they would +be broken on the wheel for his sake, according to himself, because they +deserved to be so broken.--ED. + + +A day had now effected a change--a great change--in my fate. A new +court, a new theatre of action, a new walk of ambition, were suddenly +opened to me. Nothing could be more promising than my first employment; +nothing could be more pleasing than the anticipation of the change. "I +must force myself to be agreeable to-night," said I, as I dressed for +the Regent's supper. "I must leave behind me the remembrance of a /bon +mot/, or I shall be forgotten." + +And I was right. In that whirlpool, the capital of France, everything +sinks but wit: /that/ is always on the surface; and we must cling to it +with a firm grasp, if we would not go down to--"the deep oblivion." + + + +CHAPTER X. + +ROYAL EXERTIONS FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE. + +WHAT a singular scene was that private supper with the Regent of France +and his /roues/! The party consisted of twenty: nine gentlemen of the +court besides myself; four men of low rank and character, but admirable +buffoons; and six ladies, such ladies as the Duke loved best,--witty, +lively, sarcastic, and good for nothing. + +De Chatran accosted me. + +"Je suis ravi, mon cher Monsieur Devereux," said he, gravely, "to see +you in such excellent company: you must be a little surprised to find +yourself here!" + +"Not at all! every scene is worth one visit. He, my good Monsieur +Chatran, who goes to the House of Correction once is a philosopher: he +who goes twice is a rogue!" + +"Thank you, Count, what am I then? I have been /here/ twenty times." + +"Why, I will answer you with a story. The soul of a Jesuit one night, +when its body was asleep, wandered down to the lower regions; Satan +caught it, and was about to consign it to some appropriate place; the +soul tried hard to excuse itself: you know what a cunning thing a +Jesuit's soul is! 'Monsieur Satan,' said the spirit; 'no king should +punish a traveller as he would a native. Upon my honour, I am merely +here /en voyageur/.' 'Go then,' said Satan, and the soul flew back to +its body. But the Jesuit died, and came to the lower regions a second +time. He was brought before his Satanic majesty, and made the same +excuse. 'No, no,' cried Beelzebub; 'once here is to be only /le diable +voyageur/; twice here, and you are /le diable tout de bon/.'" + +"Ha! ha! ha!" said Chatran, laughing; "I then am the /diable tout de +bon/! 'tis well I /am no worse/; for we reckon the /roues/ a devilish +deal worse than the very worst of the devils,--but see, the Regent +approaches us." + +And, leaving a very pretty and gay-looking lady, the Regent sauntered +towards us. It was in walking, by the by, that he lost all the grace of +his mien. I don't know, however, that one wishes a great man to be +graceful, so long as he's familiar. + +"Aha, Monsieur Devereux!" said he, "we will give you some lessons in +cooking to-night; we shall show you how to provide for yourself in that +barbarous country which you are about to visit. /Tout voyageur doit +tout savoir!" + +"Avery admirable saying; which leads me to understand that Monseigneur +has been a great traveller," said I. + +"Ay, in all things and /all places/; eh, Count?" answered the Regent, +smiling; "but," here he lowered his voice a little, "I have never yet +learned how you came so opportunely to our assistance that night. /Dieu +me damne/! but it reminds me of the old story of the two sisters meeting +at a gallant's house. 'Oh, Sister, how came /you/ here?' said one, in +virtuous amazement. '/Ciel! ma soeur/!' cries the other; 'what brought +/you/?'"* + + +* The reader will remember a better version of this anecdote in one of +the most popular of the English comedies.--ED. + +"Monseigneur is pleasant," said I, laughing; "but a man does now and +then (though I own it is very seldom) do a good action, without having +previously resolved to commit a bad one!" + +"I like your parenthesis," cried the Regent; "it reminds me of my friend +St. Simon, who thinks so ill of mankind that I asked him one day whether +it was possible for him to despise anything more than men? 