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.