put this into my head bade me go to any of the Romish clergy, and, under
the pretence of confession, state the case exactly, and I should see
they would either resolve it to be no sin at all or absolve me upon the
easiest penance. This I had a strong inclination to try, but I know not
what scruple put me off of it, for I could never bring myself to like
having to do with those priests. And though it was strange that I, who
had thus prostituted my chastity and given up all sense of virtue in two
such particular cases, living a life of open adultery, should scruple
anything, yet so it was. I argued with myself that I could not be a
cheat in anything that was esteemed sacred; that I could not be of one
opinion, and then pretend myself to be of another; nor could I go to
confession, who knew nothing of the manner of it, and should betray
myself to the priest to be a Huguenot, and then might come into
trouble; but, in short, though I was a whore, yet I was a Protestant
whore, and could not act as if I was popish, upon any account
whatsoever.
But, I say, I satisfied myself with the surprising occasion, that as it
was all irresistible, so it was all lawful; for that Heaven would not
suffer us to be punished for that which it was not possible for us to
avoid; and with these absurdities I kept conscience from giving me any
considerable disturbance in all this matter; and I was as perfectly easy
as to the lawfulness of it as if I had been married to the prince and
had had no other husband; so possible is it for us to roll ourselves up
in wickedness, till we grow invulnerable by conscience; and that
sentinel, once dozed, sleeps fast, not to be awakened while the tide of
pleasure continues to flow, or till something dark and dreadful brings
us to ourselves again.
I have, I confess, wondered at the stupidity that my intellectual part
was under all that while; what lethargic fumes dozed the soul; and how
was it possible that I, who in the case before, where the temptation was
many ways more forcible and the arguments stronger and more
irresistible, was yet under a continued inquietude on account of the
wicked life I led, could now live in the most profound tranquillity and
with an uninterrupted peace, nay, even rising up to satisfaction and
joy, and yet in a more palpable state of adultery than before; for
before, my gentleman, who called me wife, had the pretence of his wife
being parted from him, refusing to do the duty of her office as a wife
to him. As for me, my circumstances were the same; but as for the
prince, as he had a fine and extraordinary lady, or princess, of his
own, so he had had two or three mistresses more besides me, and made no
scruple of it at all.
However, I say, as to my own part, I enjoyed myself in perfect
tranquillity; and as the prince was the only deity I worshipped, so I
was really his idol; and however it was with his princess, I assure you
his other mistresses found a sensible difference, and though they could
never find me out, yet I had good intelligence that they guessed very
well that their lord had got some new favourite that robbed them of his
company, and, perhaps, of some of his usual bounty too. And now I must
mention the sacrifices he made to his idol, and they were not a few, I
assure you.
As he loved like a prince, so he rewarded like a prince; for though he
declined my making a figure, as above, he let me see that he was above
doing it for the saving the expense of it, and so he told me, and that
he would make it up in other things. First of all, he sent me a toilet,
with all the appurtenances of silver, even so much as the frame of the
table; and then for the house, he gave me the table, or sideboard of
plate, I mentioned above, with all things belonging to it of massy
silver; so that, in short, I could not for my life study to ask him for
anything of plate which I had not.
He could, then, accommodate me in nothing more but jewels and clothes,
or money for clothes. He sent his gentleman to the mercer's, and bought
me a suit, or whole piece, of the finest brocaded silk, figured with
gold, and another with silver, and another of crimson; so that I had
three suits of clothes, such as the Queen of France would not have
disdained to have worn at that time. Yet I went out nowhere; but as
those were for me to put on when I went out of mourning, I dressed
myself in them, one after another, always when his Highness came to see
me.
I had no less than five several morning dresses besides these, so that I
need never be seen twice in the same dress; to these he added several
parcels of fine linen and of lace, so much that I had no room to ask for
more, or, indeed, for so much.
I took the liberty once, in our freedoms, to tell him he was too
bountiful, and that I was too chargeable to him for a mistress, and that
I would be his faithful servant at less expense to him; and that he not
only left me no room to ask him for anything, but that he supplied me
with such a profusion of good things that I could scarce wear them, or
use them, unless I kept a great equipage, which, he knew, was no way
convenient for him or for me. He smiled, and took me in his arms, and
told me he was resolved, while I was his, I should never be able to ask
him for anything, but that he would be daily asking new favours of me.
