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/.