belonged was so decayed, that the bearer of the name was glad to
follow the Prince of Condé to Flanders in the humble capacity of a
stable-boy. The lad excited notice by his satire and wit, and Condé,
on his return from Flanders, could think of no more acceptable gift
to present to the King, Louis XIII., than his vivacious stable-boy.
The latter rose to fortune, especially in the succeeding reign, when
he became the salaried and official jester, and amassed a fortune.
If the courtiers wanted a joke from him, he first made them pay for
it. If they wanted to escape his sarcasm, Angeli would not pronounce
them exempt, without a fee. What he thus pocketed he carefully put
by. Altogether, he was a well-regulated fellow, save in the matter of
attendance at church; for absenting himself from which, he assigned two
fool’s reasons, namely, that he could not endure brawling, and did not
understand argument. When he had acquired some five-and-twenty thousand
crowns by the exercise of his office at court, his proud relatives
began to acknowledge their long-neglected kinsman: Angeli only
laughed, and went on increasing his fortune. “Of all us fools,” once
exclaimed Marigny, as he saw Louis XIV. laughing at the jester’s light
words,--“of all us fools who were attached to the Prince of Condé,
Angeli is the only one who has made his fortune.”
This “fou” had a quiet as well as a lively wit. On one occasion,
finding himself standing by the side of a nobleman, one of whose
ancestors was supposed to have been a buffoon: “Cousin,” said Angeli,
“let us both sit down, nobody will pay any particular attention to
_us_; and you and I are not likely to take offence from each other.”
L’Angeli died in 1640, just three years after Archie Armstrong had been
ejected from the English court.
With L’Angeli ordinarily closes the list of officially titled fools
in France; but I learn from the learned author of the work on the
medals and tokens of societies connected with fools and follies, that
the Count of Toulouse, the illegitimate son of Louis, had a fool
officially appointed to exercise his calling in the Count’s household.
The author in question most provokingly adds, that “there was one
anecdote he could tell of this fool, which would suffice to avenge the
whole class of fools of the contempt with which we cover them. The
history is unpublished and piquant, but,” again adds this writer, “it
does not belong to me; and that is all I can say about it, _for the
moment_;”--and he never alludes to it again throughout his book!
Although Louis XIV. appointed no successor to L’Angeli, it is clear
that he continued to be pleased with tricks after the court jester’s
fashion. We have this exemplified in the case of that elegant but
inconstant lover, Vardis, who, after throwing the whole court and
household of the King into confusion by his audacious gallantries, was
exiled to Provence, where, for nearly thirty years, he continued to be
the delight of the women and the detestation of the men, who envied and
could not rival him.
At the end of the time above mentioned, the Count, then almost a
sexagenarian, received permission from the Government, to return to
Paris. Vardis was still uncertain how he might be received by the
King, and his very happiness depended on the nature of such reception.
He went boldly down to Versailles, and on entering the presence,
he had the gratification of seeing King and courtiers burst into
uncontrollable peals of laughter. He had prepared himself to produce
so desired a result, by appearing at court in a dress which was the
very height of the fashion when he began his exile, but which looked
so ridiculous now, that I do not know how I can better illustrate it
than by asking any matron who has preserved her bridal bonnet and dress
of thirty years ago, what she thinks she would look like, if she were
to wear the same at her youngest daughter’s wedding-breakfast. Let
any gentleman open a book of fashions of 1828, and say if he would be
daring enough to enter Hyde Park in such a costume. The appearance of
Vardis was still more ridiculous. He had been to his contemporaries
what D’Orsay was within our own remembrance; and he returned to court,
the King of Fashion, but a King who had been touched by a fairy’s wand,
and had been lain asleep as soundly and as long as Rip van Winkle. His
head was a perfect caricature, and he wore one of those blue coats, or
tunics, embroidered with gold and silver lace, which had the name of a
“justaucorps à brevet,” because no person could wear this article of
dress, which the King himself wore, without his Majesty’s _brevet_, or
warrant. Louis rolled in ecstasy at the sight of the old portrait; and
the happy Vardis exclaimed, “Ah, Sire, absent from your Majesty, one
becomes not only unhappy, but ridiculous.” The King, still laughing,
presented him to the Dauphin, to whom Vardis offered the homage of a
low bow. Louis laughed again, remarking, “Vardis, you have done the act
of a fool; you know that no person can salute another in my presence.”
