And like another Helen, fired another Troy.—DRYDEN.
_Cleopatra_
What was her inner character? A voluptuous woman of the East, say the
Romans, eager to enchain any master of a Roman army by the foulest arts;
the Roman oligarchy not only hated but dreaded Cleopatra. To them she
was the representative of that “regal” sway, that rule by volition
instead of by traditional order, which, with their statesmanlike
instinct, they saw the triumphant aristocrat whom their system tended to
produce would ultimately desire. They cursed her as the greatest of
Asiatic harlots, whereas she was more of a Greek, and much more like
Mary Stuart as her enemies have painted her, a woman unscrupulous in
gratifying her fancies, careless even of murder when needful—Cleopatra
murdered her brother-husband, just as Mary murdered her
cousin-husband—but who used her charms chiefly as instruments to attain
her ends, which were, first of all, the empire of the East, which her
ancestors had striven to acquire—and very nearly acquired. She always
selected as a lover the head of the invading Roman army, and always used
him to help her in founding, as she hoped, the empire of the East. Her
attractive power was probably not her beauty. Her coins do not reveal a
beautiful woman, but a broad-browed, thoughtful queen; and Plutarch, in
describing her, evidently speaks on the authority of men whose fathers
had studied her face. He says,—
“Her actual beauty, it is said, was not in itself so remarkable that
none could be compared with her, or that no one could see her without
being struck by it, but the contact of her presence, if you lived with
her, was irresistible: the attraction of her person, joining with the
charm of her conversation and the character that attended all she said
or did, was something bewitching. It was a pleasure merely to hear the
sound of her voice, with which, like an instrument of many strings, she
could pass from one language to another; so that there were few of the
barbarian nations that she answered by an interpreter; in most of them
she spoke herself, as to the Ethiopians, Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabians,
Syrians, Medes, Parthians and many others, whose language she had
learned.”
_Phryne_
This Athenian hetæra was a creature of surpassing physical perfection.
She acquired so much wealth by her charms that she offered to rebuild
the walls of Thebes if she might put on them this inscription:
“Alexander destroyed them, but Phryne rebuilt them.” Apelles’ celebrated
picture of Venus Anadyomene was from Phryne, who entered the sea with
hair dishevelled for a model. She is shown rising from the sea, and
wringing the water from her hair with her hands. The Cnidian Venus of
Praxiteles was also taken from the same model. Among his most celebrated
works the Cnidian Aphrodite stands first, as one of the most famous art
creations of antiquity. “The old authors,” says Lübke, “are filled with
its fame; and they relate that the Bithynian king, Nicomedes, offered
the people of Cnidos the payment of their whole state debt in exchange
for this work. The artist had represented the goddess entirely nude, but
had modified this bold innovation by making her left hand about to take
up a garment, as though she had just emerged from the bath, while with
her right she modestly shielded her person. The quiet of her posture was
enlivened by a delicate sense of life, which gave to the outlines of the
beautiful form a pleasant look of animation: the glance of the eyes had
that liquid, melting expression, which, far removed from the mere
craving of desire, might best convey the tender longing of a goddess of
love. However numerous may be the copies of this famous statue that have
come down to us, they can, at best, only convey to us the outward
characteristics of its attitude, not the exquisite purity of the work of
Praxiteles himself.”
William W. Story’s beautiful lines on Praxiteles and Phryne are well
worth quoting here:
A thousand silent years ago,
The twilight faint and pale
Was drawing o’er the sunset glow
Its soft and shadowy veil,—
When from his work the sculptor stayed
His hand and turned to one
Who stood beside him half in shade,
Said with a sigh, “’Tis done.”
Thus much is saved from chance and change,
That waits for me and thee,
Thus much—how little! from the range
Of Death to Destiny.
Phryne, thy human lips shall pale,
Thy rounded limbs decay,—
Nor love nor prayers can aught avail
To bid thy beauty stay;
But _there_ thy smile for centuries
On marble lips shall live,—
For Art can grant what love denies
And fix the fugitive.
Sad thought! nor age, nor death shall fade
The youth of this cold bust,
When this quick brain and hand that made,
And thou and I are dust!
When all our hopes and fears are dead
And both our hearts are cold,
And love is like a tune that’s played
And life a tale that’s told,
This senseless stone so coldly fair
That love nor life can warm,
The same enchanting look shall wear,
The same enchanting form.