After we were up (for this conference was in bed), he desired I would
dress me in the best suit of clothes I had. It was a day or two after
the three suits were made and brought home. I told him, if he pleased, I
would rather dress me in that suit which I knew he liked best. He asked
me how I could know which he would like best before he had seen them. I
told him I would presume for once to guess at his fancy by my own; so I
went away and dressed me in the second suit, brocaded with silver, and
returned in full dress, with a suit of lace upon my head, which would
have been worth in England two hundred pounds sterling; and I was every
way set out as well as Amy could dress me, who was a very genteel
dresser too. In this figure I came to him, out of my dressing-room,
which opened with folding-doors into his bedchamber.
He sat as one astonished a good while, looking at me, without speaking a
word, till I came quite up to him, kneeled on one knee to him, and
almost, whether he would or no, kissed his hand. He took me up, and
stood up himself, but was surprised when, taking me in his arms, he
perceived tears to run down my cheeks. "My dear," says he aloud, "what
mean these tears?" "My lord," said I, after some little check, for I
could not speak presently, "I beseech you to believe me, they are not
tears of sorrow, but tears of joy. It is impossible for me to see myself
snatched from the misery I was fallen into, and at once to be in the
arms of a prince of such goodness, such immense bounty, and be treated
in such a manner; it is not possible, my lord," said I, "to contain the
satisfaction of it; and it will break out in an excess in some measure
proportioned to your immense bounty, and to the affection which your
Highness treats me with, who am so infinitely below you."
It would look a little too much like a romance here to repeat all the
kind things he said to me on that occasion, but I can't omit one
passage. As he saw the tears drop down my cheek, he pulls out a fine
cambric handkerchief, and was going to wipe the tears off, but checked
his hand, as if he was afraid to deface something; I say, he checked his
hand, and tossed the handkerchief to me to do it myself. I took the hint
immediately, and with a kind of pleasant disdain, "How, my lord," said
I, "have you kissed me so often, and don't you know whether I am painted
or not? Pray let your Highness satisfy yourself that you have no cheats
put upon you; for once let me be vain enough to say I have not deceived
you with false colours." With this I put a handkerchief into his hand,
and taking his hand into mine, I made him wipe my face so hard that he
was unwilling to do it, for fear of hurting me.
He appeared surprised more than ever, and swore, which was the first
time that I had heard him swear from my first knowing him, that he could
not have believed there was any such skin without paint in the world.
"Well, my lord," said I, "your Highness shall have a further
demonstration than this, as to that which you are pleased to accept for
beauty, that it is the mere work of nature;" and with that I stepped to
the door and rung a little bell for my woman Amy, and bade her bring me
a cup full of hot water, which she did; and when it was come, I desired
his Highness to feel if it was warm, which he did, and I immediately
washed my face all over with it before him. This was, indeed, more than
satisfaction, that is to say, than believing, for it was an undeniable
demonstration, and he kissed my cheeks and breasts a thousand times,
with expressions of the greatest surprise imaginable.
Nor was I a very indifferent figure as to shape; though I had had two
children by my gentleman, and six by my true husband, I say I was no
despisable shape; and my prince (I must be allowed the vanity to call
him so) was taking his view of me as I walked from one end of the room
to the other. At last he leads me to the darkest part of the room, and
standing behind me, bade me hold up my head, when, putting both his
hands round my neck, as if he was spanning my neck to see how small it
was, for it was long and small, he held my neck so long and so hard in
his hand that I complained he hurt me a little. What he did it for I
knew not, nor had I the least suspicion but that he was spanning my
neck; but when I said he hurt me, he seemed to let go, and in half a
minute more led me to a pier-glass, and behold I saw my neck clasped
with a fine necklace of diamonds; whereas I felt no more what he was
doing than if he had really done nothing at all, nor did I suspect it in
the least. If I had an ounce of blood in me that did not fly up into my
face, neck, and breasts, it must be from some interruption in the
vessels. I was all on fire with the sight, and began to wonder what it
was that was coming to me.