'Yes,' said +he, with a low bow, 'women!'" + +"His experience," said I, glancing at the female part of the /coterie/, +"was, I must own, likely to lead him to that opinion." + +"None of your sarcasms, Monsieur," cried the Regent. + +"'L'amusement est un des besoins de l'homme,' as I hear young Arouet +very pithily said the other day; and we owe gratitude to whomsoever it +may be that supplies that want. Now, you will agree with me that none +supply it like women therefore we owe them gratitude; therefore we must +not hear them abused. Logically proved, I think!" + +"Yes, indeed," said I, "it is a pleasure to find they have so able an +advocate; and that your Highness can so well apply to yourself /both/ +the assertions in the motto of the great master of fortification, +Vauban,--'I destroy, but I defend.'" + +"Enough," said the Duke, gayly, "now to /our fortifzeations/;" and he +moved away towards the women; I followed the royal example, and soon +found myself seated next to a pretty and very small woman. We entered +into conversation; and, when once begun, my fair companion took care +that it should not cease, without a miracle. By the goddess Facundia, +what volumes of words issued from that little mouth! and on all subjects +too! church, state, law, politics, play-houses, lampoons, lace, +liveries, kings, queens, /roturiers/, beggars, you would have thought, +had you heard her, so vast was her confusion of all things, that chaos +had come again. Our royal host did not escape her. "You never before +supped here /en famille/," said she,--"/mon Dieu/! it will do your heart +good to see how much the Regent will eat. He has such an appetite; you +know he never eats any dinner, in order to eat the more at supper. You +see that little dark woman he is talking to?--well, she is Madame de +Parabere: he calls her his little black crow; was there ever such a pet +name? Can you guess why he likes her? Nay, never take the trouble of +thinking: I will tell you at once; simply because she eats and drinks so +much. /Parole d'honneur/, 'tis true. The Regent says he likes sympathy +in all things! is it not droll? What a hideous old man is that Noce: +his face looks as if it had caught the rainbow. That impudent fellow +Dubois scolded him for squeezing so many louis out of the good Regent. +The yellow creature attempted to deny the fact. 'Nay,' cried Dubois, +'you cannot contradict me: I see their very ghosts in your face.'" + +While my companion was thus amusing herself, Noce, unconscious of her +panegyric on his personal attractions, joined us. + +"Ah! my dear Noce," said the lady, most affectionately, "how well you +are looking! I am delighted to see you." + +"I do not doubt it," said Noce "for I have to inform you that your +petition is granted; your husband will have the place." + +"Oh, how eternally grateful I am to you!" cried the lady, in an ecstasy; +"my poor, dear husband will be so rejoiced. I wish I had wings to fly +to him!" + +The gallant Noce uttered a compliment; I thought myself /de trop/, and +moved away. I again encountered Chatran. + +"I overheard your conversation with Madame la Marquise," said he, +smiling: "she has a bitter tongue; has she not?" + +"Very! how she abused the poor rogue Noce!" + +"Yes, and yet he is her lover!" + +"Her lover!--you astonish me: why, she seemed almost fond of her +husband; the tears came in her eyes when she spoke of him." + +"She is fond of him!" said Chatran, dryly. "She loves the ground he +treads on: it is precisely for that reason she favours Noce; she is +never happy but when she is procuring something /pour son cher bon +mari/. She goes to spend a week at Noce's country-house, and writes to +her husband, with a pen dipped in her blood, saying, 'My /heart/ is with +thee!'" + +"Certainly," said I, "France is the land of enigmas; the sphynx must +have been a /Parisienne/. And when Jupiter made man, he made two +natures utterly distinct from one another. One was /Human nature/, and +the other /French nature/!" + +At this moment supper was announced. We all adjourned to another +apartment, where to my great surprise I observed the cloth laid, the +sideboard loaded, the wines ready, but nothing to eat on the table! A +Madame de Savori, who was next me, noted my surprise. + +"What astonishes you, Monsieur?" + +"/Nothing/, Madame," said I; "that is, the absence of /all/ things." + +"What! you expected to see supper?" + +"I own my delusion: I did." + +"It is not cooked yet!" + +"Oh! well, I can wait!" + +"And officiate too!" said the lady; "in a word, this is one of the +Regent's cooking nights." + +Scarcely had I received this explanation, before there was a general +adjournment to an inner apartment, where all the necessary articles of +cooking were ready to our hand. + + + "The Regent led the way, + To light us to our prey," + + +and, with an irresistible gravity and importance of demeanour, entered +upon the duties of /chef/. In a very short time