Its peace no changes shall destroy,
Its beauty age shall spare,
The bitterness of vanished joy,
The wearing waste of care.
And there upon that silent face
Shall unborn ages see
Perennial youth, perennial grace
And sealed serenity.
And strangers, when we sleep in peace,
Shall say not quite unmoved,
So smiled upon Praxiteles
The Phryne whom he loved.
_Isabella of Castile_
Irving says in his “Life of Columbus”: “Contemporary writers have been
enthusiastic in their descriptions of Isabella, but time has sanctioned
their eulogies. She is one of the purest and most beautiful characters
in history. She was well-formed, of middle size, with great dignity and
gracefulness of deportment, and a mingled gravity of sweetness of
demeanor. Her complexion was fair, her hair auburn; her eyes were of a
clear blue, with a benign expression; and there was a singular modesty
in her countenance, gracing, as it did, a wonderful firmness of purpose
and earnestness of spirit. Though strongly attached to her husband, and
studious of his fame, yet she always maintained her distinct rights as
an allied prince. She exceeded in beauty, in personal dignity, in
acuteness of genius, and in grandeur of soul. Combining the active and
resolute qualities of man with the softer charities of woman, she
mingled in the warlike councils of her husband, engaged personally in
his enterprises, and in some instances, surpassed him in the firmness
and intrepidity of her measures; while, being inspired with a truer idea
of glory, she infused a more lofty and generous temper into his subtle
and calculating policy.
“While all her public thoughts and acts were princely and august, her
private habits were simple, frugal, and unostentatious. In the intervals
of state business, she assembled around her the ablest men in literature
and science, and directed herself by their counsels, in promoting
letters and arts. Through her patronage, Salamanca, the great seat of
learning in Spain, rose to that height which it assumed among the
learned institutions of the age. She promoted the distribution of honors
and rewards for the promulgation of knowledge; she fostered the art of
printing recently invented, and encouraged the establishment of presses
in every part of the kingdom.
Prescott, in his “History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,” in
describing the personal appearance of the queen, says: “She was
exceedingly beautiful; ‘the handsomest lady,’ says one of the household
[Oviedo], ‘whom I ever beheld, and the most gracious in her manners.’
The portrait still existing of her, in the royal palace, is conspicuous
for an open symmetry of features indicative of the natural serenity of
temper, and that beautiful harmony of intellectual and moral qualities
which most distinguished her. It is not easy to obtain a dispassionate
portrait of Isabella. The Spaniards who revert to her glorious reign are
so smitten with her moral perfections, that even in depicting her
personal attractions, they borrow somewhat of the exaggerated coloring
of romance.”
_Diana of Poitiers_
Francis I. and his son Henry II. of France were both controlled, even in
the most important affairs, by female influence, and by shallow-minded
and incapable favorites. The mistress of the former was the Duchess
d’Etampes, and that of the latter, Diana of Poitiers, widow of Louis de
Brézé, grand seneschal of Normandy. Henry was the junior of Diana by
nearly twenty years, but this difference did not prevent her, at the age
of forty, from attaching herself to the dauphin. While Francis lived,
the two favorites divided the court, but upon the accession of the
dauphin as Henry II. Diana became virtual mistress of the kingdom, Henry
being a man of dull understanding and feeble character, and her rival,
d’Etampes, was sent into exile. The young queen, Catherine de Medici,
was noted for her beauty and accomplishments, but both were unavailing
against the complete ascendency of Diana. Her wonderful beauty and her
fascination were such that the king gave her many public tokens of his
infatuation, admitted her to his councils, and created her Duchess of
Valentinois. She retained her power over the royal lover until his
death, even at the age of sixty, ruling him with the double force of her
beauty and her intellect.
_Ninon de L’Enclos_
This modern Aspasia, like her Greek prototype, was remarkable not only
for her beauty and wit, but for her fondness for cultivated society.
