ambition, was the object of Louis XIV. It was for this purpose that he
had sent Madame to England, and when she returned with the treaty she
had coaxed out of her brother it not unnaturally seemed to him that his
end was in sight. But within three weeks of leaving Dover Madame had
died under circumstances that suggested foul play, and Charles all but
tore up the "Traité de Madame." Louis instantly despatched the tactful
Marécha de Bellefonds to Whitehall to assure Charles of his sincere
grief at the untimely end of his sister and to save the treaty if
possible. But the King of England was in no mood to be beguiled by
expressions of friendship.
"When do they intend to let the Chevalier de Lorraine back to Court?" he
asked rudely of the Marécha when that envoy arrived.
It was evident that Louis' road to Flanders and Madrid was blocked
again. Madame's death had aroused to a fever heat the hatred of
Protestant England for Catholic France. The people were crying out for
vengeance on the murderers of their king's sister. Charles, had he
wished for war, would have had the support of the nation.
"Must we abandon the great affair?" wrote the French Ambassador in
London to his master at Versailles. "It is feared that the grief of the
King of England, which is deeper than can be imagined, and the
malevolent talk and rumours of our enemies will spoil everything."
But Charles on this occasion was cooler than his people. He contented
himself with coldly accepting Louis' sympathy. The Court of Versailles,
which dreaded nothing so much at that moment as a war, breathed freely
again, and immediately set to work to restore Charles to the good-humour
in which he was before Madame's death. French money poured into England,
ministers and mistresses fattened on it. For ten thousand livres a year
"wanton Shrewsbury" guaranteed "to make Buckingham do whatever the
French King wished." Corruption was everywhere. The French Ambassador
was prepared to buy both Houses of Parliament and the "principles" of
the nation as well. Even Algernon Sidney, who in the eyes of English
Liberalism is surrounded with the nimbus of martyrdom, took five hundred
pounds every Parliamentary session from Louis. Charles had as great a
weakness for French gold as any of his subjects, but though he willingly
sold himself, he never gave full value in return if he could possibly
avoid it.
Protestant England was not long in discovering this slippery trait in
its own dealings with its sovereign. It is a mistake to imagine that
Monk jockeyed Charles on to the throne. The crown of his ancestors was
enthusiastically restored to him by an overwhelming majority of the
nation. The Restoration of Charles II. was the result of, perhaps, the
must honest _plebiscite_ in history. Monk was merely the means the
English people employed to notify Charles they wanted him. But in their
ardour the foolish people forgot to demand security for the power they
gave him; they merely contented themselves with an implied understanding
that he was to be, so to speak, the junior partner in the national
business. Alas for human credulity! Who would have thought that the
amiable, charming King, whose frivolity and sensuality seemed to
guarantee a weak and pliable nature, would prove to be more than a match
for his people? The versatile and shifty monarch made his power felt
from the start, and clearly let it be understood that in the firm of
Charles Stuart, England and Company, it was he who furnished the brains
and England the capital. In such partnerships as a rule the capitalist
buys experience dearly. And so it was in this case. Under that
good-natured, happy-go-lucky manner of Charles there lurked the cunning
of a Mazarin. Totally devoid of "principles" himself, he secretly
despised his people for having them, and perhaps, also, for having given
him power, such as no sovereign since Elizabeth had possessed, without a
guarantee as to how he would use it. What wonder that with such a king
and such a people Charles II. should have sat on the English throne,
till he tumbled from it in apoplexy, as securely as a cowboy on a
broncho? The comparison is apt; for, spurred by Exclusion Bills, Popish
Plots, French harlots, and French gold, England, aglow with its
new-found ideal of faith and freedom, bucked furiously and in vain with
the subtle and ever-popular (!) Charles on its back. To put the bit
into this man's mouth as he had put it into that of his country was one
of the chief objects of the reign of Louis XIV.
[Illustration: LOUIS XIV.
