Reign of Louis XV.—Regency of the Duke of Orleans—Oppressive
measures against all persons connected with the Finances—Their
failure—Prisoners in the Bastile—Freret—Voltaire—The
Cellamare conspiracy—The Duchess of Maine—Madame de
Staal—Malezieu—Bargeton—Mahudel—The Mississippi scheme—Count
de Horn—Death of the Regent—Administration of the Duke of
Bourbon—La Blanc—Paris Duverney—The Count de Belleisle—The
Chevalier de Belleisle—Madame de Tencin.
When the Duke of Orleans assumed the regency, the finances of the kingdom
were in a lamentable state. The protracted and expensive wars into which
Louis XIV. had wantonly plunged, the boundless extravagance in which he
had indulged, and the peculations, and wasteful expenditure of every
kind, which had so long prevailed, had not only drained the treasury, but
had also caused a heavy load of debt, and almost dried up the sources of
supply. The government was indebted to an enormous amount, the revenue
of three years had been anticipated, and public credit was destroyed.
From all quarters a loud cry was raised for fiscal reform. A national
bankruptcy was proposed in the council, but the proposal was unanimously
rejected. The means which were adopted in its stead were, however,
scarcely less unjust; they were the same clumsy and violent means which
former rulers had almost uniformly employed. Contracts, entered into by
the ministers of the late king, were capriciously annulled, annuities and
pensions were cut down to one half, offices, which the holders had bought
at a great price, were abolished without any compensation being given,
a new coinage was issued at a higher nominal value, and government
securities, to the amount of six hundred millions, were at one stroke
reduced to two hundred and fifty millions, and even of this diminished
sum the creditors were defrauded of more than a fifth part. But the grand
panacea, for restoring the consumptive exchequer to its pristine vigour,
was the establishment of a court, antithetically denominated a chamber of
justice. This chamber was directed to institute a rigorous inquiry into
the conduct of all persons who had any connection with the finances, or
with contracts of any kind, and compel them to disgorge their spoil. A
sweeping edict brought under the jurisdiction of this inquisitorial body
several thousands of individuals, from the richest farmer-general, or
contractor, down to the poorest clerk. “The custom,” says Lemontey, “of
drawing back by proscriptions the rapines which a vicious administration
has tolerated, is an Asiatic art which ill beseems regular governments.
But, condemned to a financial anarchy by its squandering habits,
France, for a long while, could find no other than this odious remedy.”
The remedy was indeed an odious one! The retrospective operation of
this edict extended as far back as seven-and-twenty years; so that it
clutched in its iron grasp not only living presumed criminals, but
the children, grandchildren, and relations of those who had ceased to
exist, and thus at once inflicted torment on a multitude of guiltless
victims, and shook property to its very basis. The means employed to
give effect to the edict were of the most base and barbarous kind.
Death was the penalty denounced against all who were convicted, whoever
made an incorrect declaration of his fortune was doomed to the galleys,
and, that there might be no lack of evidence, the pillory was held up
_in terrorem_ to negligent witnesses. But, bad as all this was, there
was something still worse. Informers were to be rewarded with a fifth
part of the confiscations, and to receive a certificate, stating that
they were under the king’s protection, and exempt from being sued by
their creditors; to slander them was rendered punishable with death.
By another enactment, servants were allowed to denounce their masters,
under fictitious names; a happy invention for destroying all domestic
confidence! To excite the people, already sufficiently excited, a medal
was struck, on which the culprits were typified by the robber Cacus,
horrible songs and prints were circulated, and it was ordered that a
portion of the confiscated property should be distributed among the
inhabitants of the place where the condemned individual resided. The
whole scheme of proceeding was consistently infamous; it never deviated
into anything like justice.
To prevent the escape of those who were marked out for prosecution, an
order was suddenly issued, forbidding them to leave their abodes on pain
of death. Such, however, was the terror inspired by this unexpected
measure that many took flight, and others put an end to their own
existence. Of those who remained, multitudes were dragged from their
homes in the most studiously disgraceful manner, amidst the hootings
of the populace, who lent their willing aid to the officers of police.
The Bastile and the other prisons were speedily so crowded, that
numbers were obliged to be left in their houses under a guard. For six
months the chamber proceeded in its career, purveying liberally for the
pillory, the galleys, and the scaffold. It was at last discovered, that
this was a tedious and unsatisfactory process; that though revenge and
malice were gratified, there was little profit; and the system was in
consequence changed. To levy enormous fines and impositions was the new
course which was adopted. Twenty lists of pecuniary proscription were
made out, containing the names of 4470 heads of families, from whom the
sum of two hundred and twenty millions of livres—about nine millions
sterling—was demanded. The celebrated Bourvalais, who had risen from
being a footman to be one of the richest financiers in France, was taxed
at 4,400,000 livres. In many instances envy or personal enmity contrived
to have insufferable burthens laid upon obnoxious individuals. Then, on
the part of the sufferers, ensued solicitations and bribes to men and
women in power, to procure more favourable terms; the golden harvest
was eagerly reaped by the courtiers, and the court became a theatre
of underhand manœuvres and gross corruption. The people, meanwhile,
were rapidly growing disgusted with the chamber of justice. They found
that they had derived no benefit whatever from its labours, the sums
extorted by it having chiefly been wasted in gifts and pensions to the
privileged classes. There was another and yet stronger reason for their
dissatisfaction. Trade, and the demand for labour, had fallen off to an
alarming degree, and money was rapidly disappearing; for no one would
display riches, and indulge in luxuries, when his so doing might render
him an object of persecution. So loud a cry was therefore raised against
the chamber that, after having been twelve months in existence, it was
suppressed. By the subsequent reversal of most of its sentences, and by a
declaration, that no measure of a similar kind should again be resorted
to, a severe but just censure was in fact passed upon the defunct
tribunal, and upon the whole transaction.