Both of them, though of easy virtue and devoted to pleasure to the end
of life, held receptions which were frequented by the most intellectual
men and women of the period in which they lived. Ninon had a constant
succession of lovers, but at the same time her society was courted by
Mme. de Lafayette, Mme. de Sully, Mme. Scarron (afterward De Maintenon),
and Christina of Sweden, and among her most favored admirers were the
great Condé, La Rochefoucauld, Villarceaux, and D’Estrées. She was
regarded as a model of refinement and elegance in her manners. She lived
to the age of ninety, yet preserved her beauty and fascination to the
last. She had lovers for three generations in the family of Sévigné. She
had two illegitimate sons, one of whom, in ignorance of his birth and
relationship, was the victim of an unhallowed passion for his mother. He
was then nineteen years of age, and Ninon was fifty-six. While urging
his love, she found that the only way to check his importunity was to
disclose her secret. Thereupon he blew out his brains, but the tragedy
made little impression upon Ninon, as she was dead to the instincts of
maternal tenderness.
_Mary Stuart_
Of all unsolved problems of history, says Lyman Abbott, there is none
more perplexing, none more seemingly insoluble, than that afforded by
the career and character of Mary Queen of Scots. Time has done nothing
to detract from the peculiar witchery of her charms, or the romantic
interest which attaches to her strange adventures. Her admirers are as
enthusiastic three centuries removed from her as were those who fell
beneath the peculiar spell of her presence—a spell which few were ever
able wholly to resist. The controversy which waged about her while
living continues as hot, and almost as bitter, over her grave. History
can come no nearer a verdict than could her own contemporaries. Its only
answer, like theirs, is, “We cannot agree.”
The difficulties which beset any attempt to tell correctly the story of
her career, to analyze aright her character, are very great. The student
of history finds no impartial witness; few in her own time who are not
ready to tell and to believe about her the most barefaced lies which
will promote their own party. During her life she was calumniated and
eulogized with equal audacity. Since her death the same curiously
contradictory estimates of her character have been vigorously
maintained—by those, too, who have not their judgment impaired by the
prejudices which environed her. On one hand, we are assured that she was
“the most amiable of women;” “the upright queen, the noble and true
woman, the faithful spouse, and affectionate mother;” “the poor martyred
queen;” “the helpless victim of fraud and force;” an “illustrious victim
of statecraft,” whose “kindly spirit in posterity and matchless heroism
in misfortune” award her “the most prominent place in the annals of her
sex.” On the other hand, we are assured by men equally competent to
judge, that she was “a spoiled beauty;” “the heroine of an adulterous
melodrame;” “the victim of a blind imperious passion;” an “apt scholar
in the profound dissimulation of that school of which Catherine de
Medici was the chief instructor;” “a bad woman disguised in the livery
of a martyr,” having “a proud heart, a crafty wit, and indurate mind
against God and his truth;” “a bold, unscrupulous, ambitious woman,”
with “the panther’s nature—graceful, beautiful, malignant, untamable.”
Dr. Abbott thus summarizes a net-work of evidence: A wife learns to
loathe her husband; utters her passionate hate in terms that are
unmistakable; is reconciled to him for a purpose; casts him off when
that purpose is accomplished; makes no secret of her desire for a
divorce; listens with but cold rebuke to intimations of his
assassination; dallies while he languishes upon a sick-bed so long as
death is near; hastens to him only when he is convalescent; becomes, in
seeming, reconciled to him; by her blandishments allays his terror and
arrests his flight, which nothing else could arrest; brings him with her
to the house chosen by the assassins for his tomb—a house which has
absolutely nothing else to recommend it but its singular adaptation to
the deed of cruelty to be wrought there; remains with him till within
two hours of his murder; hears with unconcern the story of his tragic
end, which thrills all other hearts with horror; makes no effort to
bring the perpetrators of the crime to punishment; rewards the suspected
with places and pensions, and the chief criminal (Bothwell) with her
hand in marriage while the blood is still wet on his.
Before the murder of Darnley it was the misfortune of Mary’s life that
stories against which a fair reputation should be a sufficient defence
stick to her like burs to a shaggy coat; stories of unwomanly intimacy
first with Chastelar, then with Rizzio, and then with Bothwell. She was
certainly careless, if not criminal. At least, so thought John Knox and
the straiter sect of the Covenanters.
_Pompadour_
In the long roll of left-hand queens there is no one whose career
affords anything approaching the attraction for the student of history
that is offered by that of Mme. de Pompadour. For nineteen years she was
the virtual ruler of France,—in other words, the ruler of the greatest
power in Europe. She conferred pensions and places, appointed Generals,
selected Ambassadors, made and unmade Prime Ministers. Upon her rests
the responsibility for the sudden but not unreasonable change in the
traditional policy of France towards the House of Hapsburg, which
enabled the vindictive Maria Theresa to fan the ashes of the War of the
Austrian Succession into the devouring flame which ravaged Europe for
seven years. To her influence, also, must be attributed in a great
measure the suppression of the Jesuits in France.
