individual addressed as the “Patriarch of Russia,” and sometimes as
the “King of Siberia.” He was attired in sacerdotal robes, and covered
with loosely-hung gold and silver medals, which sounded musically
as he moved. It was a favourite trick with Peter, when he and the
Patriarch were equally drunk, to suddenly overturn him, chair and
all, and exhibit the reverend gentleman with his heels in the air.
There is record of a similar fool in the person of the “King of the
Samoieds.” He was a Pole who was boarded, and who received a rouble
monthly, for entertaining the Czar and court by the exercise of such
small wit as was reckoned at such low worth. This title of “King of
the Samoieds” was usually conferred by Peter on what may be styled
his occasional fools. Thus, meeting among the patients at the “Water
Cure,” at Alonaitz, in 1719, a Portuguese Jew, whose singularities
and comic bearing delighted the Czar, the latter first promoted him
to the equivocal distinction of “titular count,” and then conferred
on him the fool’s royalty in the Kingship of the Samoieds. The most
burlesque of coronations was subsequently performed in Peter’s
presence. It was to some such rank that the Czar elevated his own old
writing-master, Sotoff; and it may be observed that when the Russian
priests remonstrated against his distinguishing his fools by the title
of “patriarchs,” he changed the rank and addressed them as “priests.”
To the rank of court fool Peter also elevated the head cook of the
Czarina. The cook’s wife had, by her conduct, brought dishonour on her
husband, but Peter turned this to comic account. He would have the poor
official up at his state dinners, and overwhelm him with coarse jests
and gestures in presence of the guests. The cook, however, is said to
have occasionally answered so smartly, touching the Czar’s own domestic
matters, as to make his Majesty wince again. In exchange of gross
jokes, it was “like master, like man.” Neither time nor place was ever
thought of by Peter when his will or comfort was in question; and even
at church, in winter, when he felt cold, he would take off the wig of
the man nearest him, and clap it on his own head, returning it after
the service.
Thus the Czar made fools of various members of his household, and
different officers of his court, but he had one official court fool
whom he favoured above all others, and whom he carried abroad with
him to foreign courts,--among others to those of England and France.
At the latter court the buffoon produced almost as much effect as his
master. The period of Peter’s sudden arrival in Paris, was that of the
boyhood of Louis XV. He had travelled so swiftly from Holland, that his
appearance in the French capital was the first intimation received by
the authorities there of his having left the “pays de canaux, canards,
et canaille,” as Voltaire flippantly designated the Dutch territory.
Peter was accompanied by the Princes Kourakin and Dolgorouki, by Baron
Schaffirofy, and by his ambassador, Tolstoi. But, distinguished above
these was Sotoff, the buffoon. He had originally been employed by
Peter to instruct him in the art of writing. In one respect, all the
followers of the Czar were on an equality, for there was not one of
them who had not, in his turn, suffered exile, imprisonment, or the
knout. There was no opportunity, therefore, for any one to reproach his
fellows.
How Peter looked, and walked, and talked, and danced, and tossed the
little King in his arms, and sneered at the Regent Duke of Orleans,
and uttered much nonsense, and drank bottles of beer in his box at the
opera; all these matters are chronicled by Saint-Simon and Cardinal
Dubois, according to the point of view of the individual chronicler.
The Cardinal seems to have been more particularly struck with the
buffoon. The court of France no longer possessed official jesters,
and Sotoff was a marvel and a novelty to the Cardinal. The latter, or
the writer who drew up the autobiographical memoirs, from the notes
and papers of Dubois, speaks with evident surprise of the presence
and duties of Sotoff, who was not only privileged but commanded to
give expression to every form of folly, without being in fear of any
application of the knout. What jests he uttered were incomprehensible
to Dubois and the French court, for Sotoff could only speak his native
Russian; and in that language he uttered comments on all around him
which raised the hilarity of the Muscovites, and excited the surprise,
curiosity, and perhaps the vexation of the French courtiers. Sotoff,
too, was singular in his appearance. He was at this time an aged dwarf,
with long snowy hair flowing over his shoulders. He was so ugly and so
deformed, that, according to the Cardinal, the very sight of him was
almost insupportable to the refined and handsome nobles and ladies of
the French court. Dubois compares the sound of his voice to the harsh
croaking of frogs. In spite of all this, his wit and humour were very
much to the taste of Peter, who could listen to a comedy of Molière’s
without once smiling, but who could never hear a remark from Sotoff,
the court fool, without growing weak from mere excess of laughter.