From tyranny in the gross we must now turn our attention again to tyranny
in the detail. Oriental despotism, in its most capricious mood, could
not have inflicted punishment more ridiculously and unjustly than the
French government inflicted it upon the celebrated Freret. This eminent
individual, who was born at Paris in 1688, was remarkable for his
precocious talents and multifarious learning. Chronology, geography,
mythology, history, and the laws, customs, and literature of ancient and
modern nations, were all thoroughly known to him, he was not ignorant
of the abstruse sciences, and his knowledge, instead of being a chaotic
mass, was well arranged, systematically linked together, and readily
available. An authoritative tone, and some ruggedness of manner, were the
only defects imputed to him; but they were merely superficial, and did
not prevent him from being kind, charitable, and a sincere and constant
friend. He died at the age of sixty-one, his constitution, which was
naturally strong, being worn out by incessant study. The edition of his
works, in twenty volumes, is incomplete. Several irreligious productions
have been calumniously attributed to him.
It was a “Memoir on the Origin of the French” which was the cause of his
being sent to the Bastile in 1705, and the Abbé de Vertot is asserted to
have been the person to whom he owed his imprisonment. His offence was,
that the origin which he assigned to his countrymen was an affront to the
national dignity. It is said that, after having been closely interrogated
at the Bastile, he begged leave to ask a single question, “Why am I
here?” To this the reply was, “You have a great deal of curiosity.” When
he was at length released, one of the magistrates sneeringly said to him,
“Let France, and the French, and modern subjects, alone; antiquity offers
such a wide field for your labours.” It is probable that no Turkish
cadi, in the fifteenth century, ever uttered a speech of such insolent
stupidity as is ascribed, three centuries later, to this magistrate of a
polished nation.
Various as were the acquirements of Freret, there was in the Bastile, and
nearly contemporaneously with him, a prisoner, who far transcended him on
that score, and who possessed a splendid genius. Poet, in almost every
style of poetry, dramatist, historian, novellist, essayist, philosopher,
controversialist, and commentator, the universal Voltaire was pre-eminent
in several departments of literature, and was below mediocrity in none.
“He was,” says a French author, “one of our greatest poets; the most
brilliant, the most elegant, the most fertile, of our prose writers.
There is not, in the literature of any country, either in verse or in
prose, an author who has written on so many opposite kinds of subjects,
and has so constantly displayed a superiority in all of them.” It has
been said that Voltaire is a superficial writer, but this assertion is
not borne out by the fact. On the contrary, it is wonderful that so gay
and witty and fertile a writer, who was so much in the whirl of society
as he was, should have displayed such profound research, such a vast
command of materials, as Voltaire has undoubtedly done.
As a man, Voltaire could be a warm friend, and was a champion of
humanity, and a strenuous opponent of intolerance, superstition, and
oppression. From our admiration of him a considerable drawback must,
however, be made, for the readiness with which he lavished incense upon
such worthless nobles as the Duke of Richelieu; for the aristocratical
feelings which occasionally peep out even from among his liberal
opinions; for his duplicity in showering praises and professions of
kindness upon men whom he was at the same moment devoting to ridicule;
for his meanness in stooping to falsehood, whenever he feared that
avowing the truth would expose him to inconvenience; for his inflammable
passions, which so often blinded his reason; for the sleepless animosity
with which he strove to hunt down, disgrace, and crush whoever had
offended him; for his obscenity and nauseating indelicacy; and for the
fury with which he attacked objects which, in all ages, wise and good men
have held sacred.
Voltaire, whose family name was Arouet, was born, in 1694, at Chatenay,
and received a thorough education at the Jesuits’ College, in the French
capital. One of his tutors predicted that he would be the Coryphæus of
deism in France; and the society which the youthful poet frequented,
elegant, but immeasurably licentious and irreligious, was not likely
to falsify the prediction. His father destined him for a place in the
magistracy, but the literary propensity of the son was unconquerable. In
his twenty-second year he was sent to the Bastile, by the regent Duke of
Orleans, on an unfounded suspicion of his being the author of a libel.
It was while he was in prison that he formed the plan of the Henriade,
and completed the tragedy of Œdipus. He was in the Bastile above a year
before the regent recognised his innocence, and set him free. The regent
desired to see him, and the Marquis de Nocé was ordered to introduce him.
While they were waiting in the ante-chamber, a circumstance occurred
which strongly marks the profaneness and indiscretion of Voltaire. A
violent storm burst over Paris, upon which the poet looked up at the
clouds, and exclaimed, “If it were a regent that governed above, things
could not be managed worse.” When de Nocé presented him to the duke, he
said, “Here, your highness, is young Arouet, whom you have just taken out
of the Bastile, and whom you will send back again,” and he then repeated
what had been said. The duke, however, did not send him back again; he
laughed heartily, and made the offender a liberal present. “I thank your
royal highness for taking care of my board,” said Voltaire, “but I must
request that you will not again provide me with lodging.”