_After Charles le Brun_]
In the nineteenth century it was customary to treat the Grand Monarque
and his Grand Siècle with contempt. It was one of those momentary fits
of rage into which Progress falls when it beholds its father's ghost in
history. The rage has passed--in France at all events--and Louis XIV.
and his famous century are receiving more flattery now than even
Voltaire bestowed on them. They have become national monuments. Every
schoolboy has parsed one of Bossuet's _oraisons funèbres_; every soldier
has heard of Condé, every woman remembers the romance of Mademoiselle La
Beaume Le Blanc de la Vallière. And there isn't a Socialist workman who
goes with his wife and children on a Sunday to see the fountains play at
Versailles but has some difficulty in choking the "_Vive la France!_"
that sneaks in his throat as he strolls through the historic pile
dedicated to All the Glories. For everybody has been taught that Louis
XIV. in his long reign of seventy-two years--the longest, by the way, in
history--did something more than powder his hair with gold-dust, wear
high-heeled shoes, and tamely submit to Madame de Maintenon. Among his
many shining endowments he possessed the royal faculty of recognising
and appreciating talent in others. As in the earlier part of his reign,
at all events, there happened to be a profusion of ability in France,
he was served as only the very great are ever served. Nowhere was this
more apparent than in the agents he sent to England. They were
first-rate diplomatists. Their despatches were sprinkled with all sorts
of gossip, _on dits_, and trivial details, which were awaited with
impatience and devoured with avidity at Versailles. An English despatch
was not unlike a brilliant society novel. Thus it happened that the
_personnel_ of Whitehall was as familiar to Louis as that of Versailles;
the English people and their "principles" as well known as the condition
of his own country; and the life, character, and habits of Charles II.
better understood than, perhaps, those of any other person in Europe.
To one so well informed as Louis the key to the riddle, "How is the
slippery Charles to be held?" was "Woman." At the time of the death of
Madame there was no sultana in the seraglio at Whitehall. This was
Louis' chance. His Ambassador and his creatures, the English Ministers,
assured him that the Duchess of Cleveland had ceased to be worth her
price, that Charles had appeared much smitten with Mademoiselle de
Kéroual when she came to England with Madame, and that in their opinion
French interests could not better be served than by sending the
aforesaid maid of honour to England as soon as possible. Louis and his
Council gave the matter their due consideration, and Louise de Kéroual,
only too willingly, as her fortunes were now at a very low ebb, started
for Whitehall. She was clearly given to understand the capacity in
which she was going, the influence that sent her, and the duties
expected of her. Buckingham engaged to take her back with him after
Madame's funeral, but "he totally forgot both the lady and his promise,
and leaving the disconsolate nymph at Dieppe to manage as she could,
passed over to England by way of Calais." The English Ambassador in
Paris, who was not a "Buckingham man" but an "Arlington" one, never gave
Buckingham the time to atone for his forgetfulness. He at once sent
Mademoiselle de Kéroual over to Lord Arlington at his own expense,
whereby he adroitly made a friend of the future _maîtresse en titre_ for
himself and Arlington. For, says Bishop Burnet, "the Duke of Buckingham
lost all the merit he might have pretended to, and brought over a
mistress whom his own strange conduct threw into the hands of his
enemies."
The purpose of this visit was pretty well known to the public, to whom
"Madam Carwell" at once became an object of detestation. She was,
however, favourably received at Whitehall. Dryden, the laureate at the
time, and St. Evremond welcomed her in verse, of which the former is too
dull and the latter too indecent to quote. At the sight of her Charles
at once brightened up, and appointed her to be one of the maids of
honour to Queen Catherine, giving as his excuse that it was out of a
"decent tenderness" for his sister's memory. Poor Catherine, knowing the
purpose for which her new maid of honour had been appointed, disliked
her from the first. But Catherine had learnt wisdom in the course of her
married life, and though she hated the new favourite as much as she had
ever hated the Castlemaine, she accepted her without a protest.
Not so her Grace of Cleveland. She fought with her characteristic fury
to retain her threatened power, and owing to the subtle coyness of
Louise appeared to keep her ascendency over the King. For the cunning
Breton girl understood that to yield to Charles at the first assault was
not the way to keep him, so she adopted the tactics of La Belle Stuart
and played the prude. But it was some time before this strategy was
appreciated by Louis and his creatures at Whitehall. The French
Ambassador became alarmed. "I think it safe," he wrote to Louis, "while
undermining the Duchess of Cleveland to keep her on our side by
appearing to be with her."
