ROYAL JOKES AND HUMOUR
From the earliest times history records many an amusing anecdote
illustrative of royal wit and humour, and it is related how when
Leonidas, King of Sparta, was informed that the Persian arrows were so
numerous that they obscured the light of the sun, he replied, “Never
mind that, we shall have the advantage of fighting in the shade.” But,
coming down to later times, if monarchs have occasionally indulged in
wit at the expense of their subjects, they have themselves not
infrequently resented a joke when levelled at them, as in the case of
Henry I. of England, who, once being ridiculed in a clever lampoon,
rejoined by having the author’s eyes put out. But to the credit of
royalty, be it said, instances of this kind have been the exception,
despite the sharp retorts it has at times experienced from persons of
low degree. Thus a smart rejoinder was that of Frederick the Great’s
coachman when he had upset the carriage containing his master. Frederick
began to swear like a trooper, but the coachman coolly asked, “And you,
did you never lose a battle?”--to which the King was forced to reply
with a good-natured laugh.
Henry VIII. appointed Sir Thomas More to carry an angry message to
Francis I. of France. Sir Thomas told his Majesty that, if he carried a
message to so violent a king as Francis, it might cost him his head.
“Never fear,” said the King, “if Francis should cut off your head, I
would make every Frenchman now in London a head shorter.” “I am obliged
to your Majesty,” said Sir Thomas, “but I much fear if any of their
heads will fit my shoulders.”
Even Queen Elizabeth could now and then brook a smart rejoinder. It is
reported that she once saw in her garden a certain gentleman to whom she
had held out hopes of advancement, which he discovered were slow of
realisation. Looking out of her window, her Majesty said to him in
Italian, “What does a man think of, Sir Edward, when he thinks of
nothing?” The answer was, “He thinks, madam, of a woman’s promise.”
Whereupon the Queen drew back her head, but she was heard to say, “Well,
Sir Edward, I must not argue with you; anger makes dull men witty, but
it keeps them poor.”
It would seem, too, that Elizabeth had more than once experienced the
folly of sovereigns in allowing persons of more wit than manners the
opportunity of exercising their sharp weapons against royalty. A certain
jester, Pace, having transgressed in this way, she had forbidden him her
presence. One of his patrons, however, undertook to make his peace with
her Majesty, and in his name promised that for the future he would
behave with more discretion if he were allowed to resume his office. The
Queen consented, and, on seeing him, she exclaimed, “Come on, Pace; now
we shall hear of our faults!” To which the incorrigible cynic replied,
“What is the use of speaking of what all the town is talking about?”
But her Majesty was fond of jests herself, and there is the familiar
impromptu couplet she made on the names of the four knights of the
county of Nottingham:--
“Gervase the gentle, Stanhope the stout,
Markham the lion, and Sutton the lout.”
And it has generally been supposed that the subjoined rebus on Sir
Walter Raleigh’s name was her composition:--
“The bane of the stomach, and the word of disgrace,
Is the name of the gentleman with the bold face.”
James I. was fond of buffoonery, and according to Sir Anthony Weldon was
very witty, and had “as many ready jests as any man living, at which he
would not smile himself, but deliver them in a grave and serious
manner.” A little work entitled “Witty Observations of King James” is
preserved in the British Museum, and another one, “The Witty Aphorisms
of King James,” has often been quoted as a specimen of his Majesty’s
talent in this style of literature. But Walpole was far from
complimentary when he wrote of James: “A prince, who thought puns and
quibbles the perfection of eloquence, would have been charmed with the
monkeys of Hemskirk and the drunken boors of Ostade.”
Asking the Lord-Keeper Bacon one day what he thought of the French
ambassador, he answered that he was a tall and proper man. “Ay,” replied
James, “but what think you of his headpiece? Is he a proper man for an
ambassador?” “Sir,” said Bacon, “tall men are like high houses, wherein
commonly the uppermost rooms are worst furnished.”
James, however, did not escape being ridiculed by the wits of the
period. A lampoon containing some impudent reflections upon the Court
caused him some indignation, but when he came to the two concluding
lines he smiled:--
“God bless the King, the Queen, the Prince, the peers,
And grant the author long may wear his ears!”
“By my faith, and so he shall for me,” said his Majesty; “for though he
be an impudent, he is a witty and pleasant rogue.” James was fond of
retorting on others when occasion offered. When one of the Lumleys, for
instance, was boasting of his ancestry, “Stop, man,” he cried, “you need
say no more: now I know that Adam’s name was Lumley.”