“Oh!” cried Vardis, with an air that would have done credit to the
official fool, “I know nothing at all. I have forgotten everything.
_One_ act of folly? your Majesty must pardon thirty.” “Be it so,”
answered the King; “but stop at nine-and-twenty.” And with this _coup
de fou_ did Vardis leap into a little brief favour.
I must not dismiss the reign of Louis XIV. without a word in reference
to the Duke de Roquelaure, who figures in so many jest-books as a
buffoon at the court of Louis XIV. The Duke is indebted for much of his
reputation, as to this matter, to Saint-Simon, who hated him heartily,
and misrepresented him accordingly. Roquelaure was a plain, brave,
facetious man; but the jokes attributed to him in the ‘Momus Français’
are entirely apocryphal. These represent him as disgustingly insulting
to ladies, audacious to the highest clergy, regardless of his own
honour or of that of his wife, and so forgetful of reverence due to
holy places, as, on one occasion, to have jumped out of bed, run into
a church, and there beat the Spanish Ambassador about the head with
his slippers. According to the ‘Momus,’ no courtier escaped the rough
licking of his tongue; though the Duke, who had little or no nose,
sometimes had to undergo more painful allusions than he himself made,
from courtiers or prelates whose huge noses were points on which he is
said to have sharpened his wit. The last court-foolery told of him is,
of his having asserted that he would not only kick a certain courtier,
Bechamel, but that the latter would thank him for it. He committed the
assault, saluting the victim at the same time, as if he had been the
handsome De Grammont. Bechamel was so delighted at being mistaken, as
he thought, for so brilliant a cavalier, that he turned round with
radiant smiles, and thanked Roquelaure for the error into which he had
fallen.
As I have said, I could not entirely pass over Roquelaure; and it is
on the authority of his biographer in the ‘Biographie Universelle,’ I
have stated that his court jests are apocryphal. Worse jokes, however,
than these were perpetrated at the court of Louis XIV.; witness that
occasion when the French court was at Fère, very dull, and sadly in
want of sport. Cardinal Mazarin then undertook to play the fool for it;
and he did so after a fashion that was highly enjoyed by the “people of
quality.” There was then residing with the Cardinal the youngest of his
nieces, a little girl seven or eight years of age, Marianne Mancini,
afterwards Duchess de Bouillon. As an illustration of court-foolery,
the incident requires to be told, and I prefer giving the opening
portion of it in the words of M. Amédée Renée, from whose book on ‘Les
Nièces de Mazarin,’ I make the extract:--
“Le Cardinal, une après-dînée, se mit à plaisanter la nièce sur ses
galants. Il alla jusqu’à lui dire qu’elle etoit grosse. Marianne se
fâcha tout rouge, et l’oncle de s’en amuser si bien qu’il continua la
plaisanterie. On retrécit les robes de l’enfant, pour lui faire croire
que sa taille s’arrondissait. Ses colères divertissaient toute la cour.
Il n’était question que de son prochain accouchement, et Marianne,
un beau matin, trouva dans ses draps un enfant qui venait de naître.
Il fallut bien convenir alors de sa maternité. Elle jeta des cris de
désespoir, et fit chorus longtemps avec son nouveau-né; elle assurait
fort qu’elle ne s’était aperçu de rien.” To the child thus fooled, the
Queen-mother, Anne of Austria, paid a visit of ceremony, and begged to
be allowed to be godmother to the baby! The entire court turned fools
on this occasion, waited on the imaginary mother in great pomp, and
passed in ceremonious rotation before the bed, according to prescribed
etiquette; and these fine people were in ecstasies! The elder sister of
Marianne, Hortense, Duchess of Mazarin, says in her autobiography, of
which not she, but St. Réal, was the author, “Ce fut un divertissement
public. On pressa Marianne de déclarer le père de l’enfant, et elle
répondit que ce ne pouvait être que le Roi ou le Comte de Guiche,
car elle ne voyoit que ces deux hommes-là qui l’eussent embrassé.”