Sotoff was a man of low birth, but Russia has been especially
remarkable for her fools of high degree, among whom Princes have not
only been reckoned, but proud to find themselves upon the motley
register. The famous Ice Palace, erected by order of the Czarina Anne,
is one of those wonders of which most persons have heard. It was
erected for the celebration of the marriage of Prince Galitzin. It is
not, however, generally known that the Prince, who was between forty
and fifty, and already had a son, a lieutenant in the army, was on the
register of pages and court fools. This registration was a punishment
inflicted on him for having changed his religion, from orthodox
Russo-Greek to Roman Catholic. It was at the Czarina’s bidding that the
princely fool wedded with a girl of low birth, and it was in obedience
to the same high authority that couples from every province in the
empire came up to do honour to the nuptial festival. A procession
of above three hundred persons started from the imperial palace and
traversed the city. The bride and bridegroom were under a canopy, on an
elephant; some of the guests followed on camels, and others rode in
sledges (for it was midwinter of 1739), and their sledges were in the
shape of animals of various species, and were filled with passengers
looking as singular as the conveyances themselves. After the ceremony,
a banquet was given in honour of the Duke of Courland, where each
couple ate their own peculiar provincial dish; and this was followed
by a ball. The ball concluded, the married pair were conducted to the
Ice Palace, their temporary home. It stood on the banks of the Neva;
and was composed of large blocks of ice cemented into one mass by
water. In length it was sixty feet, in breadth eighteen feet, and in
height twenty-one feet. In front was an ice portico, with ice columns
and statues. Behind these were the single floor, divided into two
apartments, all of ice, with the doors and windows painted in imitation
of green marble. Two ice dolphins spouted forth naphtha flames to
light the procession over the threshold; and two ice mortars and
three ice cannon fired several volleys of welcome without breaking.
The two apartments were divided by a lobby; they were well furnished
with elegant ice tables, ice chairs, ice statues, mirrors, candelabra,
glass, plate, in short, every possible article that could be thought
of, and all of ice. The bedroom had state bed, sheets, curtains, two
night-caps, etc., all of ice. About the exterior were ornamental
pyramids, a conservatory, with birds on the trees, a bath-house, and
other appendages, of the same cold material. The whole was brilliantly
illuminated, and into this Temple of Isis the Prince and his bride were
solemnly conducted, and a guard-of-honour placed at the gate prevented
any intrusion on the married couple, or any attempt of the latter to
escape from the cold hospitality provided for them by the Czarina. This
joke was so highly approved of, that to build ice palaces, though not
to have performed in them the same play, became an imperial weakness.
With regard, however, to court fools, it is a singular fact that
Russia has not only made such officials out of foreign ambassadors whom
she has duped by dint of that mingled piety and mendacity which betray
the Tartar blood within her; but she has also commissioned her own
envoys to play the rude jester at the courts of Kings whom she would
fain bring into contempt,--and could bully with safety.
Such an agent as this, Russia found in the representative Repuin,
whom she retained at the court of the last King of Poland, Stanislaus
Poniatowsky. The arrogance of the Muscovite ambassador was extremely
offensive, but his power of joking was quite as frequently employed,
when he had a political end in view. One day he bullied or supported
the King; at another time he rendered him contemptible by sarcasms
uttered against him, in his hearing. Lord Malmesbury, in the first
volume of his Diaries and Correspondence, dated from Warsaw, in 1767,
gives several instances of unseemly liberties taken by Repuin with
the King, such as Scogan himself would have hesitated to take with
the royal Edward, who allowed him privilege of speech and action. One
sample from the measure piled up by Lord Malmesbury will suffice:--“At
the Primate’s, it was a question of some of the ancient Polish monarchs
who, being driven from their own kingdom, were obliged, by way of
support, to exercise some trade,--one particularly who, for awhile, was
a goldsmith at Florence. The present King, discoursing on this topic,
said, he should be extremely embarrassed, if he was to be put to the
trial, as he knew no way of getting his livelihood. ‘Pardon me. Sire,’
said the Ambassador, ‘your Majesty still knows how to dance well.’ What
should we think,” asks Lord Malmesbury, “if we heard an ambassador tell
our King, ‘If all trades fail, your Majesty may turn dancing-master’?”
