CHRISTIAN IN PARIS.
CAROLINE MATILDA AT HOME--COURT INTRIGUES--FRANCE UNDER MADAME DE
POMPADOUR--MANNERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY--THE DUBARRY--FRENCH
LADIES--CASANOVA--LOUIS XV. AND CHRISTIAN--FESTIVITIES--POETICAL
FLUMMERY--CHRISTIAN'S PRIVATE AMUSEMENTS--THE HOMEWARD
JOURNEY--RETURN TO COPENHAGEN.
Before we accompany Christian VII. to the Circæan capital of Europe, it
will not be labour ill bestowed to take a glance at the mode of conduct
pursued by his wife during his absence. We have seen that her _entourage_
did not suit her, and she therefore lived in the most perfect retirement.
Though courted by the conflicting parties which were beginning to
be formed, she joined none, and did not show the least ambition for
political power. She appeared to feel a truly maternal affection for her
child, and, in spite of remonstrances, had the infant and nurse to sleep
in her apartment. She sometimes visited, and was visited by, the queen
dowager and Prince Frederick, but generally remained in great seclusion.
The only occasion on which she took part in public festivities was
on the unveiling of the equestrian statue of the late king, which was
erected by the India Company. The queens regnant and dowager accepted
an invitation from Count Moltke to witness the ceremony from his house,
which faced the site of the statue.
The queen had grown in stature, and appeared much more womanly than when
she arrived in Denmark. The glow of robust health was on her cheek: she
frequently nursed her child, and a more interesting subject for a picture
could scarcely be conceived than this healthy and lively young queen
playing with her babe. During this state of retirement, Matilda visited
the houses of the farmers and peasants who resided near the palace;
and though she could not converse fluently with these poor grateful
people, she gained their warm hearts by her condescension in visiting
their cottages, smiling graciously on their wives and daughters, and
distributing useful presents. Thus innocently Matilda passed her time
during the travels of her wild and dissipated husband.[74]
Juliana Maria, on her side, lived in great retirement with her son
Frederick, at her château of Fredensborg.[75] The small party of
courtiers who surrounded her were attached to her more by their salaries
than any affection. It is true that the terms on which the two queens
notoriously stood to each other attracted the attention of the courtiers;
but they were still too vague and undecided for any certain plan to be
based on them. The entire decay of the queen dowager's influence on the
one hand, and the too little known character of Caroline Matilda on the
other, promised them no support, if they declared for either party.
The king, on his departure, had displayed neither the sentiments of an
obedient son nor the attention of a loving husband, and none of the
statesmen at the head of affairs appeared to be in special favour with
him. The friendship of the courtiers, which never springs up without
selfish views, and cannot last without tangible advantages, hence saw no
object that could decide their choice.[76]
One thing appears tolerably certain, that Juliana Maria, while remaining
in seclusion, neglected no opportunity for widening the breach between
the young couple. Queen Matilda, it is evident, was kept well informed
of her husband's transgressions, as the following passage, taken from a
letter to her aunt, the Princess Amelia, will show:--
"I wish the king's travels had the same laudable objects as those of
Cyrus; but I find that the chief visitors of his Majesty are musicians,
fiddlers, and other persons designed for some employments still more
inglorious: what a wretched levee! His evenings' amusements are still
more disgraceful, since delicacy and sentiment cannot be supposed to
dignify such transient gratifications. Had I not already experienced his
fickleness and levity at home, I could not have heard without emotion and
disquietude of his divers infidelities abroad. But as it is the monarch,
not the man, I received injunctions to marry, the consciousness of having
strictly adhered to my duty to his Majesty, and the respect I owe to
myself, form a secret satisfaction which neither malice nor envy can
deprive me of."
On the other hand, it appears tolerably certain that Juliana Maria
was a constant correspondent of Christian, and insinuated many things
against his wife's conduct. We are told that she went so far as to state
that the queen had been too intimate with some of her favourites, and
insinuated that several of his most faithful nobles had retired to their
estates during his absence, in order to avoid the insults of some new
men admitted to the young queen's favour. All these false and malicious
insinuations alienated the king's affection still more from his amiable
consort, who saw herself surrounded by spies who were devoted to a
dangerous enemy.[77]
Had it been possible to corrupt Christian's morals to any greater extent,
his short stay in Paris would have effected it. Since 1745, France had
been slowly and surely going down the slope that led to revolution.
Through internal and external misgovernment she had been driven nearer to
moral and social ruin, to a deficit, to utter dislocation and corruption;
but, for all that, the fifteenth Louis le Bienaimé was in excellent
case. The ancien régime, with its "gabelles," and "tailles," its "pactes
de famille" and "acquits de comptant," its "lettres de cachet," its
Bastille, and its "cages de fer," with all its frivolity, hardness of
heart, shamelessness, and recklessness, was on the point of sinking into
the last stage of atrophy; but the royal roué, money clipper, and coffee
boiler, continued to find amusement for himself.
