Parliament there, and laying my case before him, he directed me to make
a process in dower upon the estate, for making good my new fortune upon
matrimony, which accordingly I did; and, upon the whole, the manager
went back to England well satisfied that he had gotten the unaccepted
bill of exchange, which was for two thousand five hundred pounds, with
some other things, which together amounted to seventeen thousand livres;
and thus I got rid of him.
I was visited with great civility on this sad occasion of the loss of my
husband, as they thought him, by a great many ladies of quality. And the
Prince of ----, to whom it was reported he was carrying the jewels, sent
his gentleman with a very handsome compliment of condolence to me; and
his gentleman, whether with or without order, hinted as if his Highness
did intend to have visited me himself, but that some accident, which he
made a long story of, had prevented him.
By the concourse of ladies and others that thus came to visit me, I
began to be much known; and as I did not forget to set myself out with
all possible advantage, considering the dress of a widow, which in those
days was a most frightful thing; I say, as I did thus from my own
vanity, for I was not ignorant that I was very handsome; I say, on this
account I was soon made very public, and was known by the name of _La
belle veufeu de Poictou_, or the pretty widow of Poictou. As I was very
well pleased to see myself thus handsomely used in my affliction, it
soon dried up all my tears; and though I appeared as a widow, yet, as we
say in England, it was of a widow comforted. I took care to let the
ladies see that I knew how to receive them; that I was not at a loss how
to behave to any of them; and, in short, I began to be very popular
there. But I had an occasion afterwards which made me decline that kind
of management, as you shall hear presently.
About four days after I had received the compliments of condolence from
the Prince ----, the same gentleman he had sent before came to tell me
that his Highness was coming to give me a visit. I was indeed surprised
at that, and perfectly at a loss how to behave. However, as there was
no remedy, I prepared to receive him as well as I could. It was not many
minutes after but he was at the door, and came in, introduced by his own
gentleman, as above, and after by my woman Amy.
He treated me with abundance of civility, and condoled handsomely on the
loss of my husband, and likewise the manner of it. He told me he
understood he was coming to Versailles to himself, to show him some
jewels; that it was true that he had discoursed with him about jewels,
but could not imagine how any villains should hear of his coming at that
time with them; that he had not ordered him to attend with them at
Versailles, but told him that he would come to Paris by such a day, so
that he was no way accessory to the disaster. I told him gravely I knew
very well that all his Highness had said of that part was true; that
these villains knew his profession, and knew, no doubt, that he always
carried a casket of jewels about him, and that he always wore a diamond
ring on his finger worth a hundred pistoles, which report had magnified
to five hundred; and that, if he had been going to any other place, it
would have been the same thing. After this his Highness rose up to go,
and told me he had resolved, however, to make me some reparation; and
with these words put a silk purse into my hand with a hundred pistoles,
and told me he would make me a farther compliment of a small pension,
which his gentleman would inform me of.
You may be sure I behaved with a due sense of so much goodness, and
offered to kneel to kiss his hand; but he took me up and saluted me, and
sat down again (though before he made as if he was going away), making
me sit down by him.
He then began to talk with me more familiarly; told me he hoped I was
not left in bad circumstances; that Mr. ---- was reputed to be very rich,
and that he had gained lately great sums by some jewels, and he hoped,
he said, that I had still a fortune agreeable to the condition I had
lived in before.
I replied, with some tears, which, I confess, were a little forced, that
I believed, if Mr. ---- had lived, we should have been out of danger of
want, but that it was impossible to estimate the loss which I had
sustained, besides that of the life of my husband; that, by the opinion
of those that knew something of his affairs, and of what value the
jewels were which he intended to have shown to his Highness, he could
not have less about him than the value of a hundred thousand livres;
that it was a fatal blow to me, and to his whole family, especially that
they should be lost in such a manner.