Œdipus was represented in 1718, with complete success. Two other
tragedies, Artemise and Mariane, by which it was succeeded, were less
fortunate. The Duke of Orleans was dead, and the reins of government
were now held by the Duke of Bourbon. Voltaire having ventured to
resent a dastardly insult offered to him by the worthless Chevalier de
Rohan-Chabot, the chevalier thought it safer to imprison his adversary
than to meet him in the field. His friends applied to the Duke of
Bourbon, and raised his anger by showing him an epigram which the poet
had composed on him. Their plan was successful; Voltaire was committed
to the Bastile, and remained there for six months. This act of injustice
induced him to take up his residence in England. In this country he
lived for three years, was flatteringly received by many illustrious
characters, and obtained a splendid subscription for the Henriade. The
produce of this subscription formed the basis of that large fortune
which he subsequently obtained by various lucky speculations. In 1728 he
returned to his native land, and, between that year and 1749, he produced
his tragedies of Zara, Alzira, Mahomet, and Merope, and many other works,
was admitted into the French Academy, and was appointed gentleman in
ordinary of the king’s bed-chamber, and historiographer of France.
In 1750 Voltaire accepted an invitation to Berlin, which was given to him
by the king of Prussia. For a while the sovereign and the poet were on
the most amicable terms; but, in 1753, their friendship was broken, and
Voltaire quitted the Prussian dominions in disgust. Paris, in consequence
of the intrigues of his enemies, being no longer an eligible abode for
him, he lived for short periods at Geneva and other places, and at length
purchased an estate at Ferney, in the Pays de Gex, on which he finally
settled. There, in possession of an ample fortune, and surrounded by
friends, he gave free scope to his indefatigable pen. In April, 1778, he
went once more to Paris, after an absence of nearly thirty years. He was
received with almost a frenzy of enthusiasm, his bust was crowned on
the stage, and was placed by the academicians next to that of Corneille.
These honours, however, he did not long enjoy, for he expired on the 30th
of May; his death is supposed to have been hastened by an over-dose of
laudanum, which he took to calm the pain occasioned by strangury, and
to procure sleep, of which he had long been deprived. In the edition of
Beaumarchais, the collected works of Voltaire form seventy volumes.
By the detection of the Cellamare conspiracy, in 1718, a large accession
of prisoners fell to the share of the Bastile. Wounded female pride had
the chief share in getting up that conspiracy. The Duchess of Maine was
the prime mover. This princess, whose small frame was animated by a high
and restless spirit, had seen her family degraded in a manner which it
was not unnatural that she should violently resent. By an edict, dated
in 1710, Louis XIV. not only granted to the Duke of Maine, and his other
legitimated children, the same rank and honours which were enjoyed by
princes of the blood, but also declared them capable of inheriting
the crown, on failure of descendants in the legitimate branches. This
step was highly offensive to the French peers, and was opposed by the
parliament; but, while the king lived, resistance was unavailing. But
the scene was about to change. Though Louis had reinforced his decree by
a declaration in 1714, and by a clause in his testament, his death soon
afforded another proof of the little respect that is paid to a deceased
despot. The will, as every one knows, was set aside, without a voice
being heard in support of it. In 1717, at the instance of the Duke of
Bourbon, and the peers, the council of regency deprived the legitimated
princes of all the privileges of princes of the blood, with the exception
of a seat in the parliament. It was in vain that the Duchess of Maine
and her partisans moved heaven and earth to avert this blow; all
their writings, speeches, and manœuvres, were entirely thrown away. It
must, however, be owned, that the duchess displayed wonderful talent
and industry on this occasion; while the struggle continued, she was
constantly to be seen half buried in a pile of dusty volumes, records,
and other documents, in which she sought arguments and examples to
support her cause. When the dreaded blow was finally struck, her passion
rose to the highest pitch. “There is nothing left to me now,” exclaimed
she to her more patient husband, “but the shame of having married you!”
In the following year fresh fuel was heaped upon the flame. The Duke of
Maine was reduced to take rank below all the peers, except those who were
created posterior to 1694, and was likewise divested of the tutorship
of the young king, which was assumed by the Duke of Bourbon. This gave
rise to another outbreak of passion on the part of the duchess, who,
on receiving notice to give up to the triumphant Bourbon the official
apartments in the Tuileries, broke the glasses, the china, and everything
which she had strength enough to destroy. Thus stung to the quick, she
resorted to conspiracy for vengeance, and she speedily rallied round her
a band of subaltern intriguers and discontented politicians. To expel
the Duke of Orleans from the regency, and place the government under
the tutelage of Philip V. of Spain, was the design of the plotters. The
Spanish monarch, who detested the Duke of Orleans, and who, in spite of
his renunciation, had still views on the French crown, was by no means
averse from forwarding the scheme of the duchess. The correspondence was
carried on through the Prince de Cellamare, the Spanish ambassador at
Paris. The Duke of Orleans was, however, not in the dark with respect
to these proceedings; they were betrayed to him by some of the parties
concerned; and, as soon as the proof was complete, the whole of the
offenders were arrested. The Duchess of Maine was sent to the castle
of Dijon, and allowed only one female servant to attend her, the duke
was closely confined in the citadel of Dourlens; the Abbé Brigault, the
Marquis of Pompadour, the Count of Laval, the Chevalier Menil, Malezieu,
Mademoiselle de Launay, and many more, found lodgings in the Bastile;
and Vincennes and other prisons received their share of captives. Of de
Launay and Malezieu some account shall be given; the rest deserve no
record.