we were all engaged. +Nothing could exceed the zest with which every one seemed to enter into +the rites of the kitchen. You would have imagined they had been born +scullions, they handled the /batterie de cuisine/ so naturally. As for +me, I sought protection with Madame de Savori; and as, fortunately, she +was very deeply skilled in the science, she had occasion to employ me in +many minor avocations which her experience taught her would not be above +my comprehension. + +After we had spent a certain time in this dignified occupation, we +returned to the /salle a manger/. The attendants placed the dishes on +the table, and we all fell to. Whether out of self-love to their own +performances, or complaisance to the performances of others, I cannot +exactly say, but certain it is that all the guests acquitted themselves +/a merveille/: you would not have imagined the Regent the only one who +had gone without dinner to eat the more at supper. Even that devoted +wife to her /cher bon mari/, who had so severely dwelt upon the good +Regent's infirmity, occupied herself with an earnestness that would have +seemed almost wolf-like in a famished grenadier. + +Very slight indeed was the conversation till the supper was nearly over; +then the effects of the wine became more perceptible. The Regent was +the first person who evinced that he had eaten sufficiently to be able +to talk. Utterly dispensing with the slightest veil of reserve or +royalty, he leaned over the table, and poured forth a whole tide of +jests. The guests then began to think it was indecorous to stuff +themselves any more, and, as well as they were able, they followed their +host's example. But the most amusing personages were the buffoons: they +mimicked and joked, and lampooned and lied, as if by inspiration. As +the bottle circulated, and talk grew louder, the lampooning and the +lying were not, however, confined to the buffoons. On the contrary, the +best born and best bred people seemed to excel the most in those polite +arts. Every person who boasted a fair name or a decent reputation at +court was seized, condemned, and mangled in an instant. And how +elaborately the good folks slandered! It was no hasty word and flippant +repartee which did the business of the absent: there was a precision, a +polish, a labour of malice, which showed that each person had brought so +many reputations already cut up. The good-natured convivialists +differed from all other backbiters that I have ever met, in the same +manner as the toads of Surinam differ from all other toads; namely, +their venomous offspring were not half formed, misshapen tadpoles of +slander, but sprang at once into life,--well shaped and fully developed. + +"/Chantons/!" cried the Regent, whose eyes, winking and rolling, gave +token of his approaching state which equals the beggar to the king; "let +us have a song. Noce, lift up thy voice, and let us hear what the Tokay +has put into thy head!" + +Noce obeyed, and sang as men half drunk generally do sing. + +"/O Ciel/!" whispered the malicious Savori, "what a hideous screech: one +would think he had /turned his face into a voice!/" + +"/Bravissimo/!" cried the Duke, when his guest had ceased,--"what happy +people we are! Our doors are locked; not a soul can disturb us: we have +plenty of wine; we are going to get drunk; and we have all Paris to +abuse! what were you saying of Marshal Villars, my little Parabere?" + +And pounce went the little Parabere upon the unfortunate marshal. At +last slander had a respite: nonsense began its reign; the full +inspiration descended upon the orgies; the good people lost the use of +their faculties. Noise, clamour, uproar, broken bottles, falling +chairs, and (I grieve to say) their occupants falling too,--conclude the +scene of the royal supper. Let us drop the curtain. + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +AN INTERVIEW. + +I WENT a little out of my way, on departing from Paris, to visit Lord +Bolingbroke, who at that time was in the country. There are some men +whom one never really sees in capitals; one sees their masks, not +themselves: Bolingbroke was one. It was in retirement, however brief it +might be, that his true nature expanded itself; and, weary of being +admired, he allowed one to love, and, even in the wildest course of his +earlier excesses, to respect him. My visit was limited to a few hours, +but it made an indelible impression on me. + +"Once more," I said, as we walked to and fro in the garden of his +temporary retreat, "once more you are in your element; minister