What a scene was that presented toward the end of February, 1745, when
the Hôtel de Ville of Paris gleamed with a thousand lights, and its
halls rang with seductive music! The city gave a ball to the court,
as a return for the festivities which had accompanied the marriage of
Louis the Dauphin. France was embroiled in an unfortunate war, which
paved the way for one still more unfortunate: but the court danced.
The king alone, of all the company, seemed absent and sad; while his
wife, the poor, good Maria Leczinska, found a motive for living in her
phlegm and her piety, his "favorite declarée," the "maîtresse en titre,"
the Duchesse de Chateauroux, took it into her head to die. The haughty
noblesse of France, whom Louis XIV. had tamed, who had been corrupted
by the _rouerie_ of the Regent, and degraded by Louis XV. to the duties
of the seraglio; the nobility of France, who had accustomed themselves
to reckon among their privileges that of supplying royal concubines
"du sang et rang," were most anxious to fill up the gap left by the
deceased duchesse. But this time even the practised Duc and Maréchal de
Richelieu failed, and in vain did that charming creature, the Duchesse de
Rochechouart, display all her Hebe-like charms, in the hope of succeeding
the Chateauroux. It was decreed that the French aristocracy should lose
one of their most precious privileges.
The Hôtel de Ville ball had attained the acme of its splendour. The
superbly decorated rooms which a few lustres later were to re-echo
saturnalia of a frightfully different nature, were crowded with
quaint and graceful maskers. Rococo was present in all the glory and
fancifulness of its refined voluptuousness, and a remarkably rich show
of feminine charms, heightened by all the coquetry of the toilette, was
offered to the choice of the royal purchaser, for the more official
object of the ball was to alleviate the "tristesse" of the lord of
France, and offer a remedy for his sadness in the form of a lovely
duchesse, comtesse, or baronesse.
Poor women of an immoral age! how many a girl, after her maid and
milliner had done their utmost, had been instructed by her mother, how
many a wife by her husband, how she should behave on this night in order
to attract and retain the king's favourable glances! For it was a sign of
an utterly corrupted epoch, that mothers considered they fulfilled a duty
in teaching their daughters to seek the highest honour in the deepest
disgrace.
This time, however, the plebeian rivalry was destined to bear away
the prize from the aristocrats. The Heliogabalus of France had really
forgotten his melancholy amid this abundance of beauty and seductions.
His restless eyes were at length fixed by a tall, graceful, fair-haired
girl, masked _en Amazone_, with bow and quiver on her shoulder, with
floating hair, and heaving bosom. "Charming huntress!" His most Christian
Majesty addressed her: "Happy the man who may be struck by thy arrows."
To speak in the style of the Academy, this was a splendid moment to
fire a dart into the king's heart; but whether the young Amazon had not
been properly trained, or did not take the hint, she disappeared among
the crowd of dancers. When on the point of pursuing her, the Bienaimé
was impeded by an English country dance, performed by a bevy of young
ladies. He devoured this "bouquet," so full of fresh charms, and, as our
authority says, "incertain, il eut voulu les posséder toutes." The king
went further, and surveyed at the end of the room the amphitheatrical
daïs on which "les femmes de médiocre condition" were seated. Here, too,
his Majesty found much to look at, much to admire; till a female mask
forced her way through the beautiful crowd, and teased the king with
masquerade freedom. The graceful coquetry of this teasing attracted
Louis's curiosity: there was a grisettish _esprit_ in the words of the
beauty, something new and piquant for the worn-out roué. He begged her
to unmask, and she did so while flying, and, as she fled, she let her
handkerchief fall. The delighted king picked it up, and threw it over the
heads of the ladies to its owner. A whisper immediately ran through the
hall, "Le mouchoir est jété!"[78]
The sultan had thrown the handkerchief, but not to a perfect stranger.
He had met the beauty frequently of late: while hunting in the forest
of Sénart, she had passed him, gracefully reclining in her phaeton.
Mademoiselle Poisson, now Madame d'Etioles, the daughter of a scoundrel,
had been artistically trained by her mother to become an Odalisque. She
had so often repeated to her daughter, "Tu es un morceau de roi," that
the girl at last believed it, and prepared herself for the honour. In the
interim, she married M. d'Etioles, the rich nephew of her mother's lover,
which,--such was the nature of court morality at the period,--proved
no obstacle, but rather a motive for her future exalted position. Her
mother, with this object, negotiated with the king's first valet, Sieur
Binet, the notorious predecessor of the more notorious Lebel; and the
talent of Madame d'Etioles effected the rest.