However, to let him see that I was not unqualified to receive benefits,
I turned about: "My lord," says I, "your Highness is resolved to
conquer, by your bounty, the very gratitude of your servants; you will
leave no room for anything but thanks, and make those thanks useless
too, by their bearing no proportion to the occasion."
"I love, child," says he, "to see everything suitable. A fine gown and
petticoat, a fine laced head, a fine face and neck, and no necklace,
would not have made the object perfect. But why that blush, my dear?"
says the prince. "My lord," said I, "all your gifts call for blushes,
but, above all, I blush to receive what I am so ill able to merit, and
may become so ill also."
Thus far I am a standing mark of the weakness of great men in their
vice, that value not squandering away immense wealth upon the most
worthless creatures; or, to sum it up in a word, they raise the value of
the object which they pretend to pitch upon by their fancy; I say, raise
the value of it at their own expense; give vast presents for a ruinous
favour, which is so far from being equal to the price that nothing will
at last prove more absurd than the cost men are at to purchase their own
destruction.
I could not, in the height of all this fine doings--I say, I could not
be without some just reflection, though conscience was, as I said, dumb,
as to any disturbance it gave me in my wickedness. My vanity was fed up
to such a height that I had no room to give way to such reflections. But
I could not but sometimes look back with astonishment at the folly of
men of quality, who, immense in their bounty as in their wealth, give to
a profusion and without bounds to the most scandalous of our sex, for
granting them the liberty of abusing themselves and ruining both.
I, that knew what this carcase of mine had been but a few years before;
how overwhelmed with grief, drowned in tears, frightened with the
prospect of beggary, and surrounded with rags and fatherless children;
that was pawning and selling the rags that covered me for a dinner, and
sat on the ground despairing of help and expecting to be starved, till
my children were snatched from me to be kept by the parish; I, that was
after this a whore for bread, and, abandoning conscience and virtue,
lived with another woman's husband; I, that was despised by all my
relations, and my husband's too; I, that was left so entirely desolate,
friendless, and helpless that I knew not how to get the least help to
keep me from starving,--that I should be caressed by a prince, for the
honour of having the scandalous use of my prostituted body, common
before to his inferiors, and perhaps would not have denied one of his
footmen but a little while before, if I could have got my bread by it.
I say, I could not but reflect upon the brutality and blindness of
mankind; that because nature had given me a good skin and some agreeable
features, should suffer that beauty to be such a bait to appetite as to
do such sordid, unaccountable things to obtain the possession of it.
It is for this reason that I have so largely set down the particulars of
the caresses I was treated with by the jeweller, and also by this
prince; not to make the story an incentive to the vice, which I am now
such a sorrowful penitent for being guilty of (God forbid any should
make so vile a use of so good a design), but to draw the just picture of
a man enslaved to the rage of his vicious appetite; how he defaces the
image of God in his soul, dethrones his reason, causes conscience to
abdicate the possession, and exalts sense into the vacant throne; how he
deposes the man and exalts the brute.
Oh! could we hear the reproaches this great man afterwards loaded
himself with when he grew weary of this admired creature, and became
sick of his vice, how profitable would the report of them be to the
reader of this story! But had he himself also known the dirty history of
my actings upon the stage of life that little time I had been in the
world, how much more severe would those reproaches have been upon
himself! But I shall come to this again.
I lived in this gay sort of retirement almost three years, in which time
no amour of such a kind, sure, was ever carried up so high. The prince
knew no bounds to his munificence; he could give me nothing, either for
my wearing, or using, or eating, or drinking, more than he had done from
the beginning.
His presents were after that in gold, and very frequent and large,
often a hundred pistoles, never less than fifty at a time; and I must do
myself the justice that I seemed rather backward to receive than craving
and encroaching. Not that I had not an avaricious temper, nor was it
that I did not foresee that this was my harvest, in which I was to
gather up, and that it would not last long; but it was that really his
bounty always anticipated my expectations, and even my wishes; and he
gave me money so fast that he rather poured it in upon me than left me
room to ask it; so that, before I could spend fifty pistoles, I had
always a hundred to make it up.