His Highness returned, with an air of concern, that he was very sorry
for it; but he hoped, if I settled in Paris, I might find ways to
restore my fortune; at the same time he complimented me upon my being
very handsome, as he was pleased to call it, and that I could not fail
of admirers. I stood up and humbly thanked his Highness, but told him I
had no expectations of that kind; that I thought I should be obliged to
go over to England, to look after my husband's effects there, which, I
was told, were considerable, but that I did not know what justice a poor
stranger would get among them; and as for Paris, my fortune being so
impaired, I saw nothing before me but to go back to Poictou to my
friends, where some of my relations, I hoped, might do something for me,
and added that one of my brothers was an abbot at ----, near Poictiers.
He stood up, and taking me by the hand, led me to a large looking-glass,
which made up the pier in the front of the parlour. "Look there, madam,"
said he; "is it fit that that face" (pointing to my figure in the glass)
"should go back to Poictou? No, madam," says he; "stay and make some
gentleman of quality happy, that may, in return, make you forget all
your sorrows;" and with that he took me in his arms, and kissing me
twice, told me he would see me again, but with less ceremony.
Some little time after this, but the same day, his gentleman came to me
again, and with great ceremony and respect, delivered me a black box
tied with a scarlet riband and sealed with a noble coat-of-arms, which,
I suppose, was the prince's.
There was in it a grant from his Highness, or an assignment--I know not
which to call it--with a warrant to his banker to pay me two thousand
livres a year during my stay in Paris, as the widow of Monsieur ----,
the jeweller, mentioning the horrid murder of my late husband as the
occasion of it, as above.
I received it with great submission, and expressions of being infinitely
obliged to his master, and of my showing myself on all occasions his
Highness's most obedient servant; and after giving my most humble duty
to his Highness, with the utmost acknowledgments of the obligation, &c.,
I went to a little cabinet, and taking out some money, which made a
little sound in taking it out, offered to give him five pistoles.
He drew back, but with the greatest respect, and told me he humbly
thanked me, but that he durst not take a farthing; that his Highness
would take it so ill of him, he was sure he would never see his face
more; but that he would not fail to acquaint his Highness what respect I
had offered; and added, "I assure you, madam, you are more in the good
graces of my master, the Prince of ----, than you are aware of; and I
believe you will hear more of him."
Now I began to understand him, and resolved, if his Highness did come
again, he should see me under no disadvantages, if I could help it. I
told him, if his Highness did me the honour to see me again, I hoped he
would not let me be so surprised as I was before; that I would be glad
to have some little notice of it, and would be obliged to him if he
would procure it me. He told me he was very sure that when his Highness
intended to visit me he should be sent before to give me notice of it,
and that he would give me as much warning of it as possible.
He came several times after this on the same errand, that is, about the
settlement, the grant requiring several things yet to be done for making
it payable without going every time to the prince again for a fresh
warrant. The particulars of this part I did not understand; but as soon
as it was finished, which was above two months, the gentleman came one
afternoon, and said his Highness designed to visit me in the evening,
but desired to be admitted without ceremony.
I prepared not my rooms only, but myself; and when he came in there was
nobody appeared in the house but his gentleman and my maid Amy; and of
her I bid the gentleman acquaint his Highness that she was an
Englishwoman, that she did not understand a word of French, and that she
was one also that might be trusted.
When he came into my room, I fell down at his feet before he could come
to salute me, and with words that I had prepared, full of duty and
respect, thanked him for his bounty and goodness to a poor, desolate
woman, oppressed under the weight of so terrible a disaster; and refused
to rise till he would allow me the honour to kiss his hand.
"_Levez vous donc_," says the prince, taking me in his arms; "I design
more favours for you than this trifle;" and going on, he added, "You
shall for the future find a friend where you did not look for it, and I
resolve to let you see how kind I can be to one who is to me the most
agreeable creature on earth."