The masked ball at the Hôtel de Ville entailed the finale. Ere long,
Jeanne Antoinette Poisson was invited by his most Christian Majesty "pour
souper dans ses petits cabinets et pour coucher avec elle." Immediately
after, this woman of one-and-twenty years of age, who had been married
four years and borne her husband two children, was solemnly presented at
court under the title of a Marquise de Pompadour, to the queen, princes,
and princesses, and in due form declared "maîtresse en titre;" that
is, as matters stood, the mistress of France. Poor M. d'Etioles, "qui
idolâtrait sa femme," tried at first to be disagreeable, but was sent on
his travels, and eventually became appeased.
Everybody knows how the marquise governed France: it was she who made the
alliance with Austria and sent Prince de Soubise to Rossbach. Under her
government, France soon sank to such a point that Chesterfield, writing
home in December, 1753, from Paris, declared that he found in that city
all the signs of an impending revolution, such as are read of in history.
Poisson-Pompadour ruled, and woe to the man who tried to oppose her
autocracy: the dungeons of the Bastille or the iron cages of Mont St.
Michel received the victims to the revenge of the Babylonish woman. The
chanson and the satiric couplet alone dared to flash in the dark, and at
times darted their shafts into the innermost apartments of the omnipotent
lady.
In order to surround the _blasé_ sultan with all the varying charms
of seductiveness, the Pompadour, by Richelieu's advice, erected in
the park of Versailles a hermitage, where she tried to arouse the
blunted imagination of the roué, who had enjoyed everything and misused
everything, by dressing herself as a gardener's wife, or as a milkmaid,
or even as a nun. Nay, more: when these lures lost their charm in time,
when the mistress heard that his most Christian Majesty was tired of her,
and declared that she was as cold as a "macreuse," she assumed even more
infamous duties, and with Lebel established the Parc aux Cerfs, which
will remain an undying stain on regal France.
But even more horrible, possibly, is it to read, how the desire of
imitating the career of the Pompadour--the wish, the hope, the longing
to obtain the rank of maîtresse titrée--spread all over France, from the
pestilential court atmosphere of Versailles to every point where a pretty
girl was growing up. How shamelessly people acted in this respect, is
recorded by Casanova, in his account of Mademoiselle Roman-Coupier, of
Toulouse, who, however, only succeeded in becoming an untitled concubine.
The corruption of kings is everywhere met half way by the villany of
the nations. Regarding the matter humanly, this offers a species of
palliation for Louis XV. and his co-religionists.
Après nous le déluge! was a fearful remark, which the Pompadour, in
the intoxication of her frivolity and might, or perhaps in a moment of
agony and desperation, replied to a friend who warned her against the
future; and the deluge came, but that of terror was preceded by that of
vulgarity. The ancien régime sank, draining the cup of vice to the dregs,
from the reign of the Poisson to that of the Dubarry--that Dubarry, who,
under the name of Mademoiselle L'Ange, had wallowed in the vicious mud of
Paris ere his most Christian Majesty raised her to his couch. The lowest
of all Hetæras, stretching herself on a bed of purple silk, and at her
feet the King of France, busily engaged in boiling his mistress's coffee,
and rewarding with a laugh of pleasure her Billingsgate remarks. What a
picture!
Or, take as counterpart, the "maîtresse en titre," conversing with the
noblest ladies at court, one of whom, Madame de Beauveau, quietly replied
to the Dubarry's remark that they seemed to have a personal hatred for
her, "By no means; we should only like to be in your place--that is all."
The woman, in whose place the noblest-born ladies wished themselves,
dragged the language of the pothouse and the bagnio into the apartments
of Versailles; and Louis XV. took such a delight in this mode of
conversation, that he christened Mesdames, his four legitimate daughters,
the Princesses Sophie, Adelaide, Louise, and Victorine, "graille, chiffe,
loque, et coche."
This king even dishonoured and trailed in the mud the prestige of
royalty. What his extravagance cost France in ready money, no one
has been able to state certainly, but the lowest estimates amount to
200,000,000 of francs; and at that day, when millions could not be
conjured as they are now-a-day, a million was a large sum. But while
creatures like the Pompadour and the Dubarry had millions lavished on
them, the people, from whom the royal forestaller exacted these millions,
were starving. One day, while hunting in the forest of Sénart, the
"well-beloved" met a peasant carrying a coffin in his cart. "Where are
you taking that coffin?"--"To the village of L----." "Is it intended for
a man or a woman?"--"For a man." "What did he die of?"--"Starvation." The
king drove his spurs into his horse. Did he feel a burning within him
like the flames of Hades? I doubt it. He had only a cynical laugh for
everything, even for the monkey-tricks performed by his mistress at the
council of state. Was it surprising that the most awful things should be
believed about such a king?--that a rumour spread among the populace that
it was one of the mysteries of the Parc aux Cerfs that the king tried to
stimulate his senses by baths of children's blood?