The correspondence that passed between the French Ambassador and the
French Court on this subject gives a more vivid impression of the way
the game of politics was played by the Great Powers at the time of the
Restoration than any history on the subject.
At length the Ambassador was able to write to Louvois, "I believe I can
assure you that she has so got round King Charles as to be of the
greatest service to our sovereign and master, if she only does her
duty."
This news revived the drooping spirits of the Court of France, but it
was still impatient for some proof of her power. Arlington, one of the
Cabal Ministers, who was as much interested in her success as Louis
himself, therefore decided to bring about the long-anticipated
_dénouement_ by inviting the Court to Euston, his palatial country seat,
where by a counter-strategy it was hoped the cautious Louise would be
forced to yield. The Ambassador, in imparting this information to
Louvois, wrote:--
"Milord Arlington told me to advise Mademoiselle de Kéroual to cultivate
the King's good graces, and so to manage that he should only find in her
society enjoyment, peace, and quiet. He added that if Lady Arlington
took his advice she would urge the new favourite to yield unreservedly
to the King or to retire to a French convent.... The King did me the
honour yesterday to sup at the Embassy, when he proved to me, by
indulging in a gay and unfettered debauch, that he does not mistrust
us."
The satisfaction this news gave to Louis may be judged from the
following extract from Louvois' reply:--
"His Majesty was vastly amused with all that was in your letter about
Mademoiselle de Kéroual, and will have pleasure in hearing the progress
she makes in the King's favour. He even jested on the subject, and says
there must either be small love felt for the mistress or great
confidence felt in you to suffer you to go to Euston in such jolly
company."
As may be imagined, the house party at Euston produced the result
expected of it, and the way in which this result was effected is as
illuminating as the above correspondence. It was quite in keeping with
the total absence of morality which characterised all who were engaged
in the intrigue. "Lady Arlington," says Forneron, "under the pretext of
killing the tedium of October evenings in a country house, got up a
burlesque wedding, in which Louise de Kéroual was the bride and the King
the bridegroom, with all the immodest ceremonies which marked, in the
good old times, the retirement of the former into her nuptial chamber."
As this book is not conceived in a prurient spirit we shall forbear to
give the reader a description of the "ceremonies" connected with this
mock-marriage. Suffice it to say that the French Ambassador's report of
the "nights at Euston" reads like an account of a Palais Royal farce. In
an age of such unashamed publicity as the Restoration, no attempt was
made to keep the doings of the Arlingtons' house party out of the press;
consequently the pamphlets of the day revelled in reporting the spicy
details of this Euston saturnalia with as much zest and in the same
spirit of hypocrisy as the press of the present takes in a smart society
lawsuit. While the coffee-houses, which corresponded to our modern
clubs, rung with gossip of the new French mistress of the King, who was
reported to have protested to some noble lord against the scurrility to
which she was subjected by the public: "Me no bad woman. If me taut me
was one bad woman, me would cut mine own trote."
Of course, what happened at Euston was much exaggerated. Evelyn, who was
a guest of the Arlingtons, declares that he never witnessed any of the
things the newspapers and lampoons reported. Nevertheless, he admits
that he was only twice admitted to the royal circle. At any rate, the
sequel that occurred nine months later afforded Louis XIV. and "Madam
Carwell" the greatest satisfaction. It is well known that next to a
mistress Charles loved nothing so much as a child.
After the visit at Euston Louise de Kéroual was the acknowledged
_maîtresse en titre_ in place of the termagant Cleveland, retired.
Charles appointed her lady of the bedchamber to the Queen, the duties of
which post she had the delicacy to abandon to a deputy, and created her
Duchess of Portsmouth. At the same time, as there was every prospect
that she would hold long what she had conquered, and as a reward for her
services, Louis paid her in advance, so to speak, by giving her the
title of Duchesse d'Aubigny. As she played the _rôle_ of _maîtresse en
titre_ as it was played in France there is nothing in her story
henceforth to shock the most modest susceptibilities. All the
_grossièretés_ with which the Duchess of Cleveland, whom she supplanted,
embellished the post were by her Grace of Portsmouth refined into
political intrigues.