The Baroness de Staal, whose maiden name was de Launay, was born at
Paris, in 1693. Her father was a painter, who was compelled to retire
to England before her birth; her mother, who seems not to have been
overburdened with maternal feelings, found with her infant a retreat in
a convent at Rouen. Even in infancy, De Launay manifested the dawning
of a very superior intellect, and her manners were so fascinating that
she became the darling of the convent. She had an extreme longing for
knowledge, her questions were incessant, and, as all the nuns were
eager to gratify and improve her, she soon acquired a larger and more
valuable stock of ideas than falls to the lot of children in general.
Among her friends in the convent was Madame de Grieu, who, on being
nominated prioress of St. Louis at Rouen, took the child with her to
her new abode. “The convent of St. Louis,” says Madame de Staal, “was
like a little state in which I reigned sovereignly.” The abbess and her
sister enjoyed a small pension from their family, which they devoted to
the payment of masters for their favourite. By the time that she was
fourteen, De Launay had studied the philosophy of Descartes, and pondered
over the speculations of Malebranche, and, not long after, she turned her
attention to the science of geometry.
Her intellectual powers and her winning qualities brought many admirers
around her; among whom were the Abbé de Vertot, M. Brunel, and M. Rey.
None of them, however, made any impression on her heart. With respect to
the passion of M. Rey, she makes one of those quiet yet piquant remarks,
which are so common in her Memoirs. He was accustomed to escort her back
to the convent, when she had been visiting some neighbouring friends. “We
had to pass through a large open space,” says she, “and at the beginning
of our acquaintance, he used to take his way along the sides. I found
now, that he crossed over the middle of it; from which I concluded, that
his love was at least diminished in the proportion of the difference
between the diagonal and the two sides of a square.” It was not long ere
she ceased to be able to speak of love in a sportive tone. She became
deeply enamoured of the Marquis de Silly, the brother of a friend. He
respected her, and acted the part of a counsellor, and almost a brother,
but he could not return her affection: and the unfortunate fair one has
touchingly described the sufferings she endured from her idolatrous and
hopeless passion. Years elapsed before it was eradicated.
This woe was aggravated by another. The death of the prioress, Madame de
Grieu, in 1710, obliged her to quit the convent, and threw her without
resources on the world. She accompanied to Paris the sister of her late
patroness, and found a temporary refuge in the Presentation convent. To
the purses of her friends she resolutely determined to make no appeal,
while her means of repayment were uncertain, but rather to welcome
servitude than forfeit her self-estimation. Her finances and hopes were
almost at the lowest ebb, when the report of her astonishing abilities
reached the gay, frivolous, and volatile duchess of La Ferté. The duchess
was delighted with the idea of getting possession of, and exhibiting,
what in fashionable cant phrase is called “a lion.” She could not rest
till the new wonder was brought to her; an event which was somewhat
retarded by the necessity under which Mademoiselle de Launay was placed,
of borrowing decent clothes to appear in. The duchess was one of those
persons who are apt to take sudden and violent likings, and she instantly
pronounced her to be an absolute prodigy. She lauded her without measure
in all quarters, hurried her about from place to place, and showed her
off, much in the same way that a remarkably clever monkey is managed
by an itinerant exhibitor of wild beasts. Madame de Staal has given an
account, which is at once ludicrous and painful, of what she endured
at this period. Fortunately for her, she became acquainted with men of
talent, and acquired some valuable friends, among whom were Fontenelle
and Malazieu.
Disappointed in her hopes of being received into the household of the
Duchess of La Ferté, or of obtaining an establishment elsewhere through
her means, De Launay accepted an offer from the Duchess of Maine, to whom
she had been introduced. This defection, as it was deemed, threw her late
patroness into a paroxysm of rage. Her new situation was an unenviable
one. She filled the place of a lady’s maid, who had retired; her
apartment was a wretched low closet, in which it was impossible to move
about in an upright posture, and which had neither chimney nor window;
and her chief occupation was to make up shifts, in which she confesses
herself to have been so inexpert, that, when the duchess came to put on
some of her handywork, she found in the arm what ought to have been in
the elbow. By the duchess, and all the upper classes in the house, she
was utterly neglected, as a mere drudge; by those of her own class, she
was envied, hated, and persecuted, for her natural superiority over
them. Life at last became a burthen, and there was a moment when she
seriously meditated the commission of suicide.
A happy chance lifted her at once from this slough of despond into her
proper sphere. There was an exceedingly beautiful female, named Testard,
who laid claim to supernatural powers; by desire of the Duke of Orleans,
Fontenelle had visited her, and, prejudiced by her charms, is said to
have manifested too much faith in her. This folly of a philosopher,
who was not remarkable for believing too much, excited a loud clamour.