Hortense, who was, as M. Renée remarks, “au courant de la chose,”
testified her enjoyment of the joke by loud bursts of laughter. The
court thought there had never been so choice a jester as the Cardinal;
for of such complexion were the jokes of that time, and in this manner
did fools of quality prepare the minds of little girls for this world
and the next.
As true wit however was found among the nobles and gentlemen at the
court of the Grand Monarque as ever had been uttered by the liveliest
of professional jesters. Sydney Smith, in his Lectures on Moral
Philosophy, cites a sample which is of such excellence as to have
received his high approbation. “Louis XIV.,” he says, “was exceedingly
molested by the solicitations of a general officer at the levée,
and cried out, loud enough to be heard, ‘That gentleman is the most
troublesome officer in the whole army.’ ‘Your Majesty’s enemies have
said the same thing more than once,’ was the answer; the wit of which,”
adds the narrator, “consists in the sudden relation discovered in
the officer’s assent to the King’s invective, and his own defence.
By admitting the King’s observation, he seems, at first sight, to be
subscribing to the King’s imputation against him; whereas, in reality,
he effaces it by this very means.”
Louis XIV. was yet in his youth when Mazarin introduced a new source
whence idle, wealthy people might derive amusement. The Cardinal filled
_his_ palace with monkeys, that is, there was scarcely a room which
had not in it one of these tricksy animals, to afford laughter to the
occupant or visitor. They were carefully tended and highly scented
by the nieces of Mazarin, those celebrated ladies whom satirists
distinguished by the name of Mazarinettes. They are thus alluded to in
‘Le Passeport et l’Adieu de Mazarin.’
“Ainsi donc par vos limonades,
Par vos excellentes pommades,
Par la bonne odeur de vos gants,
* * * * *
Par les singes que tant aimez,
Qui, comme vous, sont parfumés
Par les belles Mazarinettes,” etc.
The fashion of finding amusement in keeping monkeys was, however, of
very old date. Plutarch tells us, that when Cæsar happened once to
see some strangers at Rome carrying young dogs and monkeys in their
arms, caressing them, he asked, ‘Whether the women in their country
never bore any children?’ thus reproving those who lavish on brutes
the natural tenderness which is due to mankind. The only case in which
I can remember that monkeys were made useful, is that of the Abbé
Galiani, whose monkey used to unseal all his letters for him. Galiani
used to call him “a member of the diplomatic body.”
Although the jester by right of office, had disappeared from the French
court, we occasionally meet with amateur fools who presumed to hint
censure at the monarch, but who found the King with more censorious wit
than themselves. This was the case when Latour was taking the portrait
of Louis XV. It was just after a national calamity. Latour, with the
impudent familiarity of Triboulet, exclaimed, “Well, Sire, so we have
no longer any navy!” “And Vernet?” coldly replied the King,--alluding
to the marine painter whom he patronized, and who could furnish him any
amount of fleets on and under canvas.
If Louis XV. had not altogether the ever-ready wit necessary to a
jester, he possessed all the imperturbability of the fool. An instance
presents itself in the little court incident, when M. de Chauvelin was
seized at the royal card-table with the fit of apoplexy of which he
died. On seeing him fall, some one exclaimed, “M. de Chauvelin is ill!”
“Ill?” said the King, coldly turning round and looking at him; “he is
dead. Take him away; spades are trumps, gentlemen!”
Neither did this sovereign maintain an official jester; as before
intimated, the vocation of the fool had ceased, but the favour and
freedom he had enjoyed were acquired by men who, as Chesterfield
remarks of the Marshal Duke of Richelieu, raised themselves above
their betters, without knowledge, talent, or merit. The Duke, however,
whom Louis XV. used to call his “amiable Good-for-nothing,” had
certainly some claim to be ranked as a court wit. He proved as much
when Louis, on one occasion, remarked that there was not such another
“good-for-nothing” in all France. “Ah, Sire,” said the Duke with a tone
of kindly reproach, “Your Majesty forgets yourself!” Triboulet never
said anything half so good.