After I had been near a year and a half in his arms as above, or
thereabouts, I proved with child. I did not take any notice of it to him
till I was satisfied that I was not deceived; when one morning early,
when we were in bed together, I said to him, "My lord, I doubt your
Highness never gives yourself leave to think what the case should be if
I should have the honour to be with child by you." "Why, my dear," says
he, "we are able to keep it if such a thing should happen; I hope you
are not concerned about that." "No, my lord," said I; "I should think
myself very happy if I could bring your Highness a son; I should hope to
see him a lieutenant-general of the king's armies by the interest of his
father, and by his own merit." "Assure yourself, child," says he, "if
it should be so, I will not refuse owning him for my son, though it be,
as they call it, a natural son; and shall never slight or neglect him,
for the sake of his mother." Then he began to importune me to know if it
was so, but I positively denied it so long, till at last I was able to
give him the satisfaction of knowing it himself by the motion of the
child within me.
He professed himself overjoyed at the discovery, but told me that now it
was absolutely necessary for me to quit the confinement which, he said,
I had suffered for his sake, and to take a house somewhere in the
country, in order for health as well as for privacy, against my
lying-in. This was quite out of my way; but the prince, who was a man of
pleasure, had, it seems, several retreats of this kind, which he had
made use of, I suppose, upon like occasions. And so, leaving it, as it
were, to his gentleman, he provided a very convenient house, about four
miles south of Paris, at the village of ----, where I had very agreeable
lodgings, good gardens, and all things very easy to my content. But one
thing did not please me at all, viz., that an old woman was provided,
and put into the house to furnish everything necessary to my lying-in,
and to assist at my travail.
I did not like this old woman at all; she looked so like a spy upon me,
or (as sometimes I was frighted to imagine) like one set privately to
despatch me out of the world, as might best suit with the circumstance
of my lying-in. And when his Highness came the next time to see me,
which was not many days, I expostulated a little on the subject of the
old woman; and by the management of my tongue, as well as by the
strength of reasoning, I convinced him that it would not be at all
convenient; that it would be the greater risk on his side; and at first
or last it would certainly expose him and me also. I assured him that my
servant, being an Englishwoman, never knew to that hour who his Highness
was; that I always called him the Count de Clerac, and that she knew
nothing else of him, nor ever should; that if he would give me leave to
choose proper persons for my use, it should be so ordered that not one
of them should know who he was, or perhaps ever see his face; and that,
for the reality of the child that should be born, his Highness, who had
alone been at the first of it, should, if he pleased, be present in the
room all the time, so that he would need no witnesses on that account.
This discourse fully satisfied him, so that he ordered his gentleman to
dismiss the old woman the same day; and without any difficulty I sent my
maid Amy to Calais, and thence to Dover, where she got an English
midwife and an English nurse to come over on purpose to attend an
English lady of quality, as they styled me, for four months certain.
The midwife, Amy had agreed to pay a hundred guineas to, and bear her
charges to Paris, and back again to Dover. The poor woman that was to be
my nurse had twenty pounds, and the same terms for charges as the other.
I was very easy when Amy returned, and the more because she brought with
the midwife a good motherly sort of woman, who was to be her assistant,
and would be very helpful on occasion; and bespoke a man midwife at
Paris too, if there should be any necessity for his help. Having thus
made provision for everything, the Count, for so we all called him in
public, came as often to see me as I could expect, and continued
exceeding kind, as he had always been. One day, conversing together upon
the subject of my being with child, I told him how all things were in
order, but that I had a strange apprehension that I should die with that
child. He smiled. "So all the ladies say, my dear," says he, "when they
are with child." "Well, however, my lord," said I, "it is but just that
care should be taken that what you have bestowed in your excess of
bounty upon me should not be lost;" and upon this I pulled a paper out
of my bosom, folded up, but not sealed, and I read it to him, wherein I
had left order that all the plate and jewels and fine furniture which
his Highness had given me should be restored to him by my women, and the
keys be immediately delivered to his gentleman in case of disaster.
Then I recommended my woman, Amy, to his favour for a hundred pistoles,
on condition she gave the keys up as above to his gentleman, and his
gentleman's receipt for them. When he saw this, "My dear child," said
he, and took me in his arms, "what! have you been making your will and
disposing of your effects? Pray, who do you make your universal heir?"