I was dressed in a kind of half mourning, had turned off my weeds, and
my head, though I had yet no ribands or lace, was so dressed as failed
not to set me out with advantage enough, for I began to understand his
meaning; and the prince professed I was the most beautiful creature on
earth. "And where have I lived," says he, "and how ill have I been
served, that I should never till now be showed the finest woman in
France!"
This was the way in all the world the most likely to break in upon my
virtue, if I had been mistress of any; for I was now become the vainest
creature upon earth, and particularly of my beauty, which as other
people admired, so I became every day more foolishly in love with myself
than before.
He said some very kind things to me after this, and sat down with me for
an hour or more, when, getting up and calling his gentleman by his name,
he threw open the door: "_Au boire_," says he; upon which his gentleman
immediately brought up a little table covered with a fine damask cloth,
the table no bigger than he could bring in his two hands, but upon it
was set two decanters, one of champagne and the other of water, six
silver plates, and a service of fine sweetmeats in fine china dishes, on
a set of rings standing up about twenty inches high, one above another.
Below was three roasted partridges and a quail. As soon as his gentleman
had set it all down, he ordered him to withdraw. "Now," says the prince,
"I intend to sup with you."
When he sent away his gentleman, I stood up and offered to wait on his
Highness while he ate; but he positively refused, and told me, "No;
to-morrow you shall be the widow of Monsieur ----, the jeweller, but
to-night you shall be my mistress; therefore sit here," says he, "and
eat with me, or I will get up and serve."
I would then have called up my woman Amy, but I thought that would not
be proper neither; so I made my excuse, that since his Highness would
not let his own servant wait, I would not presume to let my woman come
up; but if he would please to let me wait, it would be my honour to fill
his Highness's wine. But, as before, he would by no means allow me;
so we sat and ate together.
[Illustration: THE VISIT OF THE PRINCE
_And refused to rise till he would allow me the honour to kiss his
hand_]
"Now, madam," says the prince, "give me leave to lay aside my character;
let us talk together with the freedom of equals. My quality sets me at a
distance from you, and makes you ceremonious. Your beauty exalts you to
more than an equality. I must, then, treat you as lovers do their
mistresses, but I cannot speak the language; it is enough to tell you
how agreeable you are to me, how I am surprised at your beauty, and
resolve to make you happy, and to be happy with you."
I knew not what to say to him a good while, but blushed, and looking up
towards him, said I was already made happy in the favour of a person of
such rank, and had nothing to ask of his Highness but that he would
believe me infinitely obliged.
After he had eaten, he poured the sweetmeats into my lap; and the wine
being out, he called his gentleman again to take away the table, who, at
first, only took the cloth and the remains of what was to eat away; and,
laying another cloth, set the table on one side of the room with a noble
service of plate upon it, worth at least two hundred pistoles. Then,
having set the two decanters again upon the table, filled as before, he
withdrew; for I found the fellow understood his business very well, and
his lord's business too.
About half-an-hour after, the prince told me that I offered to wait a
little before, that if I would now take the trouble he would give me
leave to give him some wine; so I went to the table, filled a glass of
wine, and brought it to him on a fine salver, which the glasses stood
on, and brought the bottle or decanter for water in my other hand, to
mix as he thought fit.
He smiled, and bid me look on that salver, which I did, and admired it
much, for it was a very fine one indeed. "You may see," says he, "I
resolve to have more of your company, for my servant shall leave you
that plate for my use." I told him I believed his Highness would not
take it ill that I was not furnished fit to entertain a person of his
rank, and that I would take great care of it, and value myself
infinitely upon the honour of his Highness's visit.
It now began to grow late, and he began to take notice of it. "But,"
says he, "I cannot leave you; have you not a spare lodging for one
night?" I told him I had but a homely lodging to entertain such a guest.
He said something exceeding kind on that head, but not fit to repeat,
adding that my company would make him amends.
