In 1716 the Duchesse de Lesdiguieres died at Paris in her fine hotel.
She was not old, but had been long a widow, and had lost her only son.
She was the last relic of the Gondi who were brought into France by
Catherine de' Medici, and who made so prodigious a fortune. She left
great wealth. She was a sort of fairy, who, though endowed with much
wit, would see scarcely anybody, still less give dinners to the few
people she did see. She never went to Court, and seldom went out of her
house. The door of her house was always thrown back, disclosing a
grating, through which could be perceived a true fairy palace, such as
is sometimes described in romances. Inside it was nearly desert, but of
consummate magnificence, and all this confirmed the first impression,
assisted by the singularity of everything, her followers, her livery,
the yellow hangings of her carriage, and the two great Moors who always
followed her. She left much to her servants, and for pious purposes, but
nothing to her daughter-in-law, though poor and respectful to her. Others
got magnificent legacies.
Cavoye died about the same time. I have said enough about him and his
wife to have nothing to add. Cavoye, away from Court, was like a fish
out of water; and he could not stand it long. If romances have rarely
produced conduct like that of his wife towards him, they would with still
greater difficulty describe the courage with which her lasting love for
her husband sustained her in her attendance on his last illness, and the
entombment to which she condemned herself afterwards. She preserved her
first mourning all her life, never slept away from the house where he
died, or went out, except to go twice a day to Saint-Sulpice to pray in
the chapel where he was buried. She would never see any other persons
besides those she had seen during the last moments of her husband, and
occupied herself with good works also, consuming herself thus in a few
years without a single sign of hesitation. A vehemence so equal and so
maintained is perhaps an example, great, unique, and assuredly very
respectable.
Peter I., Czar of Muscovy, has made for himself, and justly, such a great
name, in his own country, in all Europe, and in Asia, that I will not
undertake to describe so grand, so illustrious a prince--comparable to
the greatest men of antiquity--who has been the admiration of his age,
who will be that of years to come, and whom all Europe has been so much
occupied in studying. The singularity of the journey into France of so
extraordinary a prince, has appeared to me to deserve a complete
description in an unbroken narrative. It is for this reason that I place
my account of it here a little late, according to the order of time, but
with dates that will rectify this fault.
Various things relating to this monarch have been seen in their place;
his various journeys to Holland, Germany, Vienna, England, and to several
parts of the North; the object of those journeys, with some account of
his military actions, his policy, his family. It has been shown that he
wished to come into France during the time of the late King, who civilly
refused to receive him. There being no longer this obstacle, he wished
to satisfy his curiosity, and he informed the Regent through Prince
Kourakin, his ambassador at Paris, that he was going to quit the Low
Countries, and come and see the King.
There was nothing for it but to appear very pleased, although the Regent
would gladly have dispensed with this visit. The expenses to be defrayed
were great; the trouble would be not less great with a prince so powerful
and so clear-sighted, but full of whims, with a remnant of barbarous
manners, and a grand suite of people, of behaviour very different from
that common in these countries, full of caprices and of strange fashions,
and both they and their master very touchy and very positive upon what
they claimed to be due or permitted to them.
Moreover the Czar was at daggers drawn with the King of England, the
enmity between them passing all decent limits, and being the more bitter
because personal. This troubled not a little the Regent, whose intimacy
with the King of England was public, the private interest of Dubois
carrying it even to dependence. The dominant passion of the Czar was to
render his territories flourishing by commerce; he had made a number of
canals in order to facilitate it; there was one for which he needed the
concurrence of the King of England, because it traversed a little corner
of his German dominions. From jealousy George would not consent to it.
Peter, engaged in the war with Poland, then in that of the North, in
which George was also engaged, negotiated in vain. He was all the more
irritated, because he was in no condition to employ force; and this
canal, much advanced, could not be continued. Such was the source of
that hatred which lasted all the lives of these monarchs, and with the
utmost bitterness.