If we turn from politics to other aspects of French civilization, we
cannot but recognize the imprint of her hand. It is to her that France
is indebted for the manufacture of Sèvres porcelain, while the
establishment of the _Ecole Militaire_, which, in the twenty-seven years
of its existence, gave to the country so many distinguished officers,
Napoleon among the number, was mainly due to her efforts. In her also
men of letters and artists found a generous and appreciative friend. She
protected Voltaire and Montesquieu, rescued the elder Crébillon from
poverty and neglect, encouraged Diderot and d’Alembert in their labors
and made the fortune of Marmontel. It was she who introduced Boucher and
his works to the court of Louis XV. and promoted in every way the
interests of his fellow-painters. In a word, from the day on which she
was installed at Versailles as _maîtresse déclarée_ or _maítresse en
titre_, till her death in 1764, a period of some nineteen years, the
influence of Mme. de Pompadour was paramount in all matters, from
politics to porcelain, and she was, in fact, the true sovereign in
France.
How was it possible that a woman of middle-class origin, the daughter of
a man who had been forced to fly his country to escape being broken on
the wheel, should attain to a post which had hitherto been regarded as
the peculiar appanage of the daughters of nobles, and, generally, of
great nobles? It is certain that from the beginning her elevation was
the signal for an outburst of hostility to which a less remarkable woman
must have succumbed. She was called upon to face at once the enmity of
the royal family, of powerful ministers, of ladies of the court, of the
Jesuits, and of the rabble of Paris, for even the latter resented their
sovereign’s departure from the custom observed by his predecessors of
selecting mistresses from the _noblesse_. Not only did she never flinch
for a moment from the unequal contest, but never till the hour of her
death did she fail to sustain her position of predominance, except for a
brief interval, when the attempt of Damiens to assassinate Louis XV.
seemed to render her fall inevitable. When she died at the early age of
42, she did not succumb to the fear of any personal rivals or enemies,
but to the mortification and grief produced by the disastrous outcome of
the war into which she had dragged her country.
To the question how it was possible for a woman of middle-class origin
to achieve what she did it scarcely suffices to say that, by the verdict
even of unfriendly contemporaries, she was the most thoroughly
accomplished and highly educated woman in France. She was also one of
the most beautiful, and, by all odds, the most fascinating. Touching
this point, the evidence of Diderot’s friend, Georges le Roy, may be
cited. “She was,” he says “rather above the middle height, slender,
supple and graceful. Her hair was luxurious, of a light, chestnut shade
rather than fair, and the eyebrows which crowned her magnificent eyes
were of the same hue. She had a perfectly formed nose, a charming mouth,
lovely teeth, and a ravishing smile, while the most exquisite skin one
could wish to behold put the finishing touch to all her beauty. Her eyes
had a singular fascination, which they owed, perhaps, to the uncertainty
of their color. They possessed neither the dazzling splendor of black
eyes, the tender languor of blue, nor yet the peculiar keenness of gray.
Their undecided color seemed to lend to them every kind of charm, and to
express in turn all the feelings of an intensely mobile nature.” It is
said her foot, her hand, her figure, were of a perfection acclaimed by
painters and by sculptors, and that her temperament was intensely
sympathetic and ardent.
_Eugénie_
The courtiers at the Tuileries used to say that no other woman who then
sat on a throne could display so small a foot or so dainty a hand as
Empress Eugénie. Her stature was less than middle height, or about the
same as the Emperor’s; her figure was lithe and supple, and her arms,
shoulders and bust, while ample, were delicately moulded. Her long neck,
with its gentle curves, was pronounced by not a few painters to be a
model which the old Greeks might have envied in their conceptions of
female grace. Her carriage in its lightness and quickness betokened a
compact, muscular strength, and there were few women of her court who
surpassed her in physical endurance.
Despite the general smallness of her head it was more than usually high
and broad above the eyes, and this served to impart to her oval face an
expression of mental power. The eyes were variously described by writers
of the time as blue, as dark blue, as grayish-blue and as dark gray. But
all agreed in ascribing to them a remarkable crystal-like lustre under
the shade of sweeping lashes. In truth, their color appears to have
taken on different hues at different times, and the peculiarly fine
arching of the brows framed them with something like a piquant outline.