Again, one day when a certain courtier, on his death-bed, was full of
penitent remorse for having cheated his Majesty, “Tell him,” he said,
“to be of good courage, for I freely and lovingly forgive him.” And he
added, “I wonder much that all my officers do not go mad with the like
thoughts, for certainly they have as great cause as this poor man
hath.”
A laughable story is told of an expedient adopted by Buckingham, and his
mother, to divert the royal melancholy at the most dismal part of his
reign. A young lady was introduced, carrying in her arms a pig dressed
as an infant, which the Countess presented to the King in a rich mantle.
One Turpin, robed as a bishop, commenced reading the baptismal service,
while an assistant stood by with a silver ewer filled with water. The
King, for whom the joke was intended as a pleasing surprise, hearing the
pig suddenly squeak, and recognising the face of Buckingham, who
personated the godfather, exclaimed, “Away, for shame, what blasphemy is
this?” indignant at the trick which had been imposed on him. But it is
improbable that Buckingham would have ventured on such a piece of
buffoonery had he not been prompted by the success of former occasions.
Charles II., it is said, enjoyed fun as much as any of the youngest of
his courtiers. On one of his birthdays a pickpocket, in the garb of a
gentleman, obtained admission to the drawing-room, and extracted a gold
snuff-box from a gentleman’s pocket, which he was quietly transferring
to his own when he suddenly caught the King’s eye. But the fellow was in
no way disconcerted, and winked at Charles to hold his tongue. Shortly
afterwards his Majesty was much amused by observing the nobleman feeling
one pocket after another in search of his box. At last he could resist
no longer, and exclaimed, “You need not, my lord, give yourself any more
trouble about it; your box is gone, and I own myself an accomplice: I
could not help it, I was made a confidant.”
One day this facetious monarch, it is said, asked Dr. Stillingfleet how
it happened that he always read his sermons before him, when he was
informed that he preached without a book elsewhere. The doctor told the
King that the awe of so noble an audience, and particularly the royal
presence, made him afraid to trust himself.
“But, in return, will your Majesty give me leave to ask you why you read
your speeches when you can have none of the same reasons?”
“Why, truly, doctor,” replied the King, “your question is a very plain
one, and so will be my answer. I have asked my subjects so often, and
for so much money, that I am ashamed to look them in the face.”
But his Majesty did not always escape himself being made the victim of a
joke. He was reputed to be skilled in naval architecture, and visiting
Chatham to view a ship which had just been completed, he asked the
famous Killigrew “if he did not think he should make an excellent
shipwright?” To which Killigrew replied that “he always thought his
Majesty would have done better at any trade than his own.” Meeting
Shaftesbury, his Majesty one day said to the unprincipled Earl, “I
believe thou art the wickedest fellow in my dominions.” “For a subject,
sir,” said the other, “I believe I am.” The happy retort of Blood is
well known, who, when Charles inquired how he dared to make his bold
attempt on the crown jewels, replied, “My father lost a good estate in
fighting _for_ the crown, and I considered it no harm to recover it _by_
the crown.”
James II., when Duke of York, made a visit to the poet Milton, and asked
him if he did not think the loss of sight was a judgment upon him for
what he had written against his father, Charles I. Milton replied, if
his Highness thought his loss of sight a judgment upon him, he wished to
know what he thought of his father’s losing his head.
Mary II. did not often indulge in badinage or playfulness. But one day
she asked her ladies “what was meant by a squeeze of the hand?” They
forthwith answered, “Love.” Then said her Majesty, laughing,
“Vice-Chamberlain Smith must be in love with me, for he squeezes my hand
very hard.”
George I. was humorous, a trait of character of which many anecdotes
have been told. When on a visit to Hanover, he stopped at a Dutch
village, and, whilst the horses were being got ready, his Majesty asked
for two or three eggs, for which he was charged a hundred florins.
“How is this?” inquired the King. “Eggs must be very scarce here.”
“Pardon me,” said the host, “eggs are plentiful enough, but kings are
scarce”--a story of which there are several versions.
“This is a very odd country,” King George remarked, speaking of England.