There is no fear, however, of such a polite observation being made at
our court by any Russian joculator in an ambassador’s dress. These
arrogant agents know how to be submissive; and, in presence of a
monarch to be respected, can sink to the ground, like a cowardly boy
who avoids a blow from a bold adversary, or a Russian fleet in presence
of a resolute enemy.
The Czar Paul had around him a number of that class of jesters who
found favour with Peter; and he was further delighted to be made merry
by the comic French actors who visited his capital. It was not always
safe for these, however, to jest with him too roughly; as may be seen
in the case of Fougère, the actor, who taking the jester’s privilege
to speak freely to Paul once at supper, and to mock at his vaunted
abilities, was punished for it by being dragged from his bed, in the
night, tossed into a van which did not admit the light of day, and
carried off, as he was politely informed, to his extreme horror, to
Siberia. After several weeks had been spent in the journey, Fougère
reached his destination, and on his eyes being unbandaged, he found
himself in presence of Paul and a joyous number of _convives_, all of
whom laughed heartily at the capital jest, whereby Fougère had been
made to believe that he was being conveyed to Siberia, when he was only
being drawn round and round St. Petersburg, for whole weeks.
Nicholas, who may be said to have swam to his throne in the blood of
his subjects in the capital, and to have been washed from it by the
same sanguinary deluge at Sebastopol, had, like his father Paul, his
frolicsome humours and facetious whims. Of course he did not keep
court fools; but he would sometimes catch a fool and compel him to
exhibit for the amusement of his court. He once captured an individual
of this species in the person of Save Saveitch Yakovloff. The young
gentleman with this cacophonous appellation had been an officer in the
Guards, and had been commissioned to purchase horses for his regiment.
As, however, he had not cheated the vendors, and brought back steeds
worth double the money which had been entrusted to him wherewith to
buy them, his condition in his regiment was rendered intolerable, and
he was forced out of it by a series of small but wearying nuisances.
He applied for permission to travel, but was refused. In disgrace and
involuntary idleness, all state employment denied him, Save was puzzled
for a time as to what occupation he could turn to. After consideration,
he resolved to set up in the capital as the glass of fashion, and he
appeared in public in the most exaggerated costumes, founded on French
and English books of fashion. He one day presented himself on the
Nevski Prospect in the following guise. On his head was a little peaked
hat like a flowerpot reversed; his beard was _à la Henri Quatre_;
his cravat was a thick scarf tied in a gigantic bow; his cloak was a
little _Almaviva_; in one hand he carried a knotted cudgel, with the
other he held a small glass to his eye, and between his legs, or at
his side, waddled the most ugly and costly of bulldogs. He was thus
airing himself when the Imperial carriage passed; Nicholas sat therein;
his eye rested for a moment on the “exquisite,” and then the Czar
beckoned to the “fool,” who hurried up, thinking that his fortune was
re-established.
A dialogue ensued, which I give on the authority of Michelsen, who may
be safely trusted. “Pray,” said Nicholas, eyeing him with humorous
curiosity, “in the name of all the saints, who are you, and where do
you come from?”
“May it please your Majesty, I have the honour to be your Majesty’s
faithful subject, Save Saveitch Yakovloff.”
“Indeed!” replied the Emperor, with much gravity, “we are enchanted to
have the opportunity of making your acquaintance, Save Saveitch. Oblige
us by just stepping up, and take a seat beside us.”
Yakovloff slyly dropped the cudgel, and, not without some misgiving,
took his seat.
“But stop,” said the Emperor, when they had driven on a little way,
“where is your stick, Save Saveitch?”
“Never mind the stick, your Majesty.”
“But I do mind it, Save Saveitch Yakovloff.” The carriage was turned
back, the cudgel picked up, and orders were given to drive on straight
to the Winter Palace. When there, the Emperor alighted and made a
signal to his alarmed fellow-traveller to follow. “O Save Saveitch,”
said he sarcastically, “pray do not take off your cloak! we must
have you--hat, stick, cloak and all.” The Emperor led the way to the
apartments of the Empress.
“Pray, my dear,” inquired he, “do you know this animal?”
“No,” replied the Empress, unable to repress a laugh at the strange
figure before her.