"So far as to do justice to your Highness, in case of mortality, I have,
my lord," said I, "and who should I dispose the valuable things to,
which I have had from your hand as pledges of your favour and
testimonies of your bounty, but to the giver of them? If the child
should live, your Highness will, I don't question, act like yourself in
that part, and I shall have the utmost satisfaction that it will be well
used by your direction."
I could see he took this very well. "I have forsaken all the ladies in
Paris," says he, "for you, and I have lived every day since I knew you
to see that you know how to merit all that a man of honour can do for
you. Be easy, child; I hope you shall not die, and all you have is your
own, to do what with it you please."
I was then within about two months of my time, and that soon wore off.
When I found my time was come, it fell out very happily that he was in
the house, and I entreated he would continue a few hours in the house,
which he agreed to. They called his Highness to come into the room, if
he pleased, as I had offered and as I desired him; and I sent word I
would make as few cries as possible to prevent disturbing him. He came
into the room once, and called to me to be of good courage, it would
soon be over, and then he withdrew again; and in about half-an-hour more
Amy carried him the news that I was delivered, and had brought him a
charming boy. He gave her ten pistoles for her news, stayed till they
had adjusted things about me, and then came into the room again, cheered
me and spoke kindly to me, and looked on the child, then withdrew, and
came again the next day to visit me.
Since this, and when I have looked back upon these things with eyes
unpossessed with crime, when the wicked part has appeared in its clearer
light and I have seen it in its own natural colours, when no more
blinded with the glittering appearances which at that time deluded me,
and as in like cases, if I may guess at others by myself, too much
possessed the mind; I say, since this I have often wondered with what
pleasure or satisfaction the prince could look upon the poor innocent
infant, which, though his own, and that he might that way have some
attachment in his affections to it, yet must always afterwards be a
remembrancer to him of his most early crime, and, which was worse, must
bear upon itself, unmerited, an eternal mark of infamy, which should be
spoken of, upon all occasions, to its reproach, from the folly of its
father and wickedness of its mother.
Great men are indeed delivered from the burthen of their natural
children, or bastards, as to their maintenance. This is the main
affliction in other cases, where there is not substance sufficient
without breaking into the fortunes of the family. In those cases either
a man's legitimate children suffer, which is very unnatural, or the
unfortunate mother of that illegitimate birth has a dreadful affliction,
either of being turned off with her child, and be left to starve, &c.,
or of seeing the poor infant packed off with a piece of money to those
she-butchers who take children off their hands, as 'tis called, that is
to say, starve them, and, in a word, murder them.
Great men, I say, are delivered from this burthen, because they are
always furnished to supply the expense of their out-of-the-way
offspring, by making little assignments upon the Bank of Lyons or the
townhouse of Paris, and settling those sums, to be received for the
maintenance of such expense as they see cause.
Thus, in the case of this child of mine, while he and I conversed, there
was no need to make any appointment as an appanage or maintenance for
the child or its nurse, for he supplied me more than sufficiently for
all those things; but afterwards, when time, and a particular
circumstance, put an end to our conversing together (as such things
always meet with a period, and generally break off abruptly), I say,
after that, I found he appointed the children a settled allowance, by an
assignment of annual rent upon the Bank of Lyons, which was sufficient
for bringing them handsomely, though privately, up in the world, and
that not in a manner unworthy of their father's blood, though I came to
be sunk and forgotten in the case; nor did the children ever know
anything of their mother to this day, other than as you may have an
account hereafter.
But to look back to the particular observation I was making, which I
hope may be of use to those who read my story, I say it was something
wonderful to me to see this person so exceedingly delighted at the birth
of this child, and so pleased with it; for he would sit and look at it,
and with an air of seriousness sometimes a great while together, and
particularly, I observed, he loved to look at it when it was asleep.
It was indeed a lovely, charming child, and had a certain vivacity in
its countenance that is far from being common to all children so young;
and he would often say to me that he believed there was something
extraordinary in the child, and he did not doubt but he would come to be
a great man.