“The first morning after my arrival at St. James’s, I looked out of the
window and saw a park with walls and a canal, which they told me were
mine. The next day Lord Chetwynd, the ranger of my park, sent me a brace
of fine carp out of my canal, and I was told I must give five guineas to
my Lord Chetwynd’s man for bringing me my own carp out of my own canal
in my own park.”
Equally did George I. enjoy listening to those who either exposed their
own follies, or retailed those of others. The Duchess of Bolton, for
instance, often made him laugh by reason of her ridiculous blunders.
Having been present when Colley Cibber’s first dramatic performance,
“Love’s Last Shift,” was played, the King asked her the next day what
piece she had seen performed, when she answered, with a serious face,
“La dernière chemise de l’amour.”
Like George I., his successor, George II., had a certain amount of
humour, and his fondness for Hanover occasioned all sorts of rough jokes
among his English subjects. He thought there were no manners out of
Germany, and on one occasion when her Royal Highness “was whipping one
of the roaring royal children,” George, who was standing by, said to
Sarah Marlborough, “Ah, you have no good manners in England, because you
are not properly brought up when you are young.”
A smart retort was that of his Majesty to the French ambassador. The
regiment that principally distinguished itself at the battle of
Dettingen was the Scots Greys, who repulsed the French _gens d’armes_
with much loss. Some years afterwards, when the King was reviewing some
English regiments before the French ambassador, the latter, after
admitting that they were fine troops, remarked disparagingly, “But your
Majesty has never seen the _gens d’armes_.” “No,” replied the King, “but
I can tell you, and so can they, that my Scotch Greys have.”
When George II., too, was once expressing his admiration of General
Wolfe, some one remarked that the general was mad. “Is he, indeed?” said
his Majesty. “Then I wish he would bite some of my other generals.”
Queen Caroline thought she had the foolish talent of playing off people,
and, after Sir Paul Methuen had left the Court, she frequently saw him
when she dined abroad during the King’s absence at Hanover. On one
occasion, when she dined with Lady Walpole at Chelsea, Sir Paul was
there as usual. The Queen still harped upon the same string--her
constant topic for teasing Sir Paul being his passion for romances--and
she addressed him with the remark: “Well, Sir Paul, what romance are you
reading now?”
“None madam! I have gone through them all.”
“Well, what are you reading then?”
“I am got into a very foolish study, madam--the history of the kings and
queens of England.”
Her Majesty was fond of surrounding herself with men of wit, and her
levees, it is said, “were a strange picture of the motley character and
manners of a queen and a learned woman. She received company while she
was at her toilette; prayers and sometimes a sermon were read; the
conversation turned on metaphysical subjects blended with repartees,
sallies of mirth, and the tittle-tattle of a drawing-room.”
Many anecdotes have been handed down of George III. and his love of
humour. When the “Temple Companies” had defiled before him, writes Earl
Stanhope in his “Life of Pitt,” his Majesty inquired of Erskine, who
commanded them as lieutenant-colonel, what was the composition of that
corps. “They are all lawyers, sire,” said Erskine.
“What, what!” exclaimed the King, “all lawyers, all lawyers? Call them
‘The Devil’s Own’; call them ‘The Devil’s Own.’” And “The Devil’s Own”
they were called accordingly.
The Duke of York was one day conversing with his brother, George III.,
when the latter remarked that he seemed in unusually low spirits. “How
can I be otherwise,” said the Duke, “when I am subjected to so many
calls from my creditors, without having sixpence to pay them?” The King,
it is said, immediately gave him a thousand-pound note, every word of
which he read aloud in a tone of mock gravity, and then he marched out
of the room singing the first verse of “God Save the King.”
When one day standing between Lord Eldon and the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Dr. Sutton, his Majesty gravely remarked, “I am now in a
position which probably no European king ever occupied,” for, he
afterwards explained, “I am standing between the head of the Church and
the head of the Law in my kingdom--men who ought to be the patterns of
morality, but who have been guilty of the greatest immorality.” On Lord
Eldon begging to know to what his Majesty alluded, the King humorously
added, “Well, my lords, did you not both run away with your wives?”
When a certain admiral, well known for his gallant spirit, was
introduced to William IV., to return thanks for his promotion, the
cheerful and affable monarch, looking at his hair, which was almost as
white as snow, jocosely remarked, “White at the main, admiral! white at
the main!” But his Majesty was a very moderate joker, preferring to hear
a good joke from others. It is said that when heir-presumptive he one
day said to a secretary of the Admiralty who was at the same dinner
table, “C----, when I am King you shall not be Admiralty Secretary! Eh,
what do you say to that?”