Kourakin was of a branch of that ancient family of the Jagellons, which
had long worn the crowns of Poland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. He was
a tall, well-made man, who felt all the grandeur of his origin; had much
intelligence, knowledge of the way of managing men, and instruction. He
spoke French and several languages very fairly; he had travelled much,
served in war, then been employed in different courts. He was Russian to
the backbone, and his extreme avarice much damaged his talents. The Czar
and he had married two sisters, and each had a son. The Czarina had been
repudiated and put into a convent near Moscow; Kourakin in no way
suffered from this disgrace; he perfectly knew his master, with whom he
kept on very free terms, and by whom he was treated with confidence and
consideration. His last mission had been to Rome, where he remained
three years; thence he came as ambassador to Paris. At Rome he was
without official character, and without business except a secret one,
with which the Czar had entrusted him, as to a sure and enlightened man.
This monarch, who wished to raise himself and his country from barbarism,
and extend his power by conquests and treaties, had felt the necessity of
marriages, in order to ally himself with the chief potentates of Europe.
But to form such marriages he must be of the Catholic religion, from
which the Greeks were separated by such a little distance, that he
thought his project would easily be received in his dominions, if he
allowed liberty of conscience there. But this prince was sufficiently
sagacious to seek enlightenment beforehand upon Romish pretensions. He
had sent for that purpose to Rome a man of no mark, but capable of well
fulfilling his mission, who remained there five or six months, and who
brought back no very satisfactory report. Later he opened his heart in
Holland to King William, who dissuaded him from his design, and who
counselled him even to imitate England, and to make himself the chief of
his religion, without which he would never be really master in his own
country. This counsel pleased the Czar all the more, because it was by
the wealth and by the authority of the patriarchs of Moscow, his
grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, that his father had attained the
crown, although only of ordinary rank among the Russian nobility.
These patriarchs were dependent upon those of the Greek rite of
Constantinople but very slightly. They had obtained such great power,
and such prodigious rank, that at their entry into Moscow the Czar held
their stirrups, and, on foot, led their horse by the bridle: Since the
grandfather of Peter, there had been no patriarch at Moscow. Peter I.,
who had reigned some time with his elder brother, incapable of affairs,
long since dead, leaving no son, had, like his father, never consented to
have a patriarch there. The archbishops of Novgorod supplied their place
in certain things, as occupying the chief see after that of Moscow, but
with scarcely any authority that the Czar did not entirely usurp, and
more carefully still after King William had given him the counsel before
alluded to; so that by degrees he had become the real religious chief of
his vast dominions.
Nevertheless, the passionate desire he had to give to his posterity the
privilege of marrying with Catholic princes, the wish he had, above all,
for the honour of alliances with the house of France, and that of
Austria, made him return to his first project. He tried to persuade
himself that the man whom he had secretly sent to Rome had not been well
informed, or had ill understood; he resolved, therefore, to fathom his
doubts, so that he should no longer have any as to the course he ought to
adopt.
It was with this design that he chose Prince Kourakin, whose knowledge
and intelligence were known to him, and sent him to Rome under pretence
of curiosity, feeling that a nobleman of his rank would find the best,
the most important, and the most distinguished society there ready to
receive him; and that by remaining there, under pretext of liking the
life he led, and of wishing to see and admire at his ease all the marvels
of so many different kinds collected there, he should have leisure and
means to return perfectly instructed upon everything he wished to know.
Kourakin, in fact, remained in Rome three years, associating with the
savans on the one hand and the best company on the other, whence by
degrees he obtained all he wished to know; all the more readily because
this Court boasts of its temporal pretensions and of its conquests of
this kind, instead of keeping them secret. In consequence of the long
and faithful report that Kourakin made to the Czar, that prince heaved a
sigh, saying that he must be master in his own country, and could not
place there anybody greater than himself; and never afterwards did he
think of turning Catholic.
This fact respecting the Czars and Rome, Prince Kourakin did not hide.
Everybody who knew him has heard him relate it. I have eaten with him
and he with me, and I have talked a good deal with him, and heard him
talk, with pleasure, upon many things.
The Regent, informed by him of the forthcoming arrival in France of the
Czar by sea, sent the King's equipages; horses, coaches, vehicles,
waggons, and tables and chambers with Du Libois, one of the King's
gentlemen in ordinary, to go and wait for the Czar at Dunkerque, pay the
expenses incurred by him and his suite on the way to Paris, and
everywhere render him the same honour as to the King. The Czar proposed
to allot a hundred days to his journey. The apartment of the Queen-
mother at the Louvre was furnished for him, the councils usually held
there taking place in the houses of the chiefs of these councils.