Here I will close the record of French _plaisants_. The “_plaisantes_”
of Louis XV. have no claim to admission upon my list; and at the court
of his successors, the time had come when princes had begun to be their
own fools. The Republic lowered “Liberty” to the level of fool, and the
people paid dearly for their _marotte_. With the Empire, the nation
had again its fool, under the name of “Glory;” a costly toy which
brought a splendid misery. How Louis Philippe could be his own jester,
I shall have to show in a subsequent page. At the present Imperial
Court, there is no official fool; but some persons may perhaps discover
the Emperor’s “joculator” in that wonderful man, the Count de Morny,
whose last joke consisted in his telling the Imperial Legislature that
the utmost purity of election had brought them there, and that the
utmost freedom of speech was their undoubted privilege. That the Count
could say as much to the Members without, as the French say, “laughing
at their noses,” demonstrates how admirably he is qualified to be
“joculator” to the Empire at large.
The Count’s name, too, is so associated with that of Russia, that,
_apropos_ to court fools, I will now ask my readers to turn with me
towards Muscovy, and see how fools have flourished at the court of the
Czars, and, indeed, in the Northern courts of Europe generally.
JESTERS IN THE NORTHERN COURTS OF EUROPE.
Of all the courts, civilized or uncivilized, at which fools have been
numbered on the household, the jester was never in so uncomfortable
a purgatory as in the household of the Czars. The most savage, the
most able, but it would be hard to say the most mendacious, of these
potentates, was Ivan Vasilievitch IV., who reigned from 1533 to 1581.
He might, for various reasons, be reckoned amongst the princes who
were their own fools,--for some of his acts savoured greatly of the
profession; at least, there was more folly than wit in some of this
gloomy monster’s merry conceits; as, for instance, when he invited a
number of guests to dinner, and set before them a repast of dog, cat,
and even human flesh. His fools must have had a terrible time of it;
and how they could ever be gamesome in presence of such a capricious
savage is inconceivable. Occasionally, the unclean Czar was minded to
be delicate, and then he would take offence at what he generally seemed
most to delight in. Once, his favourite fool, not knowing the bent of
his master’s humour, was indulging at table in very unsavory jests; and
the gentle Ivan ordered him to leave the room. A few minutes later,
the Czar commanded him to return, and to kneel before him. The jester
obeyed, and his gracious master, taking up a kettle of scalding hot
broth, poured the whole down the back of the fool, between his clothes
and his skin. The wretched victim screamed in his agony, and writhed
under the torture. Ivan had the grace to bid his doctor look to him,
but Esculapius himself could not have saved him. The fool died; and
all the requiem chanted over him by his imperious master was,--“Since
the fool did not choose to live; why, let him be buried.”
For many a long year, the Russian joculators that were the most highly
prized were hideous, overfed, sleepy idiots, with nothing remarkable
about them but their want of wit. Beyond the record of this fact,
there is little worth noticing till we arrive at the reign of Peter
the Great, who, according to Weber, quoted by Flögel, maintained
about him not less than a hundred persons who might be classed under
the head of court fools. They were of various qualities; some had
been born imbecile, and these he entirely supported, making use of
them occasionally as examples to his courtiers, comparing the natural
condition of each, and drawing therefrom a moral teaching content.
Others of the class were officials who, having committed some gross
act of folly, he punished by compelling them to wear the dress of a
fool, to take the name, and fulfil to the best of their small wit, the
business of such profession. A third class, if two or three individuals
may be so called, comprised persons who, having been guilty of some
serious offence, thought to avoid the penalty by feigning madness, and
were consequently seriously treated as such.
Among the second class noticed above, was a Captain Uschakow, who
was promoted or degraded to the rank of court fool for the following
exhibition of his quality. The Captain had been despatched by the
commandant of Smolensko with an important letter addressed to the
governor of Kiov, and requiring an immediate reply. He was ordered to
traverse the sixty leagues which lie between those cities, as fast as
his horse could carry him; and he obeyed the order faithfully, arriving
at the gates of Kiov before break of day. On application for admission,
some delay ensued, the officer on duty informing him that he must wait
till the keys could be procured from the commandant, who was then
asleep. Uschakow, in great rage, said his letter was of the utmost
importance, and that if he were not immediately admitted, he would
gallop back to Smolensko and lay a complaint before the commandant who
had sent him. The officer thought he was joking; but his surprise was
great to see the impatient captain turn his horse’s head and disappear,
at full speed, through the morning mist. When Uschakow came in presence
of his superior officer at Smolensko, carrying the letter instead of
the expected reply, and stated what had occurred, the commandant, after
showering upon him every invective he could think of, sent him to the
Czar, with orders to tell his own story. Peter no sooner heard it, than
he immediately ordered Uschakow to be cashiered, and enrolled among the
court fools. So far from this being a punishment, it was the luckiest
thing that could happen to a man of the mental calibre of the captain.