Among the many services she was expected to render to her "master," the
French King, the principal were:--
1. To induce Charles to declare war against Holland (!)
2. To convert Charles to Roman Catholicism (!!)
3. To persuade the Duke of York, the King's brother and heir to the
throne, to marry a French princess.
For Charles to have plunged his newly restored kingdom into a war with
Holland, considering the "principles" of the English nation on the
subject, would seem incredible. It was, however, the easiest of the
Duchess of Portsmouth's tasks. The "principles" were circumvented,
reasoned, excused, explained away, conscientiously, be it
understood--oh, very conscientiously!--as is always the way with a brave
"principle" when confronted with an interest. At the bottom England was
jealous of Holland's naval and commercial supremacy. Charles, like the
cowboy, knew his broncho; he declared war on Holland to please his
mistress and win his French subsidy, and England bucked, and bucked--and
fought.
On the other hand, Charles, being no fool, and knowing his broncho
thoroughly, was not to be induced to change the form of faith he
professed. He had too vivid a recollection of his exile to play any
practical jokes on Fortune. If, as is extremely doubtful, he was a
Catholic at bottom, it was certainly not from religious conviction. His
Huguenot grandfather, Henri Quatre, had said that "Paris was well worth
a Mass." Precisely in the same way he reasoned that the throne of
England was well worth a confirmation. The Duchess of Portsmouth was far
too indifferent herself on this subject to disagree with Charles, and
far too cunning to risk her position in England in order to help Louis
XIV. weaken the country with another civil war. She therefore made up
her mind, says Forneron, "that there was but a single course to follow.
It was by slow degrees to habituate the English to a revival of Catholic
ideas, rites, and ceremonies." This was but a polite way of telling
Louis that if the conversion of England to Catholicism depended on her
it would never be converted. Also, knowing the displeasure such a
declaration coming from her would create at the French Court, she made
it on purpose to show Louis that she was no mere contemptible spy to be
ordered about and scolded, but the Duchess of Portsmouth, _maîtresse en
titre_ to His Britannic Majesty. This show of independence was based, no
doubt, on the certainty of her hold on Charles. For at this time the
French Ambassador wrote angrily to Louvois of her Grace: "She has got
the notion that it is possible she may yet be Queen of England. She
talks from morning till night of the Queen's ailments as if they were
mortal."
Scarcely less inferior in importance to Louis than making Charles
declare war on Holland and converting him to Popery was the subjection
of his heir, the Duke of York. Louis XIV. thought of the future as much
as the present. It was above all things necessary to him that if Charles
should be unexpectedly carried off his successor should be the friend
of France. The surest way of securing this appeared to be by making a
match between James, whose wife, Anne Hyde, the daughter of Clarendon,
had just died, and a princess of France. Louis, knowing James as well as
he did Charles, was aware that he was one of those men who would be
governed entirely by his wife. Consequently he proposed a member of his
own family, the Duchesse de Guise, the sister of La Grande Mademoiselle
and daughter of his uncle, Gaston d'Orléans. But Madame, before her
death, had given her brother such an unfavourable account of this
widowed princess, who was exceedingly plain, and had "laid in thrice in
two years," that James positively refused to consider her. The French
Court hereupon got angry at being defied by a stupid Duke of York, and
ordered the Duchess of Portsmouth to put on the screw. But here again
she was wiser than her employers. For under the pressure of being urged
to do what he disliked there was danger that James might suddenly show
resentment and marry an enemy of France.
The Duchess of Portsmouth, therefore, suggested that the distinction it
was proposed to confer on the Duchesse de Guise should lapse in favour
of her own nominee. This was one of the Mesdemoiselles d'Elboeuf, of the
princely family of Lorraine. There was no doubt an _arrière pensée_ in
this suggestion by which "little Kéroual," as they scornfully called her
at Versailles, wished the world to see that she had risen to a height
in which she could patronise princesses of Lorraine. Louis, however, had
a grudge of some sort against the d'Elboeufs, and Mary of Modena was
chosen instead. But the Duchess of Portsmouth refused to give up the
cause of her _protégées_ without a struggle, if only to show Louis what
a power his spy had become, and quarrelled with the French Ambassador,
the Arlingtons, and the French faction generally. It is true peace was
made again between the spy and her employers, but she had gained one
thing of the greatest importance to her by the quarrel, and that was the
recognition by Louis that "little Kéroual" for the future was to be
treated with the respect due so great a personage as the Duchess of
Portsmouth.