M. le Duc d'Orleans discussing with me as to the nobleman best fitted to
be appointed to wait upon the Czar during his stay, I recommended the
Marechal de Tesse, as a man without occupation, who well knew the
language and usages of society, who was accustomed to foreigners by his
journeys and negotiations in Spain, Turin, Rome, and in other courts of
Italy, and who, gentle and polite, was sure to perform his duties well.
M. le Duc d'Orleans agreed with me, and the next day sent for him and
gave him his orders.
When it was known that the Czar was near Dunkerque, the Regent sent the
Marquis de Neelle to receive him at Calais, and accompany him until they
met the Marechal de Tesse, who was not to go beyond Beaumont to wait for
him. At the same time the Hotel de Lesdiguieres was prepared for the
Czar and his suite, under the idea that he might prefer a private house,
with all his people around him, to the Louvre. The Hotel de Lesdiguieres
was large and handsome, as I have said at the commencement of this
chapter, adjoined the arsenal, and belonged by succession to the Marechal
de Villeroy, who lodged at the Tuileries. Thus the house was empty,
because the Duc de Villeroy, who was not a man fond of display, had found
it too distant to live in. It was entirely refurnished, and very
magnificently, with the furniture of the King.
The Czar arrived at Beaumont on Friday, the 7th of May, 1717, about mid-
day. Tesse made his reverences to him as he descended from his coach,
had the honour of dining with him, and of escorting him that very day to
Paris.
The Czar entered the city in one of Tesse's coaches, with three of his
suite with him, but not Tesse himself. The Marechal followed in another
coach. The Czar alighted at nine o'clock in the evening at the Louvre,
and walked all through the apartments of the Queen-mother. He considered
them to be too magnificently hung and lighted, jumped into his coach
again, and went to the Hotel de Lesdiguieres, where he wished to lodge.
He thought the apartment destined for him too fine also, and had his
camp-bed immediately spread out in a wardrobe. The Marechal de Tesse,
who was to do the honours of his house and of his table, to accompany him
everywhere, and not quit the place where he might be, lodged in an
apartment of the Hotel de Lesdiguieres, and had enough to do in following
and sometimes running after him. Verton, one of the King's maitres
d'hotel, was charged with serving him and all the tables of the Czar and
his suite. The suite consisted of forty persons of all sorts, twelve or
fifteen of whom were considerable people in themselves, or by their
appointments; they all ate with the Czar.
Verton was a clever lad, strong in certain company, fond of good cheer
and of gaming, and served the Czar with so much order, and conducted
himself so well, that this monarch and all the suite conceived a singular
friendship for him.
The Czar excited admiration by his extreme curiosity, always bearing upon
his views of government, trade, instruction, police, and this curiosity
embraced everything, disdained nothing in the smallest degree useful;
it was marked and enlightened, esteeming only what merited to be
esteemed, and exhibited in a clear light the intelligence, justness,
ready appreciation of his mind. Everything showed in the Czar the vast
extent of his knowledge, and a sort of logical harmony of ideas. He
allied in the most surprising manner the highest, the proudest, the most
delicate, the most sustained, and at the same time the least embarrassing
majesty, when he had established it in all its safety with a marked
politeness. Yet he was always and with everybody the master everywhere,
but with gradations, according to the persons he was with. He had a kind
of familiarity which sprang from liberty, but he was not without a strong
dash of that ancient barbarism of his country, which rendered all his
actions rapid; nay, precipitous, his will uncertain, and not to be
constrained or contradicted in anything. Often his table was but little
decent, much less so were the attendants who served, often too with an
openness of kingly audacity everywhere. What he proposed to see or do
was entirely independent of means; they were to be bent to his pleasure
and command. His desire for liberty, his dislike to be made a show of,
his free and easy habits, often made him prefer hired coaches, common
cabs even; nay, the first which he could lay his hands on, though
belonging to people below him of whom he knew nothing. He jumped in, and
had himself driven all over the city, and outside it. On one occasion he
seized hold of the coach of Madame de Mattignon, who had come to gape at
him, drove off with it to Boulogne and other country places near Paris.
The owner was much astonished to find she must journey back on foot. On
such occasions the Marechal de Tesse and his suite had often hard work to
find the Czar, who had thus escaped them.