I need hardly stop to discuss the views and morals of French society
under such a king; but a man who was a member of this society--a man who
did not reproach it, but comfortably swam with the stream of vice--shall
tell us something about it. "The gallantry which had prevailed at the
court of Louis XIV. became, in the time of the Regency, unbridled
sensuality. Under Louis XV., the gentlemen were solely engaged in
augmenting the lists of their mistresses, and the ladies in depriving
each other of their lovers with marked publicity. Husbands, compelled
to suffer what they could not prevent, without making themselves in the
highest degree ridiculous, adopted the safe remedy of no longer living
with their wives. They only met them at public resorts; but at other
times, though living under the same roof, they never came together.
Matrimony was regarded as a mere matter of money, and generally as an
inconvenience, which could only be avoided by laying aside all the duties
it entailed. Morals, it is true, were ruined by this; but good society
(_la société_) gained enormously. Freed from the constraint and coldness
which the presence of husbands and wives always produces, the liberty
was unbounded. The mutual coquetry of gentlemen and ladies enlivened
everything, and supplied every day with piquant adventures."[79]
In truth, there was no want of such piquancy as we read of in Suetonius,
Petronius, and Juvenal. Princesses behaved at night, in the garden
of the Palais Royal, in such a way as to place themselves on a level
with its professional _habituées_. Such was the case with the Duchesse
de Chartres, mother of Philippe Egalité, who was publicly told by an
offended rival: "Je n'ai pas encore éprouvé, madame, qu'on eût besoin
d'argent pour trouver des amoureux."
Or take Magdaleine de Villeroy, Duchesse de Boufflers, who contrived
to become a woman "qu'il fallait que tout homme de bon air mît sur sa
liste." In the life of this woman, perhaps the slightest scandal was that
she lived quite openly with the Maréchal de Luxembourg, while the latter,
as a compensation, just as openly placed his own wife at the disposal
of his mistress's husband. One day the Duc de Durfort, one of this
lady's countless admirers, gave her a supper, and, to amuse the company,
invited the comedian Chassé. After the lady had imbibed an inordinate
quantity of champagne, as was her wont, she so unequivocally revealed
her inclinations toward the actor that the host thought it advisable to
dismiss him. The duchesse, however, rushed, with flying hair, down the
street after him, shrieking, "Je le veux! Je le veux!"
Such were the ladies whom the Prince de Conti was justified in insulting,
by saying to Louis XV., when the latter asked him why France produced
no more marshals, "C'est qu'aujourd'hui nos femmes ont affaire à leurs
laquais." In this circle, which only lived for the lowest sensuality,
everything was degraded. Thus there was a Duc de Gesvres, who assumed the
manner and avocations of a woman; he rouged himself, wielded the fan, and
worked embroidery. Everything was brought low, everything disgraced; and
a levity of the most odious nature was displayed in religious matters.
What could the Church be and signify with persons who had seen a Dubois
made a cardinal? And was not Bernis, too, a cardinal?--the same Bernis,
christened "Suzon la Bouquetière," who once preached at the reception
of a nun of noble birth, and had the misfortune, while going into the
pulpit, to let fall a piece of paper, on which he had written a most
scandalous couplet about the novice.
As is usual in such degenerate times, the coarsest superstition was
mixed up with the most frivolous free-thinking. The spirit of religious
reform, brutally suppressed on its manifestation as Jansenism, had only
been able to penetrate the universal rottenness in the caricature of
Convulsionism. After the immoral mania of these revivalists went out of
fashion, calling up spirits and demons grew popular among the great. At
court, Saint Germain, the manufacturer of diamonds and the elixir of
life, the predecessor of the clumsy charlatan Cagliostro, was called on
to kill time for the yawning king and the Pompadour. In the Palais Royal,
Casanova erected his cabalistic pyramids of figures; and for the entire
fashionable female world, the coffee-cup of the fortune-teller Bontemps
was a Delphic oracle. With extravagance and superstition, their sister,
cruelty, naturally went hand in hand. When in March, 1757, Damiens was
executed, the fashionable ladies hurried to a nameless act of barbarism,
at their head being the pretty wife of Popelinière, the farmer-general,
who had gained a great reputation in society by a scandalous intrigue
with the sinner of sinners, the Duc de Richelieu. In order to learn what
people were capable of in the Paris of that day, the reader ought to be
acquainted with the awful sketch drawn by Casanova, the most decried but
most masterly painter of the morals of the eighteenth century, of the
execution of Damiens.