“All that I have to say to that, in such a case, is,” said C----, “God
save the King!”
Dr. Doran quotes an amusing anecdote to the effect that the King never
laughed so heartily as when he was told of a certain parvenu lady who,
dining at Sir John Copley’s, ventured to express her surprise that
“there was no _pilfered_ water on the table.”
In conversation, Queen Victoria appreciated homely wit of a quiet kind,
and laughed without restraint when a jest or anecdote appealed to her.
Subtlety and indelicacy offended her, and sometimes evoked a scornful
censure. Although she naturally expected courtesy of address, she was
not conciliated by obsequiousness. “It is useless to ask ----’s
opinion,” she would say; “he only tries to echo mine.” Her own
conversation had often the charm of naïveté. When told that a very
involved piece of modern German music, to which she was listening with
impatience, was a drinking song by Rubinstein, she remarked, “Why, you
could not drink a cup of tea to that.”[115]
According to Brantôme, Louis XI., wishing one day to have something
written, espied an ecclesiastic with an inkstand hanging at his side,
from which--having opened at the King’s request--a set of dice fell out.
“What kind of sugar-plums are these?” asked his Majesty.
“Sire,” replied the priest, “they are a remedy for the plague.”
“Well said,” exclaimed the King; “you are a fine _paillard_; you are the
man for me,” and he took him into his service, being fond of bon-mots
and sharp wits.
Another amusing anecdote tells how a certain French baron, having lost
everything at play, happening to be in the King’s chamber, secreted a
small clock ornamented with massive gold up his sleeve. A few minutes
afterwards the clock began to strike the hour, much to the consternation
of the baron, and the surprise of those present. The King, who, as it
chanced, had detected the theft, burst out laughing, and the baron,
self-convicted, fell on his knees before the King, saying, “Sire, the
pricks of gaming are so powerful that they have driven me to commit a
dishonest act, for which I beg your mercy.”
But the King cut short his words, exclaiming: “The pastime which you
have contrived for us so far surpasses the injury you have done me that
the clock is yours. I give it you with all my heart.”
In one of his journeys, the story goes that Louis XI. went into the
kitchen of an inn where he was not known, and, seeing a lad turning a
spit, he asked his name and employment. The lad replied that his name
was Berringer, that he “was not a very great man, but that still he got
as much as the King of France.”
“And what, my lad, does the King of France get?” inquired Louis.
“His wages,” replied the boy, “which he holds from God, and I hold mine
from the King”--an answer which so pleased Louis that he gave the lad a
situation to attend on his person.
When called upon one day to give his opinion in some great emergency,
the Duke of Sully observed the favourites of the new king, Louis XIII.,
whispering to one another and sneering at his somewhat rough exterior.
“Whenever your Majesty’s father,” remarked the old statesman, “did me
the honour to consult me, he ordered the buffoons of Court to leave the
audience chamber”--a pointed reproof which at once silenced the
satellites, who forthwith retired in confusion.
One day Marshal Bassompierre, on his release from the Bastille--where
after twelve years’ imprisonment he had grown extremely fat--presented
himself at Court, when the Queen thought it a good joke to ask him how
soon he meant to lie in; to which the Marshal replied, “May it please
your Majesty, I am only waiting for a wise woman.” The King, Louis
XIII., asked him his age, whereupon the Marshal answered that he was
fifty, at which his Majesty looked surprised, as Bassompierre looked
quite sixty. But the latter continued: “Sire, I deduct twelve years
passed in the Bastille, because I did not employ them in your service.”
Before his imprisonment he was one day describing his embassy to Spain,
and relating how he made his solemn entry into Madrid seated on a mule,
when Louis exclaimed, “An ass seated on a mule!” “Yes, sire,” retorted
Bassompierre, “and what made the joke better was that I represented
you.”
The Duc de Lauragais, who was a very singular and eccentric person, was
a great _anglomane_, and was the first introducer into France of
horse-races _à l’Anglais_. It was to him that Louis XV.--not pleased at
his insolent _anglomanie_--made an excellent retort. The King had asked
him, after one of his journeys, what he had learned in England.
Lauragais answered, with a kind of republican dignity, “A panser”
(_penser_). “Les chevaux?” inquired the King.