About midnight he sent his gentleman of an errand, after telling him
aloud that he intended to stay here all night. In a little time his
gentleman brought him a nightgown, slippers, two caps, a neckcloth, and
shirt, which he gave me to carry into his chamber, and sent his man
home; and then, turning to me, said I should do him the honour to be his
chamberlain of the household, and his dresser also. I smiled, and told
him I would do myself the honour to wait on him upon all occasions.
About one in the morning, while his gentleman was yet with him, I begged
leave to withdraw, supposing he would go to bed; but he took the hint,
and said, "I'm not going to bed yet; pray let me see you again."
I took this time to undress me, and to come in a new dress, which was,
in a manner, _une dishabille_, but so fine, and all about me so clean
and so agreeable, that he seemed surprised. "I thought," says he, "you
could not have dressed to more advantage than you had done before; but
now," says he, "you charm me a thousand times more, if that be
possible."
"It is only a loose habit, my lord," said I, "that I may the better wait
on your Highness." He pulls me to him. "You are perfectly obliging,"
says he; and, sitting on the bedside, says he, "Now you shall be a
princess, and know what it is to oblige the gratefullest man alive;" and
with that he took me in his arms.... I can go no farther in the
particulars of what passed at that time, but it ended in this, that, in
short, I lay with him all night.
I have given you the whole detail of this story to lay it down as a
black scheme of the way how unhappy women are ruined by great men; for,
though poverty and want is an irresistible temptation to the poor,
vanity and great things are as irresistible to others. To be courted by
a prince, and by a prince who was first a benefactor, then an admirer;
to be called handsome, the finest woman in France, and to be treated as
a woman fit for the bed of a prince--these are things a woman must have
no vanity in her, nay, no corruption in her, that is not overcome by it;
and my case was such that, as before, I had enough of both.
I had now no poverty attending me; on the contrary, I was mistress of
ten thousand pounds before the prince did anything for me. Had I been
mistress of my resolution, had I been less obliging, and rejected the
first attack, all had been safe; but my virtue was lost before, and the
devil, who had found the way to break in upon me by one temptation,
easily mastered me now by another; and I gave myself up to a person who,
though a man of high dignity, was yet the most tempting and obliging
that ever I met with in my life.
I had the same particular to insist upon here with the prince that I had
with my gentleman before. I hesitated much at consenting at first
asking, but the prince told me princes did not court like other men;
that they brought more powerful arguments; and he very prettily added
that they were sooner repulsed than other men, and ought to be sooner
complied with; intimating, though very genteely, that after a woman had
positively refused him once, he could not, like other men, wait with
importunities and stratagems, and laying long sieges; but as such men as
he stormed warmly, so, if repulsed, they made no second attacks; and,
indeed, it was but reasonable; for as it was below their rank to be long
battering a woman's constancy, so they ran greater hazards in being
exposed in their amours than other men did.
I took this for a satisfactory answer, and told his Highness that I had
the same thoughts in respect to the manner of his attacks; for that his
person and his arguments were irresistible; that a person of his rank
and a munificence so unbounded could not be withstood; that no virtue
was proof against him, except such as was able, too, to suffer
martyrdom; that I thought it impossible I could be overcome, but that
now I found it was impossible I should not be overcome; that so much
goodness, joined with so much greatness, would have conquered a saint;
and that I confessed he had the victory over me, by a merit infinitely
superior to the conquest he had made.
He made me a most obliging answer; told me abundance of fine things,
which still flattered my vanity, till at last I began to have pride
enough to believe him, and fancied myself a fit mistress for a prince.
As I had thus given the prince the last favour, and he had all the
freedom with me that it was possible for me to grant, so he gave me
leave to use as much freedom with him another way, and that was to have
everything of him I thought fit to command; and yet I did not ask of him
with an air of avarice, as if I was greedily making a penny of him, but
I managed him with such art that he generally anticipated my demands. He
only requested of me that I would not think of taking another house, as
I had intimated to his Highness that I intended, not thinking it good
enough to receive his visits in; but he said my house was the most
convenient that could possibly be found in all Paris for an amour,
especially for him, having a way out into three streets, and not
overlooked by any neighbours, so that he could pass and repass without
observation; for one of the back-ways opened into a narrow dark alley,
which alley was a thoroughfare or passage out of one street into
another; and any person that went in or out by the door had no more to
do but to see that there was nobody following him in the alley before he
went in at the door. This request, I knew, was reasonable, and therefore
I assured him I would not change my dwelling, seeing his Highness did
not think it too mean for me to receive him in.