In the midst of this ocean of _boue de Paris_ there was one source of
consolation; in spite of the shame with which Soubise and his consorts
had stained the lily banner, the warlike temper of the French was not
utterly destroyed. In such an age as the one we are describing, there is
something doubly cheering in reading of that well-known trait of French
chivalry which characterises an episode of the battle of Fontenoy. The
English and French guards marched to meet each other for a combat which
would become very murderous. "Messieurs des gardes Françaises," Lord
Charles Hay shouted from the English ranks, "tirez!" "Non, my lord,"
Comte d'Auteroche replied from the French side; "nous ne tirons jamais
les prémiers."[80] And there is more than chivalrous courtesy, there is
the noblest heroism, in the circumstance that at the surprise, on 16th
October, 1760, which the hereditary prince of Brunswick attempted at
Kloster Kamp upon the Marquis de Castries, the Chevalier d'Assas, of the
Auvergne regiment, when surrounded at the outposts by the enemy, still
shouted, under the menace of a hundred bayonets, the warning cry, "A moi,
Auvergne, voilá les ennemis!"[81]
Christian landed at Calais, and though he now resumed his incognito, and
travelled as a Count of Gottorp, he was everywhere received as king. He
reached Paris on the 21st, passing through Saint Omer, Lille, Douai,
Valenciennes, and Cambrai, and lodged at the York palace, which had been
engaged for his stay in the French capital, and where he was complimented
by the Duc de Choiseul, in the name of the absent King Louis XV., and
invited to Fontainebleau.
Being now in the country whose language was most fluent and agreeable to
him, Christian VII. visited on the day after his arrival, accompanied
by the Duc de Duras, who was appointed his chevalier of honour, the
Théâtre-Français and the Grand Opéra. On the 23rd, he set out with his
whole suite for Fontainebleau, to pay his first visit to King Louis.
On his arrival, he was received at the foot of the marble staircase by
the Duc d'Orléans, greeted at the top by the Dauphin, and conducted to
the door of the royal cabinet. When he presented himself for the first
time to Louis XV., that monarch, who had never in his life been able to
address a word to a new face, embraced the King of Denmark without saying
a word to him, and turned to speak to the Count von Bernstorff, because
he had known him formerly during his embassy in France. The King of
Denmark, who felt the incongruity of this reception, at once pirouetted
on his heel and addressed the Duc de Choiseul, who soon contrived to draw
his master into the conversation begun with the young monarch.
While Von Gleichen, the Danish envoy, was negotiating with Choiseul as to
the manner in which Christian was to be received, he was urged to obtain
leave that the two monarchs should meet alone on the first interview,
that when the doors were shut the King of France should give the title
of Majesty to him of Denmark, and that afterwards the latter should
remain in the strictest incognito. M. de Choiseul answered Gleichen that,
"though he had his Majesty's commands to assent to everything requested
in the matter of etiquette, he ought to be aware that his demand was
impossible, as the King of France had never remained alone for a single
moment in his life, not even in his garderobe, and that he had no power
to expel from his chamber persons who by right of office had a claim
to remain in it." The first interview, therefore, took place in the
presence of all the chief personages, but when, on the next day, Louis
XV. returned Christian's visit, accompanied by a few princes of the blood
and his whole court, the youthful monarch ran to meet the King of France,
took his hand, and, walking very quickly, drew him into his cabinet, the
door of which he locked. All this was done so promptly, that the Duc
d'Orléans, pushed by the crowd who were eager to follow, ran against the
door, and thus Louis XV. remained alone with a stranger for the first
time in his life. The two monarchs conversed together for some time, and
were mutually charmed; but afterwards Christian said to Gleichen, "Do you
remember what you wrote us about the impossibility of a King of France
remaining alone? I succeeded better than you, for I took a pleasure in
it."[82]
During this interview the King of France expressed his regret that the
deep mourning for his consort, Maria Leczinska, prevented him from
celebrating the visit of his brother, at which he was greatly pleased, by
court festivities, but he had taken care that his Danish Majesty's stay
in Paris should be rendered as pleasant as possible. As he was aware that
his beloved guest was fond of theatres, he had sent his commands both
to the Comédie Française and the Opéra, that during the Danish king's
presence only such pieces should be performed as his exalted guest wished
to see.
Louis XV. conversed with the perfect courtesy of a French courtier. "In
the year 1717," he said, "my predecessor on the throne of France had the
felicity of seeing Peter the Great here, and I have great pleasure in
being able to embrace Christian the amiable. How young you are! I could
be your grandfather."
"I should esteem myself most fortunate if I were your grandson,"
Christian replied.
When the French king introduced his guest to the ladies of the court, he
noticed that Christian paid special attention to Madame de Flavecourt.