“You had better write to M. de Fontenelle, to let him hear what every
body is talking against him about Testard,” said the duchess one day
to her despised attendant. De Launay did write; and her letter, though
brief, was such a finished composition, such an admirable mixture of
delicate reproof and delicate praise, that, in the course of a few days,
innumerable copies of it were spread throughout Paris. She, meanwhile,
was unconscious of the effect which she had produced, till she was
apprised of it by the duchess’s visitors, who overwhelmed her with
compliments and attentions.
From this time Mademoiselle de Launay was looked upon by the duchess as
a person whose opinion was of some consequence, and was admitted into
her parties, and enjoyed her confidence. She now shared with Malezieu
the task of supplying plans and verses for the spectacles at Sceaux. Her
literary connections became more widely extended, and she had no lack
of lovers. Among those who paid the most devoted homage to her, was the
Abbé de Chaulieu; the passion, as she herself hints, could have been only
platonic, for he was then verging on eighty, but she owns that she had “a
despotic authority over everything in his house.” It must, however, be
mentioned, to her honour, that she displayed a rare disinterestedness,
and steadily refused presents from him, which would have tempted a
woman of a common mind, especially under De Launay’s circumstances. The
princely gift of a thousand pistoles, which the Abbé offered, would have
saved her from the slavery, endured night after night, of reading a
duchess to sleep, while her own health was endangered by want of rest.
In the memorial which the Duchess of Maine drew up in behalf of the
legitimated princes, she was assisted by De Launay. “I turned over,”
says the latter, “the old chronicles, and the ancient and modern
jurisconsults, till excessive fatigue disposed the princess to rest.
Then came my reading, to lull her to sleep; and then I went to seek for
slumber, which, however, I never found!”
In the proceedings of the duchess, with respect to the Cellamare
conspiracy, she was deeply implicated; a part at least of the
correspondence passed through her hands. Her good sense anticipated,
long before the event, what would be the final result. The storm burst
at last. She was arrested on the 19th of December, 1718, and, three days
after, was committed to the Bastile. With a truly philosophical spirit,
she soon became reconciled to her fate. Luckily, she had an invaluable
companion in her maid Rondel, faithful, affectionate, and acute, the
very model of domestics. But it must not be concealed, that she had
another consolation, to lighten her prison hours. She inspired two
persons with an ardent attachment. One of these was a fellow prisoner,
on the Cellamare score, the Chevalier de Menil; the other was the king’s
lieutenant in the fortress, M. de Maisonrouge. Reason would have chosen
the latter as the proper object of fondness; but her wayward heart
decided in favour of the former. No writer has ever imagined a more
elevated, devoted, self-sacrificing passion than that of Maisonrouge.
He lived and breathed but for her; ever watchful to forerun all her
wishes, having no delight but to behold and converse with her, he had
even the magnanimity to convey her letters to Menil, and to bring about
interviews, when he found that her heart was irrevocably bestowed on him.
The catastrophe is painful. The favoured Menil, who had solemnly pledged
himself to make her his wife, was no sooner set free than he proved
faithless to his vows. The noble-minded and unfortunate Maisonrouge never
recovered the shock which he sustained from his loss; he died the victim
of his unrequited love.
The confinement of Mademoiselle de Launay was continued for two years;
she was the last to be liberated. Her imprisonment was protracted by
her repeated resolute refusals to confess anything that could tend to
derogate from the safety and character of the Duchess of Maine. She
persisted in this course even after she had the duchess’s permission
to speak out, and she was released at last after having made only an
imperfect confession. This heroic conduct gained, as it deserved,
universal praise. It is mortifying to relate that, after her sufferings,
she was received by the duchess without that warm greeting which she had
a right to expect. The duchess even carried her indifference so far as
to let her remain almost in rags, all her clothes having been worn out
in the Bastile. Yet she would not hear of her quitting Sceaux, and when
Dacier, who was rich, would have married De Launay, she frustrated the
negotiation, in the dread of losing her. At length, when her ill-used and
exhausted dependent was meditating to retire into a convent, the duchess
bestirred herself, and brought about an union with the Baron de Staal, a
half-pay Swiss officer. The baroness was now admitted to all the honours
enjoyed by the highest ladies in the household, and from this period
till her decease in 1750, she was comparatively happy.
Nicholas de Malezieu, a native of Paris, was born in 1650. Like Madame
de Staal, he possessed much talent, and, like her, he displayed it in
childhood. By the time that he was four years old he had, with scarcely
any assistance, taught himself to read and write, and at twelve years of
age had gone through a complete course of philosophy. His merit gained
for him the friendship of Bossuet, and the Duke of Montausier, and so
highly did those eminent men rate it, that they recommended him as tutor
to the Duke of Maine. Fenelon was subsequently added to the list of his
friends, and, notwithstanding the breach between that amiable prelate and
Bossuet, he retained the good-will of both. He seems, too, to have lived
in harmony with all the principal contemporary authors. The marriage of
the Duke of Maine with the high-spirited and intelligent grand-daughter
of the great Condé drew still closer the ties which bound Malezieu to
the family of the duke. His learning embraced a wide circle, he was a
proficient in mathematics, elegant literature, Greek, and Hebrew, and his
extemporary translations from the Greek dramatists and poets, and his
illustrations and comments on them, are said to have been delivered with
a degree of eloquence which excited universal admiration. The duchess
listened to his instructions with delight. It is therefore not wonderful,
that he acquired an almost unbounded influence in the ducal palace.