The independence she displayed in this intrigue was made not from any
disloyalty to Louis, but from the necessity of enhancing the value of
her services--of making hay, as the saying is, while the sun was
shining. No one understood better than she the extreme precariousness of
her position. Mistrusted and unpopular at Whitehall, and cordially hated
by the people, there was nothing between her and ruin but the slippery,
fickle King. It was not enough to be Duchess of Portsmouth with ten
thousand pounds a year paid out of the wine licenses; if Charles
discarded her she would be forced to return to France as poor as she
left it, and it was not from the Court of France that she would get
protection then. She had to provide against this emergency, and she did
it with a cunning and determination for which no one, judging from her
"childish, simple, and baby face," as Evelyn described it, would have
given her credit. To bleed Louis as well as Charles was her object, and
she pursued it with a rapacity that rivalled that of her Grace of
Cleveland.
It was comparatively easy to get what she wanted out of Charles. Nell
Gwynn had declared that she would be content with five hundred a year,
but she managed to mulct the Treasury of sixty thousand pounds in one
year and get her son created Duke of St. Albans, with suitable revenues
to maintain the dignity. But the spoils of Nell were modest compared
with those of the Duchess of Portsmouth. She was never addicted to
gambling to the same extent as the Mazarin and the Cleveland, but she
could afford to lose five thousand pounds at one sitting, as she once
did. The drafts she made on the national exchequer were enormous. Her
allowance of ten thousand pounds was generally swollen to forty
thousand, and one year she succeeded in drawing the huge sum of
£136,668. Like the Duchess of Cleveland, she sold every office that fell
vacant; but she went a step further than her Grace, and took commissions
on the bribes with which Louis bought his creatures in England,
trafficked in royal pardons, and did a good business in selling convicts
to West Indian planters. This rapacity never flagged during her reign.
Immediately after Charles's death she put in a claim for ten thousand
pounds of her pension, which was in arrears, and his successor did not
hesitate to pay it.
The furniture that she accumulated in her apartments at Whitehall
represented a fortune far greater than her father had amassed in the
wool trade.
"Following his Majesty this morning, through the gallery," said Evelyn,
who gives a graphic inventory of her sumptuous abode, "I went with the
few who attended him to the Duchess of Portsmouth's dressing-room,
within her bedchamber, where she was in her loose morning-gown, her
maids combing her, newly out of bed, his Majesty and gallants standing
about her. But that which engaged my curiosity was the rich and splendid
furniture of this woman's apartment, now twice or thrice pulled down and
rebuilt to satisfy her prodigality and expensive pleasures, while her
Majesty's does not exceed some gentlemen's wives in furniture and
accommodation. Here I saw the new fabric of French tapestry" (from the
Gobelins looms just founded by Louis XIV.), "for design, tenderness of
work, and incomparable imitation of the best paintings, beyond anything
I ever beheld. Some pieces had Versailles, St. Germains, and other
palaces of the French king, with huntings, figures, and landscapes,
exotic fowls and all to the life, rarely done. Then for Japan cabinets,
screens, pendule clocks, great vases of wrought plate, table-stands,
chimney-furniture, sconces, branches, braseras, &c., all of massive
silver and out of number, besides some of his Majesty's best paintings."
Evidently a virtuoso, this mistress-spy, in which connection we cannot
help reflecting on the deep and intimate knowledge that Charles, the
most cynical and light-hearted of kings, must have had of women. What
with meek, faithful Catherines, devoted, antique-chivalrous Flora
Macdonalds, coarse, virago Clevelands, neurotic Mazarins, prudish,
cunning Stuarts, gay, insinuating Madames, subtle, artistic Kérouals,
Nell Gwynns, Moll Davises, Lady Shannons, Lady Dorchesters, and others
too numerous to mention, being an intelligent man, his experience of the
fair sex must have been wonderfully illuminating.