Hence he drew him on one side, and asked him,
"How old do you take that lady to be?"
"Thirty, at the most," Christian remarked.
"She is above forty," said Louis.
"A proof, sire, that people do not grow old at your court," was
Christian's flattering answer.
During the four days' stay at Fontainebleau, Struensee visited the
Galerie des Cerfs, where the degenerate daughter of Gustavus Adolphus,
after her abdication, had her lover Monaldeschi, whom she supposed to be
faithless, beheaded by three disguised accomplices. He was induced to
pay this visit by a dream, in which he saw an exalted lady, whose name
he hardly dared confess. He had returned a long time from the tour, ere
he told his brother of this dream, and how it urged him the next day to
visit the gallery. "Everything is possible," was the consolatory answer
Struensee received.
On November 3, the court celebrated the festival of St. Hubert, in which
Christian took part with his suite. The guests arrived in one thousand
five hundred carriages, and over three thousand hunters and lackeys were
called out. Naturally, Madame de Flavecourt was among the fair Amazons.
On November 13, the Prince de Monaco gave the king a ball, at which
the royal guest made the acquaintance of the Duchesse de Nevers, the
ex-actress Marie-Anne Quinault, in the dance.
Whenever the king was not impeded by other festivities, he visited the
Théâtre-Français, and for every performance sent the troupe 1,000 crowns,
so that this amusement alone cost him 20,000 crowns. At the Grand Opéra
he was most attracted by the celebrated prima donna Sophie Arnould, whom
he requested to hear thrice as Théalire, in Rameau's _Castor and Pollux_.
As a return for the pleasure which her singing and acting caused him, he
sent her, through Count Holck, an ivory fan, for which he paid Boucher
2,000 livres.
When Christian visited the celebrated porcelain factory at Sèvres, he was
shown an entire dinner service which Louis XV. intended to present to
him, each piece decorated with the arms of Denmark. On Nov. 20, Christian
was present at a sitting of the Academy, where Voisenon received him with
a piece of verses, which I will spare the reader, and only say, they
are full of the usual fulsome flattery. A resolution was then passed to
hang up the king's full-length portrait in the great hall. On the 21st,
Christian visited the Academy of Painting, when he was received by the
Marquis de Marigny, brother of Madame de Pompadour, with an address, and
on the same day the Sorbonne, where the same honours were paid him as to
Peter the Great fifty years before.
A few days later, there appeared in the _Mercure_ a versified panegyric
on the king by a member of the Académie Française, M. de Bernis,
ex-drawing-master, and afterwards archbishop, and favourite of the
Pompadour, in which we read the tolerably notorious fact that other
princes had visited the banks of the Seine before Christian. The
unfortunate James Stuart was regretted; the pious Casimir forgotten;
Peter I. admired; "mais vous, Chrétien, vous êtés adoré." In another set
of verses, I find four lines which must not be passed over. I regret that
I cannot trace their author; but they will be found in the "Almanach des
Muses" for 1769:--
"Avec Louis le ciel vous a vu naître,
Pour éprouver un bonheur si doux:
Ah! Si Bourbon ne regnoit pas sur nous,
Nous vous aurions choisi pour maître."
Really, it is difficult to decide whether France would have been a loser
by the change.
After so many compliments had been paid him by the servants of Paris,
King Christian wished to form the personal acquaintance of the most
renowned academicians of the day, and hence invited twenty of them to
dinner. Among them were d'Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius, Marmontel, la
Condamine, Voisenon, &c. The king seated himself between Diderot and
Helvetius, and spoke in terms of praise of the "Bijoux Indiscrets" of
the one, and the "Œuvres Philosophiques" of the other, and delighted
all his learned guests by his affability. Struensee was also at table,
and through his clever remarks about French literature and the Empress
of Russia, more especially attracted the admiration of his immediate
neighbours, who were Baron von Grimm, the Saxe-Coburg Envoy and
news-writer to Catharine II., the private secretary of the Duc d'Orléans,
and the playwright Saurin.
On the 24th, the king visited the parliament, when he was received by the
celebrated Advocate-General Séquier with a Latin speech, of which it is
doubtful whether he understood much. After this, Christian paid a three
days' visit to the Prince of Condé at Chantilly. This entertainment was
probably the finest of all those given to Christian. As it was free to
all persons, it was computed that there were at least six thousand guests
present, and the concourse of nobility and gentry of both sexes to it
was so prodigious, that the Rue St. Denis, which is longer than Holborn,
was so filled with carriages from end to end, that there was no passage
through it. The entertainment continued for three days and nights, during
which open house was kept for all comers, without distinction. There was
likewise a very grand hunt in the forest by torch-light. After a wild
boar had been chased for a long while, a nobleman killed it with a bow
and arrow.[83] The cost of this entertainment was defrayed by Louis XV.,
and a full account of all the festivities that took place was forwarded
to the Empress of Russia by Grimm.