and +statesman of a prince, and chief supporter of the great plans which are +to restore him to his throne." + +A slight shade passed over Bolingbroke's fine brow. "To you, my +constant friend," said he, "to you,--who of all my friends alone +remained true in exile, and unshaken by misfortune,--to you I will +confide a secret that I would intrust to no other. I repent me already +of having espoused this cause. I did so while yet the disgrace of an +unmerited attainder tingled in my veins; while I was in the full tide of +those violent and warm passions which have so often misled me. Myself +attainted; the best beloved of my associates in danger; my party +deserted, and seemingly lost but for some bold measure such as then +offered,--these were all that I saw. I listened eagerly to +representations I now find untrue; and I accepted that rank and power +from one prince which were so rudely and gallingly torn from me by +another. I perceive that I have acted imprudently; but what is done, is +done: no private scruples, no private interest, shall make me waver in a +cause that I have once pledged myself to serve; and if I /can/ do aught +to make a weak cause powerful, and a divided party successful, I will; +but, Devereux, you are wrong,--this is /not/ my element. Ever in the +paths of strife, I have sighed for quiet; and, while most eager in +pursuit of ambition, I have languished the most fondly for content. The +littleness of intrigue disgusts me, and while /the branches/ of my power +soared the highest, and spread with the most luxuriance, it galled me to +think of the miry soil in which that power was condemned to strike /the +roots/,* upon which it stood, and by which it must be nourished." + + +* "Occasional Writer," No. 1. The Editor has, throughout this work, +usually, but not invariably, noted the passages in Bolingbroke's +writings, in which there occur similes, illustrations, or striking +thoughts, correspondent with those in the text. + + +I answered Bolingbroke as men are wont to answer statesmen who complain +of their calling,--half in compliment, half in contradiction; but he +replied with unusual seriousness, + +"Do not think I affect to speak thus: you know how eagerly I snatch any +respite from state, and how unmovedly I have borne the loss of +prosperity and of power. You are now about to enter those perilous +paths which I have trod for years. Your passions, like mine, are +strong! Beware, oh, beware, how you indulge them without restraint! +They are the fires which should warm: let them not be the fires which +destroy." + +Bolingbroke paused in evident and great agitation; he resumed: "I speak +strongly, for I speak in bitterness; I was thrown early into the world; +my whole education had been framed to make me ambitious; it succeeded in +its end. I was ambitious, and of all success,--success in pleasure, +success in fame. To wean me from the former, my friends persuaded me to +marry; they chose my wife for her connections and her fortune, and I +gained those advantages at the expense of what was better than +either,--happiness! You know how unfortunate has been that marriage, +and how young I was when it was contracted. Can you wonder that it +failed in the desired effect? Every one courted me; every temptation +assailed me: pleasure even became more alluring abroad, when at home I +had no longer the hope of peace; the indulgence of one passion begat the +indulgence of another; and, though my better sense /prompted/ all my +actions, it never /restrained/ them to a proper limit. Thus the +commencement of my actions has been generally prudent, and their +/continuation/ has deviated into rashness, or plunged into excess. +Devereux, I have paid the forfeit of my errors with a terrible interest: +when my motives have been pure, men have seen a fault in the conduct, +and calumniated the motives; when my conduct has been blameless, men +have remembered its former errors, and asserted that its present +goodness only arose from some sinister intention: thus I have been +termed crafty, when I was in reality rash, and that was called the +inconsistency of interest which in reality was the inconsistency of +passion.