He also desired me that I would not take any more servants or set up any
equipage, at least for the present; for that it would then be
immediately concluded I had been left very rich, and then I should be
thronged with the impertinence of admirers, who would be attracted by
the money, as well as by the beauty of a young widow, and he should be
frequently interrupted in his visits; or that the world would conclude I
was maintained by somebody, and would be indefatigable to find out the
person; so that he should have spies peeping at him every time he went
out or in, which it would be impossible to disappoint; and that he
should presently have it talked over all the toilets in Paris that the
Prince de ---- had got the jeweller's widow for a mistress.
This was too just to oppose, and I made no scruple to tell his Highness
that, since he had stooped so low as to make me his own, he ought to
have all the satisfaction in the world that I was all his own; that I
would take all the measures he should please to direct me to avoid the
impertinent attacks of others; and that, if he thought fit, I would be
wholly within doors, and have it given out that I was obliged to go to
England to solicit my affairs there, after my husband's misfortune, and
that I was not expected there again for at least a year or two. This he
liked very well; only he said that he would by no means have me
confined; that it would injure my health, and that I should then take a
country-house in some village, a good way off of the city, where it
should not be known who I was, and that he should be there sometimes to
divert me.
I made no scruple of the confinement, and told his Highness no place
could be a confinement where I had such a visitor, and so I put off the
country-house, which would have been to remove myself farther from him
and have less of his company; so I made the house be, as it were, shut
up. Amy, indeed, appeared, and when any of the neighbours and servants
inquired, she answered, in broken French, that I was gone to England to
look after my affairs, which presently went current through the streets
about us. For you are to note that the people of Paris, especially the
women, are the most busy and impertinent inquirers into the conduct of
their neighbours, especially that of a single woman, that are in the
world, though there are no greater intriguers in the universe than
themselves; and perhaps that may be the reason of it, for it is an old
but a sure rule, that
"When deep intrigues are close and shy,
The guilty are the first that spy."
Thus his Highness had the most easy, and yet the most undiscoverable,
access to me imaginable, and he seldom failed to come two or three
nights in a week, and sometimes stayed two or three nights together.
Once he told me he was resolved I should be weary of his company, and
that he would learn to know what it was to be a prisoner; so he gave out
among his servants that he was gone to ----, where he often went
a-hunting, and that he should not return under a fortnight; and that
fortnight he stayed wholly with me, and never went out of my doors.
Never woman in such a station lived a fortnight in so complete a fulness
of human delight; for to have the entire possession of one of the most
accomplished princes in the world, and of the politest, best-bred man;
to converse with him all day, and, as he professed, charm him all night,
what could be more inexpressibly pleasing, and especially to a woman of
a vast deal of pride, as I was?
To finish the felicity of this part, I must not forget that the devil
had played a new game with me, and prevailed with me to satisfy myself
with this amour, as a lawful thing; that a prince of such grandeur and
majesty, so infinitely superior to me, and one who had made such an
introduction by an unparalleled bounty, I could not resist; and,
therefore, that it was very lawful for me to do it, being at that time
perfectly single, and unengaged to any other man, as I was, most
certainly, by the unaccountable absence of my first husband, and the
murder of my gentleman who went for my second.
It cannot be doubted but that I was the easier to persuade myself of the
truth of such a doctrine as this when it was so much for my ease and for
the repose of my mind to have it be so:--
"In things we wish, 'tis easy to deceive;
What we would have, we willingly believe."