He took to his new office with hearty good will; by his frolicsome
humour he was welcomed to several European courts; and he very speedily
saved not less than 20,000 thalers out of the presents made to him. He
accompanied Peter in most of his visits to brother potentates; and on
one of these occasions he was present, with the Czar and the King of
Poland, at the theatre at Dresden. Some interruption occurred on the
stage, previous to the appearance of a Scaramouch, who was announced to
dance a buffoon _pas seul_, called “Les Follies d’Espagne.” Impatient
at the delay, Uschakow jumped lightly from the royal box on to the
stage, and to the astonishment and delight of the entire house, went
through the whole dance himself, with additional quips, and cranks,
and absurd follies, which kept the illustrious spectators in a roar of
laughter.
There were two brothers of a princely family who did not enjoy the
promotion to the rank of Witless so unreservedly as Uschakow had done.
Flögel does not give their names, nor state whence he derives the
story, which is to this effect. The brothers had joined a conspiracy,
the object of which was to slay the Czar; but which, being discovered,
and the principal plotters summarily hanged, the brothers found that
their turn for responsibility had arrived. This they endeavoured to
avoid by feigning a comic sort of madness; and when this was reported
to Peter, he granted them their lives, but decreed that in every
subsequent act of theirs they should be held to be as mad as they had
pretended to be, and treated accordingly. This novel species of torture
does not seem very intolerable, but as they were retained at court,
the brothers found it past endurance. One of them sank into a deep
melancholy, and the other drank himself into raging madness, in order
to forget that men accounted him mad.
Peter, who judged so terribly of others, once submitted to judgment
himself. In a fit of frolicsome humour, he one evening placed one of
his jolly companions on the throne, before which the Czar stood to give
an account of his actions. At the side of the throne stood Peter’s
favourite fool, who made running comments on every phrase uttered by
the real or the pseudo-Czar, in the style of the ancient Chorus, or
rather in the merry fashion of Mr. Charles Mathews when representing
the ancient Chorus in a burlesque at the Haymarket. Peter came
indifferently off in presence of a judge and fool both of whom, having
full license of speech, used their liberty to the utmost, amid the
risibility of an ecstatic audience.
It is well known how Peter loved to play other parts besides that of
Czar. When, in London, he went to a masked ball at the Temple, he
appeared in the costume of a butcher. So he is described in Luttrell’s
Diary. We find a trait still more illustrative of his character, in
connection with a Christmas incident in his own country. Formerly,
we are told, there was a ceremony in Russia called “Slaevens.” It
consisted of a sledge procession which took place between Christmas
and the New Year, in which the clergy, splendidly attended, stopped
at certain houses, sang a _Te Deum laudamus_ or an occasional carol,
and received in return rich donations from those who wished to be
considered peculiarly orthodox Christians. Peter the Great once
witnessed this procession, and was so edified by the amount of the
contributions, that he relieved the clergy of all further trouble, by
a simple process. He placed himself, suitably attired, at the head
of the sledges and the Church, sang his own carols, and pocketed the
contributions of the loyal and the faithful, with the ecstasy of a man
who has discovered a new sensation combining profit with pleasure.
The men whom Peter sent into foreign countries to study art or science,
were all subjected by him, on their return, to strict examination. If
he found that they had profited by their studies, their reward was
certain; if they had come back almost as ignorant as when they had set
out, the penalty was also inevitable. They were degraded, made menial
servants, and placed on the list of fools. At the court of the Czarina
Anne, there were several of these individuals, over whom the chief
fool, Pedrillo, had absolute authority. They were employed in keeping
the imperial stoves supplied with wood, or in looking after the hounds,
and served as objects of ridicule to the Czarina and her whole court.