“The decisions of M. Malezieu,” says Madame de Staal, “were thought as
infallible as were those of Pythagoras among his disciples. The warmest
disputes were at an end the moment any one pronounced the words ‘_He_
said it.’” There was another reason which had, perhaps no small effect
in rendering him a favourite with the duchess. He was not one of those
stately personages who think that it derogates from their dignity to
attend to graceful trifles. The duchess was fond of giving magnificent
spectacles and entertainments, and having plays acted, at Sceaux, where
she held a sort of miniature court. Malezieu had the management of them,
and when verses, and sometimes pieces, were wanted, his ready pen was
called in to supply them. From these light occupations he was taken away
for a time, to become mathematical preceptor to the youthful Duke of
Burgundy; in this task he was for four years engaged, and he performed
it in a manner which enhanced his reputation. The lessons which he
gave to his royal pupil were afterwards published, under the title of
“Elements of Geometry.” The days of Malezieu were spent in uninterrupted
tranquillity, till the period when the duchess rashly plunged into
intrigues with the Spanish court. It was not unnatural that he should
espouse warmly the cause of his noble patrons, and he was perhaps led to
the verge of treason before he was aware. His heaviest offence seems to
have been his writing, at the request of the Duchess of Maine, sketches
of two letters against the Duke of Orleans which were to be sent to the
Spanish monarch, for the purpose of being addressed by him to Louis
XV. and the parliaments. Malezieu long persisted in denying the fact,
and asserting the innocence of his employer, and for this persistency
he was kept in the Bastile after the whole of the plotters, with the
exception of himself and De Launay, had been discharged. It was not till
he knew that proof was in the hands of the government, and the duchess
had confessed, that he avowed the authorship of the letters. He was then
released, but was exiled for six months to Etampes. His decease took
place in 1727.
There remains yet another person who suffered by the Cellamare
conspiracy, though he was not one of its agents. He had the fate of the
unlucky stork in the fable, who got into dangerous company. Bargeton, one
of the most celebrated advocates of the parliament of Paris, was born,
about 1675, at Uzès, in Languedoc. If he was not of humble birth, his
parents at least were poor; for, before he had emerged from obscurity,
all relationship with him was disclaimed by a Languedocian family
which claimed to be noble. When, however, his fortune and fame were
established, one of that family was anxious to prove his consanguinity
with the formerly despised advocate, and hoped to flatter him, by
descanting on the antiquity of their common origin. Bargeton cut short
the harangue of his would-be kinsman. “As you are a gentleman by birth,”
said he, “it is impossible that we can be relations.”
Bargeton was the law adviser of some of the highest personages of the
kingdom. The duke and duchess of Maine placed entire confidence in him.
This circumstance gave rise to suspicion that he was connected with the
Cellamare plot, and he was consequently committed to the Bastile. In a
short time his innocence was recognized, and he was set at liberty.
The legal reputation of Bargeton, both as a civilian and common lawyer,
induced Machault, the comptroller-general of finances, to apply to him,
in 1749, for assistance. The clergy had hitherto contributed to the
wants of the state only by voluntary gifts; and, of course, asserted
the privilege of not being compelled to contribute at all. Machault
determined to put an end to this pretended privilege, by subjecting
them, like the rest of the people, to the payment of the twentieth. Had
he succeeded, his success would have put an end to one of the abuses
which contributed to produce the Revolution, and, most probably, would
at length have caused the downfall of another equally crying abuse with
respect to the nobles. Though Bargeton was thoroughly convinced that the
clergy had no right to an exemption from imposts, yet, being aware that
the firmness of Louis XV. was not to be relied on, he advised Machault
either to prohibit the ecclesiastics from holding meetings, or to
decline a contest with them. “I have the king’s promise to stand by me,”
said Machault. “He will break it,” replied the advocate, who, in this
instance, proved to be a prophet. Bargeton, nevertheless, lent his aid to
the comptroller-general, and wrote a series of admirable letters, on the
subject of the clerical immunity. His labour was in vain. Unchangeable
in nothing but sensuality and despotism, the king yielded; the clergy
triumphed; and the letters of Bargeton were suppressed by an order of
council. The author did not live to witness this event; he died early in
1753, before his work had passed through the press.
The suspicion of carrying on an improper correspondence with Spain,
though it does not appear that he was connected with the Duchess of
Maine’s party, gave another prisoner to the Bastile. Nicholas Mahudel,
who was born at Langres, in 1673, was by profession a physician; but
his celebrity was acquired by his profound knowledge of history and
numismatics. So extensive were his talents and information upon those
subjects, that he was chosen a member of the Academy of Inscriptions, and
he took a very active part in the proceedings of that learned body. His
servant having betrayed to the police some letters which his master had
written to Spain, at the period when all intercourse with that country
was looked upon with a jealous eye, the consequence was, that Mahudel was
lodged in the Bastile for several months. It was while he was in prison
that he wrote his “History of Medallions,” of which only four copies were
printed. His other productions are chiefly dissertations on medals, and
on historical questions. He died in 1747.