At another time, when Cardinal de Luynes was paying his respects to
Louis XV., his Majesty said: “Cardinal, your great-grandfather died of
an apoplexy, your father and your uncle died of an apoplexy, and you
look as if you would die of an apoplectic stroke.” “Sire,” answered the
Cardinal, “fortunately for us we do not live in the times when kings are
prophets.”
His predecessor, Louis XIV., it is said, often gave flatterers good
pretexts, of which they were not slow to avail themselves. A Capuchin,
for instance, preaching before this monarch at Fontainebleau, began his
discourse with, “My brethren, we shall all die.” Then stopping short,
and turning to his Majesty, he exclaimed, “Yes, sir, almost all of us
shall die.”
A sorry joke was that which the ex-king Charles X. of France made to M.
de Montbel as he rode with him. On leaving Prague, where the new Emperor
of Austria, Ferdinand, was about to be crowned as King of
Bohemia--Charles thinking the spectacle of a deposed monarch a
melancholy sight for an emperor and king--“Montbel,” he said, “do you
know that you accumulate in your person the offices of First Gentleman
of the Chamber, Captain of the Guards, and Chief Ecuyer? I was never
before struck with the inordinate character of your ambition!”
And, as it has been observed, there was something pathetic and yet
humorous in the remark of Louis Philippe. It appears that by the 24th of
August, 1850, his condition had become so serious that the physician
felt it his duty to communicate his fears to the Queen, who expressed a
wish that Louis Philippe himself might be made aware of the peril in
which he lay. Accordingly, as soon as the dread announcement had been
delicately conveyed to the King, his Majesty exclaimed cheerfully, “Oh,
ah! I understand. You come to tell me that it is time to prepare for
leaving. Was it not the Queen who requested you to make this
communication?”
The doctor answered in the affirmative; whereupon his Majesty added,
“Very well, beg of her to come in.”[116]
An amusing story tells how Charles V. one day fell in with a peasant who
was carrying a pig, the noise of which irritated him. On inquiring of
the peasant if he had not learnt the method of making a pig be quiet, he
was answered in the negative. “Take the pig by the tail,” said the
Emperor, “and you will see that it will soon be silent.” The peasant did
as he was told, and said to the Emperor, “You must have learnt the trade
much better than I, sir, for you understand it a great deal better.”
Two ladies once contended for precedence in the Court of Charles V.
Unable to agree, they appealed to the monarch, who decided the matter by
the command, “Let the elder go first”; which recalls a similar anecdote
told of the Prussian sovereign, who, being told by one of his courtiers
that two ladies of high rank had disputed about precedence, replied,
“Give the precedence to the greatest fool.” Such a dispute, it is
affirmed, was never known afterwards. And speaking of precedence, we are
reminded how, when King William landed, he said to Sir Edward Seymour,
the Speaker, “Sir Edward, I think you are of the Duke of Somerset’s
family?” “No, sir, he is of mine,” was the Speaker’s reply.
The licensed humorist of the Court of Augustus the Strong was General
Kyan, the adjutant of the King, concerning whom many amusing anecdotes
are told. One day at table his Majesty asked him to pour out some rare
Hungarian sweet wine. Kyan placed the King’s glass in the centre, and
those of the other great State and financial officials all round. The
outer glasses were filled to the brim, but in the King’s were only a few
drops. “What does all this represent?” asked the King. “The collection
of the State revenues,” said Kyan.
On another occasion, when Kyan wanted a snug berth for his old age, at
table he asked permission to change position with the King for a few
minutes. This his Majesty granted, on which Kyan sat up in his chair
with the King’s hat on his head, and began a speech to the King, whom he
harangued as General Kyan, eulogising his merits, and granting him a
post of governor of the fortress of Konigstein. The King was so taken
with the fancy that the patent was made out, and he died in his post at
eighty years of age.