The nose, slightly inclined to be aquiline, and the small mouth and chin
were perhaps the least striking of the features. But the teeth when she
smiled shone with a sort of dazzling whiteness, and, indeed, gave rise
to a fashion of wearing false ones like them. Her skin, which was of a
slightly olive tinge, was so smooth and velvety that the most envious
women who surrounded her thought that in neither gaslight nor sunlight
was it less clear and pure, and that no art could bring it nearer
perfection. Her profusion of light brown hair, which was often described
as golden, and which it was thought she artificially colored, was looked
upon by many as her chief charm. It was her custom to wear violets in
it; in her childhood a fortune-teller had told her that the violet was
the flower of the Bonapartes and that time would make it hers, too; and
so it was that it long became the favorite of every beauty in the
civilized world who thought that she looked like Eugénie, or who made
Eugénie her standard of fashion.
The Countess Montijo before her marriage to Napoleon III. was a
picturesque figure. She frequented the bull fights at Madrid in odd
fancy costumes, she galloped through the streets of the city of an
afternoon on a horse without a saddle, and smoking a cigar or cigarette,
and she often appeared in man’s attire. The gilded youths of Madrid
raved about her, fluttered round her—but not one of them wanted to marry
her. Here is a picture set forth by one who saw her at one of her
favorite bull fights:
Her slender figure is well defined by a costly bodice which enhances her
beauty and elegance. Her dainty hand is armed with a riding whip,
instead of a fan, for she generally arrives at the circus on a wild
Andalusian horse, and in her belt she carries a sharp-pointed dagger.
Her little feet are incased in red satin boots. Her head is crowned with
her broad, golden plaits, interwoven with pearls and real flowers; her
clear brow shines with youth and beauty and her gentle blue eyes sparkle
from beneath the long lashes which almost conceal them. Her exquisitely
formed nose, her mouth, fresher than a rosebud; the perfect oval of her
face, the loveliness of which is only equalled by her graceful bearing,
arouses the admiration of all. She is the recognized queen of beauty. It
is she who crowns the victorious toreador, and her white hands present
him with the prize due to his courage or agility, while she accompanies
the gift with her most captivating smile.
In the early years of her married life the Empress was heartily admired
by the French people. She was certainly beautiful, and she filled her
position with unexpected dignity and grace. Her kindness of heart was
great and unaffected, and she inaugurated notable charitable enterprises
with a judgment remarkably good. In most directions she was a better
wife than Napoleon III. deserved, and she was an excellent mother. If
the Court over which she presided was a frivolous, corrupt, and vulgar
one, it was perhaps not altogether her fault. The Paris tradesmen
assuredly had no reason to turn against her, for her craze for dress and
show kept a stream of gold running through their shops, and there was
always something on the carpet with which to amuse the crowd. The
Church, too, had reason to think well of her, for she was ever its
devout, not to say bigoted, adherent. Whenever she meddled with politics
she was mischievous, even absurd. She was bitter in her hatreds, and
foolish in many of her friendships. It is to her credit that she always
showed great respect for brains, and admired even those who attacked her
in print if they did it cleverly. Her literary tastes were not profound
nor otherwise unusual, but they were far from contemptible. She had some
taste in art—but not enough, be it remembered, to prevent her from
introducing the most hideous abomination of modern times, the enormous
crinoline. She set the pace in fashion towards the novel rather than the
beautiful, and the feminine world has not yet, in truth, fallen out of
step. She was never a thoroughly happy woman, even when the world seemed
to offer her most. The sharpest thorn in her lot was her consciousness
that she was not born in the purple, and she felt to the depths of her
being the slights she received from those more fortunately placed. Her
grandfather, Kirkpatrick, who hailed from the north of Ireland, settled
in Malaga, and engaged in a large grocery trade. Eventually he married
Mlle. Grevigny, the daughter of a wealthy grocer of Bruges, Belgium.
They had two remarkably handsome daughters, one of whom married Count de
Teba, afterward Count Montijo. The Montijos are a very ancient Spanish
house. The origin of the family goes back farther than the institution
of nobility in Spain, and among its ancestors are Alfonso Perez de
Guzman, that hero of the thirteenth century whose exploits are still
recounted by Spanish peasants, as well as Gonsalvo de Cordova, the great
general and friend of Columbus.