* I have reason, therefore, to warn you how you suffer your +subjects to become your tyrants; and believe me no experience is so deep +as that of one who has committed faults, and who has discovered their +causes." + + +* This I do believe to be the real (though perhaps it is a new) light in +which Lord Bolingbroke's life and character are to be viewed. The same +writers who tell us of his ungovernable passions, always prefix to his +name the epithets "designing, cunning, crafty," etc. Now I will venture +to tell these historians that, if they had studied human nature instead +of party pamphlets, they would have discovered that there are certain +incompatible qualities which can never be united in one character,--that +no man can have violent passions /to which he is in the habit of +yielding/, and be systematically crafty and designing. No man can be +all heat, and at the same time all coolness; but opposite causes not +unoften produce like effects. Passion usually makes men changeable, so +sometimes does craft: hence the mistake of the uninquiring or the +shallow; and hence while ------ writes, and ------ compiles, will the +characters of great men be transmitted to posterity misstated and +belied.--ED. + + +"Apply, my dear Lord, that experience to your future career. You +remember what the most sagacious of all pedants,* even though he was an +emperor, has so happily expressed,--'Repentance is a goddess, and the +preserver of those who have erred.'" + + +* The Emperor Julian. The original expression is paraphrased in the +text. + + +"May I /find/ her so!" answered Bolingbroke; "but as Montaigne or +Charron would say,* 'Every man is at once his own sharper and his own +bubble.' We make vast promises to ourselves; and a passion, an example, +sweeps even the remembrance of those promises from our minds. One is +too apt to believe men hypocrites, if their conduct squares not with +their sentiments; but perhaps no vice is more rare, for no task is more +difficult, than systematic hypocrisy; and the same susceptibility which +exposes men to be easily impressed by the allurements of vice renders +them at heart most struck by the loveliness of virtue. Thus, their +language and their hearts worship the divinity of the latter, while +their conduct strays the most erringly towards the false shrines over +which the former presides. Yes! I have never been blind to the +surpassing excellence of GOOD. The still, sweet whispers of virtue have +been heard, even when the storm has been loudest, and the bark of Reason +been driven the most impetuously over the waves: and, at this moment, I +am impressed with a foreboding that, sooner or later, the whispers will +not only be heard, but their suggestion be obeyed; and that, far from +courts and intrigue, from dissipation and ambition, I shall learn, in +retirement, the true principles of wisdom, and the real objects of +life." + + +* "Spirit of Patriotism." + + +Thus did Bolingbroke converse, and thus did I listen, till it was time +to depart. I left him impressed with a melancholy that was rather +soothing than distasteful. Whatever were the faults of that most +extraordinary and most dazzling genius, no one was ever more candid* in +confessing his errors. A systematically bad man either ridicules what +is good or disbelieves in its existence; but no man can be hardened in +vice whose heart is still sensible of the excellence and the glory of +virtue. + + +* It is impossible to read the letter to Sir W. Windham without being +remarkably struck with the dignified and yet open candour which it +displays. The same candour is equally visible in whatever relates /to +himself/, in all Lord Bolingbroke's writings and correspondence; and yet +candour is the last attribute usually conceded to him. But never was +there a writer whom people have talked of more and read less; and I do +not know a greater proof of this than the ever-repeated assertion +(echoed from a most incompetent authority) of the said letter to Sir W. +Windham being the finest of all Lord Bolingbroke's writings. It is an +article of great value to the history of the times; but, as to all the +higher graces and qualities of composition, it is one of the least +striking (and on the other hand it is one of the most verbally +incorrect) which he has bequeathed to us (the posthumous works always +excepted). I am not sure whether the most brilliant passages, the most +noble illustrations, the most profound reflections, and most useful +truths, to be found in all his writings, are not to be gathered from the +least popular of them,--such as that volume entitled "Political +Tracts."--ED. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEVEREUX, BY LYTTON, BOOK IV. *** + +********* This file should be named 7627.txt or 7627.zip ********* + +This eBook was produced by Dagny, + and David Widger, + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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