Frederick William I. was fond of the broadest practical jokes, and the
“Tobacco College” was his favourite leisure resort, where he was highly
delighted when foreign princes got drunk, or when the unaccustomed weed
made them sick. This Tobacco Club met every day at five or six o’clock,
and a strangers’ book was kept in which the names of visitors were
entered, and among them that of the Czar Peter is still shown. The
ex-King of Poland, Stanislaus, father-in-law of Louis XV., was often
present; and Francis I., when still Duke of Lorraine, smoked his pipe
when canvassing his Prussian Majesty as Elector of the Empire, before
his election to the imperial crown. A singular personage, Jacob Paul von
Gundling, who was elected President of the Academy of Sciences, was the
butt of the most amusing, coarse, and even cruel practical jokes. He was
made to read to the company at the Tobacco Club some of the most
insulting articles against his own person, which his Majesty had sent to
the daily papers for insertion. A monkey in a dress--the exact
counterpart of that worn by Gundling--was placed by his side, and
declared by the King to be a natural son of Gundling, who was then
forced to embrace his alleged offspring before the whole company.
Frederick William caused, too, Gundling to be ridiculed in his death,
for a large wine cask was selected as his resting-place, and in this,
attired in his dress of state, he was buried, notwithstanding the
remonstrances of the clergy.
It seems that when a child his Majesty was noted for his wit, for at a
fancy ball held at Charlottenburg, July 12, 1790, he appeared as a
conjurer, performing his tricks so cleverly as even to be praised for
his wit by the celebrated Leibnitz. A year before, the Duchess of
Orleans had written: “I am always concerned when I see children
prematurely witty, as I take it for a sign that they will not live long;
I therefore tremble for the little Electoral Prince of Brandenburg.”
On one occasion a general, proverbial for his stinginess, excused
himself from entertaining at dinner his Majesty on the plea of not
keeping an establishment. But Frederick William directed him to Nicolai,
the landlord of the King of Portugal Hotel, where he made his appearance
with a large company. The dinner and wines were excellent, and on rising
from the table the general, calling in the landlord, asked him the
charge for each guest. “One florin a head without the wine,” answered
Nicolai.
“Well then,” the general said, “here is one florin for myself and
another for his Majesty; as to the other gentlemen whom I have not
invited, they will pay for themselves.”
“Here’s a fine joke,” the King exclaimed good-humouredly; “I thought I
should take in the general, and now I’m taken in myself.” He then
discharged the whole score from his own purse.
His son, Frederick the Great, rarely indulged in any familiarity with
ordinary people, although, as already stated, he did not resent a
repartee from one of his servants. He once asked a physician, “How many
men have you sent into the other world?” when the unexpected reply came,
“Not nearly so many as your Majesty, and with infinitely less glory.”
Inspecting his finance affairs, and questioning the parties interested,
Frederick, writes Thomas Carlyle, notices a certain convent in Cleves
which “appears to have, payable from the forest dues, considerable
revenues bequeathed by the old dukes ‘for masses to be said on their
behalf.’” He goes to look at the place, questions the monks on this
point, who are all drawn out in two rows, and have broken into _Te Deum_
at sight of him. “Husht! you still say those masses, then?”
“Certainly, your Majesty.”
“And what good does any one get of them?”
“Your Majesty, those old sovereigns are to obtain heavenly mercy by
them, to be delivered out of Purgatory by them?”
“Purgatory? It is a sore thing for the forests all this while! And they
are not yet out, those poor souls, after so many hundred years of
praying?” Monks have a fatal apprehension they are not, and reply, “No.”
“When will they be out, and the thing be complete?” Monks cannot say.
“Send me a line whenever it is complete,” sneers the King, and he leaves
them to their _Te Deum_.
One of the severest rebuffs administered to Frederick was that by
General Ziethen, who having been invited to dine with his Majesty on
Good Friday, declined, excusing himself on the plea that “he was in the
habit of taking the Sacrament on that day.” When Ziethen next dined at
the royal table, the King sarcastically said to him, “Well, how did the
Sacrament on Good Friday agree with you--have you digested well the real
body and blood of Christ?”
This question provoked much laughter, but Ziethen, shaking his hoary
head, rose and addressed the King thus: “Your Majesty knows that in war
I have never feared any danger, and that, wherever it was required, I
have resolutely risked my life for you and the country. This feeling
still animates me; and if it is of any use, and you command it, I will
lay my head at your feet. But there is One above us who is more than you
or I--the Saviour and Redeemer of the world. That Holy Saviour I cannot
allow to be ridiculed, for in Him rests my faith, my trust, and my hope
in life and death. In the strength of this faith your brave army has
courageously fought, and conquered. If your Majesty undermines it, you
undermine at the same time the welfare of the State. This is a true
saying indeed.”