“Then allow me to inform you this is our faithful subject Save Saveitch
Yakovloff. What do you think of him?” said Nicholas, turning him round,
“is not he a pretty fellow?”
The unfortunate Save Saveitch, whose feelings may be imagined, after
having afforded the royal couple much diversion, was dismissed,
half-dead with terror and confusion; but before he departed, he
received a salutary hint that the Czar did not always punish the
foolery of his subjects so leniently.--In short, Nicholas, after using
poor Save as a court fool, was mean enough to dismiss him without a
court fool’s wages.
Thus much to illustrate my subject with regard to Russia. There is not
much to be added in reference to the other Northern courts. In the
autobiography of Christina, Queen of Sweden, which forms part of the
ponderous memoirs of that sovereign by Archenholz, she tells the world
that when in her youth the Regency of Sweden had determined to provide
her with apartments separate from those of the Queen-Mother, the latter
opposed it with vehement anger and sorrow, while Christina herself,
with all her tender respect for the widow of Gustavus Adolphus,
approved of the measure with as vehement delight. “I was afraid,”
says the lively Queen, “that she would be a grand obstacle in the
way of my studies and exercises, which annoyed me much, for I had an
extreme desire to learn.” Besides, adds Christina, “the Queen-Mother
took delight in maintaining a number of buffoons and dwarfs in her
apartments, which were always full of them, after the German fashion.
Such a fashion was insupportable to me, for I have a natural aversion
against that wretched class of beings.”
Flögel traces the Scandinavian jesters back to the period of the
Scalds (the Skial, or wise men), who were also called Spekinge (from
_speke_, wisdom), from which, he says, is derived our word _speak_,
which, however, is not always in connection with wisdom. The Sapphic
verses of the Scalds often conveyed a double meaning, and perhaps this
species of wit caused the idea of the bards being a species of jesters.
That they were magnificently rewarded there is no doubt, seeing that
Hiarne, the Scald, wrote an epitaph on Frotho I. of Denmark, which so
delighted the people that they elected the poet to the vacant throne.
The people must have been poor judges of poetry, for the epitaph is but
an indifferent production. And then the story is doubtful, belonging
to the period anterior to that of Harald in the ninth century, all the
details of which are mythic and contradictory. One fact, nevertheless,
connects the Scald with the jester; both were licensed to sing or speak
with impunity. The former might make his harp ring to the intoning
of the royal faults, just as the fool might raise the laughter of a
court by sarcastic allusion to kingly foibles. And, moreover, there
were several Scandinavian Kings who were their own Scalds, as we have
seen several princes who were their own fools. The parallel may,
perhaps, be allowed to pass; the more, that the wit of the Scald was
generally as incomprehensible and cumbersome as that of some of the
early court jesters. Fancy the verse which literally runs:--“I hang
the round hammered yawning serpent at the tongue of the falcon-bridge,
by the gallows of the shield of Odin,” to mean nothing more than,
“I put the ring on the finger of the hand, near the arm!” Here was
euphonistic folly! And the words, too, were mixed up unconnectedly,
having no meaning at all as they originally stood; and through what a
circumlocution-office of construing and interpreting had the student to
go before he reached the thing signified! The _falcon-bridge_ was the
hand on which the falconer carried his bird. The _tongue_ of the bridge
was the little finger; and the _gallows of the shield of Odin_, was the
arm on which the warrior’s shield was wont to be suspended!
They were mighty fellows, those Scalds, in the days of heathenism, but
as Christianity dawned and rose, their power decreased. They became
court poets, which, according to Ménage, was the same as court fool,
and they sank into ordinary minstrels, who sang, as their historians
say, with more truth than refinement, simply to “fill their bellies.”
Like the Italian fools, the Scandinavian jesters seem to have been mere
practical jokers. Of one, who was not clever enough to transmit his
name to posterity, we are told that a King of Denmark once accepted
his invitation to repair to an old castle, and there drink ale-soup
with him; and that the fool, conducting his Majesty to the sea-+side,
remarked, “There is the soup; when you have finished that you shall
have the ale.” At a much later period the fool is to be found in
another capacity; thus, at the triumphal entry of Admiral Bagge, there
figured in the procession “the court fool Hercules,” whose duty it was
to play on the fiddle. Nothing however is said of his proficiency.