Such were Christian's public performances in Paris, but his private ones
were of the same nature as in London, so far as the genius of the two
countries admitted. Ladies of high rank, flattered by the homage of the
monarch, while they despised the man, disputed the unenviable notoriety
of his attentions; and in the court of Louis XV., which was immersed in
gallantry, Christian found an example and sanction for every excess. The
two kings frequently supped together _en partie carrée_, laying aside in
mutual freedom and convivial mirth all stateliness and majesty. The time
fixed for Christian's departure made him forget the trammels of royalty;
and, in taking his leave of the French monarch, he declared Versailles
and Paris, under his Majesty's auspices, the favourite abode of Apollo,
Venus, and Minerva.[84]
Accompanied by the Comte de Noailles and the Prince de Poix, Christian
witnessed, on Dec. 6, the display of the fountains at the royal palaces
of Marly, Trianon, and Versailles; and, at the latter, was magnificently
entertained by Louis XV. in farewell.
Before he left Paris, Christian VII. offered on his return to his states
to raise a new cavalry regiment for the French service, and give the
command of it to the Duc de Duras and his descendants _in perpetuum_.
When Caroline Matilda heard of this, she wittily remarked that "the
king was a very good Frenchman, but a very bad politician." This was
communicated to Christian with many aggravating circumstances by the
emissaries of the queen dowager. Another observation attributed to the
queen on hearing of her husband's successes in Paris, that "if he had
travelled _incog._, he would have returned to his dominions with a
blank list of _bonnes fortunes_," was doubtless an invention of malice.
Probably the offer of the regiment was declined; at any rate, no trace of
it is to be found in the Danish archives.
All the poets who sang the praises of Chrétien l'adoré--and among
the panegyrics I find the following neat exception to the rule of
worthlessness, written by M. de Chamfort:--
"Peuple a qui sa présence est chère,
Parmi vous retenez ses pas:
Une roi qu'on aime et qu'on révère
A des sujets en tous climats.
Il a beau parcourir la terre,
Il est toujours dans ses états"--
all the artists who had counterfeited him, the sculptors who had
represented him, the actors and prima donnas who had amused him, were
rewarded with truly royal gifts. Even the Dames de la Halle, who had
employed their old privilege of handing a bouquet to crowned heads, and
whose leader also requested permission to give him a kiss, were willingly
received by the fun-loving youth.[85] When the pretty spokeswoman had
expressed her wish, he laughingly offered her first one cheek and then
the other, with the words: "Eh bien, madame, choisissez!" The clever
Parisienne, however, took the liberty of kissing both cheeks, and
received as reward 20 louis d'or. The king left a present of 6,000 livres
for the poor of Paris, though his own were starving.
On the last day of his stay in the world's capital, Christian gave the
Duc de Duras--in addition to his miniature painted by the Danish artist
Jans Juel, and set in diamonds--a gold-mounted sword of honour set with
pearls and jewels, valued at 20,000 livres. The duc's wife received a
diamond necklace, and Madame de Flavecourt, whose beauty had attracted
the king on his first arrival, a valuable suite of pearls.
The king's portrait was displayed in all the windows, and under it could
be read the lines:--
"Les roses d'Hymen et le trône des Rois
Ne l'ont pas retenu dans leur chaine flatteuse,
Il voyage, il instruit sa raison lumineuse
Par des tableaux divers et des mœurs et des lois.
S'il s'arrête en ces lieux, séduit par notre hommage,
Heureux peuple Danois, n'en soyez par jaloux:
Le destin l'a formé pour regner parmi vous,
Notre art ne peut içi fixer que son image."[86]
It is really a painful task to dispel the favourable opinion expressed of
Christian VII. in these verses, but I am bound to be impartial. Reverdil
tells us bluntly that in France, in spite of the flattery employed, and
the prejudice in the king's favour entertained by those who only caught a
transient glance of him, such persons as were in daily intercourse with
him, and were able to watch him closely, detected in him an incipience of
mania, and heard him make extravagant remarks. They also noticed that in
his moments of aberration, a glance from Holck recalled him to his senses.
After a stay of seven weeks, Christian quitted Paris on December 9,
in order to return to his own states. At Metz he allowed himself to
be detained for three days by all sorts of festivities offered him
by Maréchal d'Armentières, and proceeded thence to Strasburg, where
he arrived on the 16th, and accepted an invitation from the Elector
Carl Theodore of the Palatinate to travel _viâ_ Mannheim. On the 18th
he arrived in the latter city, and was received with all imaginable
ostentation. After visiting, on the following day, the Electoral Library,
Academy of Sciences, Treasury, picture gallery, and cabinet of coins,
and being presented by his host with a series of medals of the electors
coined in Rhine gold, Christian continued his journey on the 28th to
Hanau, in order to visit his two sisters.