It has seldom happened that a captive has been reluctant to quit his
prison. Such an uncommon anomaly did, however, actually occur with
respect to an individual who was implicated in the Cellamare plot. Five
years had elapsed since the discomfiture of that plot, and the government
believed that all who were connected with it had been released, when it
was by mere chance discovered that one of them, the Marquis de Bon Repos,
had been left in the Bastile by mistake. Bon Repos, an aged officer, who,
notwithstanding his title, was miserably poor, was anything but grateful
for his proffered release. He had become habituated to confinement, and
was rejoiced to be safe from want, and he manifested a strong dislike to
“a crust of bread and liberty.” It was not without much murmuring that he
consented to change his quarters in the Bastile for others in the Hôtel
des Invalides.
It might have been supposed that the tremendous explosion of the
Mississippi scheme, which spread ruin over France, would have filled the
prisons with real or imagined offenders. But this was not the case. Law
himself, more unfortunate and imprudent perhaps than criminal, received
a passport from the regent, and reached Brussels in safety. The only
persons who appear to have at all suffered, were his brother, William
Law, and two of the directors, who were sent for a short time to the
Bastile.
The next remarkable inmate of the Bastile, the Count de Horn, a Flemish
noble, was no less infamous by crime than he was illustrious by birth. He
was allied to several princely houses, and could even claim relationship
with the regent Duke of Orleans. So thoroughly had he disgraced himself,
by his fraudulent and debauched conduct, that at the very time when he
was meditating the atrocity which drew on him the vengeance of the
law, his family had despatched a gentleman to pay his debts, to request
his expulsion from Paris, and to bring him back, by force if necessary,
to his own country. Their agent arrived too late. Some of the count’s
freaks, disgraceful as they were, might have been charitably ascribed to
the licentious manners of the age, and the turbulent passions of a youth
of twenty-two, had he not been guilty of a crime which proved that his
heart was still more faulty than his head.
The two indiscretions—if so mild a name may be given to them—for which
the Count de Horn was sent to the Bastile, were not too harshly punished
by his imprisonment; as they manifested a degree of brutality which was
ominous of worse deeds. In company with some of his libertine companions,
he was passing the cloisters of St. Germain, where a corpse was waiting
for interment. “What are you doing here? Get up!” he exclaimed to the
body, which was lying uncovered. He seconded his speech by striking the
corpse several blows with his sword, and overturning it among the sacred
vessels, which were placed in readiness for the funeral service.
As no notice was taken of this outrage, he was emboldened to make
the church of St. Germain once more the scene of his exploits. It is
necessary to mention that, at the period in question, almost the whole
population of Paris was labouring under the epidemic madness of the
famous Mississippi scheme. An ordinance relative to bank notes had just
been issued by the government, and a hawker was crying it for sale in the
street. From this man the count purchased a copy of the ordinance, and
gave him a crown for it, on condition of his placing a large stone at
the great door of the church. On this stone De Horn mounted, and while
high mass was being celebrated within the building, he thundered out the
anthem which is sung when the dead are committed to the ground, and he
concluded by proclaiming the burial of bank notes. This second insult to
public decency was too much to be borne; the priest laid his complaint
before the government, and the offender was conveyed to the Bastile.
In the course of a few days the youthful profligate was set at liberty.
But his brief imprisonment had worked no beneficial change upon him. It
seems, indeed, to have had a contrary effect. So slight a chastisement
perhaps induced him to calculate upon impunity for greater crimes. A
very short time elapsed before he dipped his hands in blood. In the
sanguinary deed which brought him to destruction, he had two accomplices,
Laurent de Mille, a half-pay captain, and Lestang, a youth of twenty, the
son of a Flemish banker. Every Frenchman, who could any how obtain the
means of speculating, was then busily engaged in the Rue Quincampoix,
which was the Parisian stock exchange. De Horn, too, was there; but his
speculation was of a more diabolical nature than that which engaged the
multitude. Having picked out a rich stock-jobber, who was known to carry
about with him a large sum in notes, he lured him by pretending to be in
possession of shares, which he was willing to sell considerably under the
market price. These bargains were usually concluded in a tavern; and,
accordingly, De Horn and his associates proceeded with their unsuspecting
victim to a house of that kind in the Rue de Venise. There he stabbed the
unfortunate stock-jobber, and robbed him of his pocket-book. He then,
with his accomplices, leaped out of the window, and endeavoured to make
his escape. Lestang got off, but the count and the half-pay captain were
less fortunate; they were overtaken, and lodged in prison.
Justice, on this occasion, was not delayed. The trial of the delinquents
followed close upon the commission of the murder; no circumstance of
mitigation could be pleaded in their behalf, and they were both condemned
to be broken on the wheel. No sooner did the sentence become known than
the whole of the aristocratical class in France, Flanders, and Germany,
was in commotion. To subject a nobleman to such a degrading punishment
was declared to be an unprecedented and abominable measure. The regent
was beset on all sides by solicitations for a pardon, or, at least,
for a change in the mode of executing the criminal. When the first of
these boons was found to be hopeless, redoubled exertions were made to
obtain the second. Among the arguments employed to move the regent, that
of the culprit being related to him was strongly urged. But, though
Philip of Orleans was stained by many vices, there were moments when his
better nature prevailed, and he was capable of acting nobly. To the near
relations of the count, who pressed him incessantly on the subject, he
replied, “When I have impure blood in my veins, I have it drawn out.”