In Scandinavia, as elsewhere, the fool is sometimes seen in the light
of excellent counsellor and acute statesman. This was the case with
the jester of Frederick II. of Denmark, about 1580, when that monarch
happened to be in much perplexity touching a bargain he had made, or
half made, with some English merchants at Copenhagen. He had been
induced to accept their offer to purchase the island of Huen, in the
Sound, at the cost of as much English scarlet cloth as would reach all
round the island, and a piece of gold for every fold of the cloth.
The perplexity of Frederick arose from the fact that he had bethought
himself, if the English possessed Huen they might fortify it, and with
their fleets blockade the Sound itself. He was sorely puzzled, for
he wished to break the bargain without seeming to break his word. He
looked in utter helplessness at his fool; and the fool, smiling at
the supposed difficulty, came to the King’s relief. “You have only to
tell the English merchants,” said the descendant of Yorick, “that in
standing to your contract, it is understood that as soon as they pay
the price of the purchase, they must remove the article purchased; for
it is not to be imagined that you sell such an unwieldy article, to let
it stick at your door, or to let them stick on it in your very jaws.”
The King was delighted; he wriggled out of his bargain, by the fool’s
good aid, and the popular voice added the name of the Scarlet Isle to
that of Huen, or Venusia.
These brief notices will perhaps suffice to show the quality of the
joculator in the Northern Courts. The next chapter will as briefly
illustrate the Motley of Spain.
THE SPANISH JESTERS.
In one of the letters addressed by the anxious Chesterfield to his son,
the discerning Peer remarks: “There is at all courts a chain which
connects the Prince or the Minister with the page of the backstairs
or the chambermaid. The King’s wife or mistress has an influence over
him; a lover has an influence over her; the chambermaid or _valet de
chambre_ has an influence over both; and so _ad infinitum_. You must
therefore,” adds the estimable trainer of his child, “not break a link
of that chain, by which you hope to climb up to the prince.”
With a little modification, such as “fool” for _valet de chambre_, this
counsel would not have been without value to any young Spaniard about
to push his fortunes at any one of the royal courts once scattered
over the length and breadth of now united Spain. At these courts,
the jester was paramount in influence. The introduction of the merry
official is said to date from the entry of the Troubadours from the
south of France. This joyous company brought with them many methods of
entertaining royal and noble listeners, but they gradually degenerated,
as the minstrels did in other countries, into buffoons,--and probably
found the latter the more profitable profession of the two.
James II., King of Majorca, provided for the merry professors in the
royal household, by establishing them there, under the protection of
the law. “From ancient times,” as tradition tells us, so runs the
decree, “it has been lawful for Mimes or Jesters to reside in princes’
households; for the execution of their office is a provocative to
gladness. Wherefore, we will and ordain, that in our court there shall
always be five jesters, of which five, two may be trumpeters, and a
third our letter-carrier (_tabellarius_).” This arrangement left the
other two in close attendance upon their royal patron.
That these officials were not always addicted to joking, may be
seen in the case of the anonymous fool, who is said to have stabbed
Theudis, or Theodored, the royal Groth, at the Council of Toledo. It
is believed, however, that the assassin only feigned folly in order to
obtain freer access to the person of the prince. Generally speaking,
the Spanish fools seem to have been as merry fellows as Figaro, whose
office of barber was indeed frequently exercised, like that of the
jester, with infinite mirth and much impunity. So merry were some of
these _Joculatores_, that one king, at least, is said to have died of
laughter at a fool’s jest. This king must have been very easy to kill,
if we may judge by the joke which, as we are told, proved mortal to him.
The monarch in question was Martin of Arragon, who reigned from 1394
to 1410. His favourite jester was the renowned Borra, who drove such
a thriving trade by his jokes, that he is said to have been worth a
ton of gold. He looked down upon many a poor philosopher, remarking
the while, “I have made more by my folly than that fellow by all his
wisdom!” His influence with the King was unbounded, and the bribes he
received in consequence tended very much to increase his fortune. What
he obtained in this way can only be guessed at. That his jokes were
rewarded in magnificent style, we may judge from the circumstance which
occurred when Borra exerted himself professionally at a banquet at
which Sigismund, afterwards Emperor, was present. The latter, pleased
with Borra, so loaded him with silver ere he left the room, that the
fool could not carry it away without bending. Folly was never more
richly paid, except, perhaps, by Queen Sibylla da Forcia, who paid her
joculators in gold, and much pleasanter coin besides.