A death-like silence prevailed, and Frederick, with evident emotion,
grasping the general’s right hand, said, “Happy Ziethen, I wish I could
believe like you; hold fast to your faith, it shall be done no more.”
Peter the Great, as is well known, loved a bit of fun, and one day
seeing a number of men swarming about the Law Courts at Westminster
Hall, is said to have inquired who they were, and what they were about,
and being informed that they were lawyers, he jocosely exclaimed,
“Lawyers, why I had but four in my whole kingdom, and I design to hang
two of them as soon as I get home.”
Many amusing stories are told of the wit and humour of the ex-Polish
sovereign, Stanislaus Leczinski. Walpole, in a letter to Mann, dated
1764, writes: “I love to tell you an anecdote of any of our old
acquaintance, and I have now a delightful one relating, yet indirectly,
to one of them. You know, to be sure, that Madame de Craon’s daughter,
Madame de Boufflers, has the greatest power with King Stanislaus. Our
old friend, the Princess de Craon, goes seldom to Luneville for this
reason, not enduring to see her daughter on that throne which she so
long filled with absolute empire. But Madame de Boufflers, who from his
Majesty’s age cannot occupy _all_ the places in the palace that her
mother filled, indemnifies herself with his Majesty’s Chancellor. One
day the lively old monarch said, ‘Regardez quel joli petit pied, et la
belle jambe! Mon Chancelier vous dira le reste!’ You know this is the
form when a King of France says a few words to his Parliament, and then
refers them to his Chancellor.”
But Stanislaus, as Dr. Doran says, could be just as well as witty.
Voltaire presented to him his history of Charles XII., expecting to be
overwhelmed with compliments. Stanislaus, after reading the book,
humiliated the philosopher by asking how he dared to present to him, an
actor in the scenes described, a book in which veracity was outraged a
thousand times over. It is related, too, of Charles XII., that at the
battle of Narva, being told that the enemy were as three to one when
compared with his own army, he replied, “I am glad to hear it, for then
there will be enough to kill, enough to take prisoners, and enough to
run away.”
Christina of Sweden was noted for her wit and repartee, and often
astonished persons by her piquant anecdotes. When she visited
Fontainebleau, in 1656, in her half-male attire, it is said she appeared
to some of the ladies like a pretty but rather forward boy, who was
addicted to swearing, flung himself into an arm-chair, and disposed of
his legs in a way which shocked “the not very scrupulous dames of the
Court.” But these same ladies smothered Christina with kisses, which
prompted her to say: “What a rage they have for kissing; I verily
believe they take me for a gentleman!”
Her highly-spiced stories, too, were not confined to her own sex, for
she was as ready “to discuss with gentlemen improper subjects as any
other.” But her collection of 1200 maxims is a proof of her talent in
this direction, a few instances of which we subjoin, which, by-the-bye,
are not always very complimentary. Thus, she says, “Change of ministry,
change of thieves;” and she warns us that “if animals could speak they
would convince men that the latter were as great beasts as themselves.”
Speaking of royalty, she writes, “There are princes whom men compare
with Alexander the Great, and who are not worthy of being compared with
his horse Bucephalus;” and she adds, “There are peasants born with
royal souls, and kings with the souls of flunkeys.” “Sciences,” she
maintains, “are often the pompous titles of human ignorance; one is not
the more knowing for knowing them.” And “the secret of being
ridiculous,” she was wont to affirm, “is by priding yourself on talents
which you do not possess.” And, to give one further instance of her
maxims, she tells us that “princes resemble those tigers and lions whose
keepers make them play a thousand tricks and turns. To look at them you
would fancy they were in complete subjection, but a blow from the paw,
when least expected, shows that you can never tame that sort of animal.”
Charles IV. of Spain had all the spirit and wit of his father. On
requiring the presence of Losada at his toilet, and when told that
Spanish etiquette forbade the presence of any one lower in quality than
a Spanish grandee, he exclaimed, “Very well, I now make him one, so let
him come in and help me on with my shirt.” When Charles ascended the
throne Louis XVI. was about to sign a letter of congratulation to him,
but he remarked, “It is hardly worth signing, for this king is no king,
but a poor cipher, completely governed and henpecked by his wife.”
Charles never forgave the jest, and when news of the execution of Louis
reached him, he remarked that “the gentleman who was so ready to find
fault with others, did not seem to have managed his own affairs very
cleverly.”