After four days' stay here, the king travelled through Cassel and
Brunswick, and reached Hamburg on New Year's Day, where he was received
with a royal salute. On January 4 he arrived at Altona, the first city
in his dominions, and was welcomed by all possible demonstrations of
joy. The children of the Orphan Hospital and other charities were ranged
in two lines, with wax tapers in their hands, as his Majesty passed to
the palace. All the houses were illuminated, and a grand emblematical
firework, inscribed _optimo regi_, was played off, which was followed
by a grand masked ball. Here, too, Christian received his last heavy
discharge of verse, in the shape of a panegyric, from one Madame Wildin
of Glückstadt, in which the lady, with extensive view, surveys mankind
from Copenhagen to London and Paris. Her account of the English is so
droll that room must be made for it:--
"De près vous avez visité
Ce peuple penseur et sévère,
Qu'entêtent le charbon de terre
Et les vapeurs de liberté:
Le quakre qui ne sourit guère,
Le chapeau cloué sur son front,
Découvrant votre esprit profond,
Sous des dehors si faits pour plaire,
Aura quitté son flegme austère:
Le sang, plus qu'à demi gelé
Du pâle consomptionaire
Tout à coup aura circulé:
Vous aurez vu de près ces crises,
Ces trois pouvoirs sans cesse aux prises.
Le sceptre Anglais est un roseau,
Souvent plié par les orages:
Qu'aurez vous dit à ce tableau,
Vous absolu sur vos rivages?"
From Altona the Danish monarch proceeded to Ahrensburg, and remained
for two days on the estate of his marshal of the journey, Baron von
Schimmelmann. After this short rest the journey was continued so
hurriedly, that, on January 14, after an absence of seven months, he
made his festal entry into his capital by the side of Queen Caroline
Matilda, who drove out to Roeskilde to meet him. At night the whole city
was illuminated, for the nation still expected a fortunate change at any
moment, and would not be disabused, although their hope was constantly
deceived.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 74: Brown's "Northern Courts," vol. i.]
[Footnote 75: Fredensborg, or the Palace of Peace, was built by Frederick
IV., in 1720, in testimony of the pleasure which the peace of Nystadt
caused him. The death of Charles XII., that unhappy king, who was
possessed by the monomania rather than the genius of war, was considered
a blessing throughout the north, which his warlike temper plunged into
disorder and ruin.--De Flaux, "Du Danemark."]
[Footnote 76: "Authentische Aufklärungen."]
[Footnote 77: "Memoirs of an Unfortunate Queen."]
[Footnote 78: "Vie privée de Louis XV." London, 1781.]
[Footnote 79: "Mémoires de M. le Baron de Bezenval," vol. i. p. 204.]
[Footnote 80: Although Carlyle has recently thrown a doubt on this
anecdote, it is too well established as an historical fact for even that
writer absolutely to demolish it.]
[Footnote 81: The sources whence I have drawn the above hasty sketch of
Paris in the eighteenth century are--Duclos, Mémoires Secrets--Marmontel,
Mémoires--Soulavie, Mémoires de Richelieu--Soulavie, Décadence de
la Monarchie Française--Madame du Hausset, Mémoires--Madame de
Campan, Mémoires--Bezenval, Mémoires--Dumouriez, Mémoires--Casanova,
Mémoires--Vie privée de Louis XV.--Les fastes de Louis XV.--Voltaire,
Siècle de Louis XV.--Mémoires Historiques et Anecdotales de la Cour de
France--Chesterfield's Letters--Mercier, Tableau de Paris--Lacretelle,
Histoire de la France pendant le XVIII. Siècle--Barbier, Journal du Règne
de Louis XV.]
[Footnote 82: "Denkwürdigkeiten des Barons von Gleichen," p. 49.]
[Footnote 83: "Annual Register, 1768."]
[Footnote 84: "Memoirs of an Unfortunate Queen."]
[Footnote 85: An amusing counterpart to this had occurred during
Christian's stay in London. One day, when his coach drove up to the door
of his residence, a fine-looking girl burst through the double line of
attendants, caught the King of Denmark in her arms, and, kissing him
heartily, said, "Now kill me if you please, I can die contented, since I
have kissed the prettiest fellow in the world." The king, far from being
offended, gently liberated himself from her embrace, and ran, laughing
and skipping, up-stairs.]
[Footnote 86: Written by l'Abbé de Beau de Voisenon, and to be found in
the "Almanach des Muses" for 1769.]