Then, quoting the sentiment of Corneille, “’tis crime that brands with
shame, and not the scaffold,” he added, “I must share in the disgrace of
which you complain, and this ought to console the rest of his kindred.”
It is said, however, that he was at length on the point of yielding so
far as to commute the form of punishment for one less obnoxious; but
that Mr. Law and the Abbé Dubois insisted on the absolute necessity of
allowing justice to take its course. Popular indignation would, they
justly remarked, be roused by any favour being shown to the perpetrator
of such a heinous offence. The regent acquiesced in their opinion; and,
that he might not be harassed by further appeals to his clemency, he
went privately to St. Cloud, where he remained till the murderers were
executed.
Having lost all hope from the Regent, the Princes of Robecq and
Isengheim, who were nearly allied to De Horn, tried a new method of
evading the dreaded stigma. They gained admission to his prison, and
exhorted him to escape the wheel, by taking poison, which they offered.
But either religious scruples, or a lingering belief that he might yet be
pardoned, induced him to decline acceding to their wishes. Finding that
all their intreaties and remonstrances were unavailing, they quitted him
in a rage, exclaiming, “Go, wretch! you are fit only to die by the hand
of the executioner.”
The firmness of the regent was worthy of applause. It was, nevertheless,
looked upon as an inexpiable insult by the aristocracy in general, and
especially by the kinsfolk of the malefactor. The regent having directed
that the confiscated property of the count should be restored to the
prince, his brother, the haughty noble rejected the proffered boon, and
gave vent to his high displeasure in the following insolent letter.
“I do not complain, Sir, of the death of my brother; he had committed
so horrible a crime, that there was no punishment he did not deserve.
But I complain, that, in his person, you have violated the rights of
the kingdom, of the nobility, and of nations. For the offer of his
confiscated property, which you have been pleased to make, I thank you;
but I should think myself as infamous as he was, if I were to accept of
the slightest favour from your Royal Highness. I hope that God and the
king will, some day, mete out to you the same rigid justice that you have
dispensed to my unfortunate brother.”
By the death of the Duke of Orleans, in 1723, all the power of the state
fell into the worthless hands of the Duke of Bourbon. The vices of
Orleans had been at least palliated by great talents, some virtues, and a
heart which, though corrupted, was not dead to kind and noble feelings;
but Bourbon, harsh in disposition, rude in manners, repulsive in personal
appearance, and governed by an artful and profligate mistress, had no one
good quality to throw even a faint lustre over his numerous defects. The
sway of Bourbon lasted little more than two years, and, in that brief
space of time, he committed so many enormous political errors, springing
from ignorance, presumption, and intolerance, that the kingdom was thrown
into discontent and confusion.
The minister of the war department, Claude le Blanc, was one of those
who suffered by the change which took place on the death of the Duke of
Orleans. Le Blanc was born in 1669, and had filled several important
offices before he became one of the ministers. The machinations of his
enemies, one of the most inveterate of whom was the Marshal de Villeroi,
procured his temporary banishment from court in 1723, on suspicion of
his having participated in peculation committed by the treasurer. He was
confined in the Bastile by the Duke of Bourbon, and the parliament was
directed to bring him to trial. To secure his conviction, his adversaries
calumniously asserted, that he had employed an assassin to murder one of
his principal accusers. The parliament, however, fully acquitted him of
all the charges which were brought against him. He was, nevertheless,
exiled by the duke. In 1726, Cardinal de Fleury placed him once more at
the head of the war department, where he continued till his decease, in
1728. It is in favour of his character that he died poor, and that he was
beloved by the people.
Le Blanc was scarcely restored to his office, before his vacant place in
the Bastile was filled by one who had been among the most active of his
enemies. Joseph Paris Duverney, a native of Dauphiné, of humble birth,
was one of four brothers, all of whom were men of talent. A fortunate
chance gave them the opportunity of exercising their talents in a wider
field than, considering their primitive station in life, they could have
hoped to find. They were the sons of a man who kept a small solitary inn
at the foot of the Alps, and whom they assisted in his business. The
Duke of Vendôme was then at the head of the French army in Italy, and
all his plans were rendered abortive by the failure of supplies. This
want of subsistence was caused by the scandalous conduct of Bouchu, the
commissary general. Bouchu, who was old, had the folly to make love to
a young girl, and she had the good sense to prefer his deputy, who had
youth and personal appearance on his side. To revenge himself for this
slight, Bouchu retarded the collecting of provisions, in order to throw
the blame on his deputy, who was charged with the merely mechanical part
of the operations. Knowing that further delay would be ruin to him, the
deputy contrived to collect a portion of the supplies that were wanted;
but he was yet far from being out of his difficulties, for the Alps were
interposed between him and the French army, and he knew not where to find
in the neighbourhood a practicable pass. While he was labouring under
this embarrassment, he luckily fell in with the four brothers, and they
engaged to extricate him from it. They were thoroughly acquainted with
every path and goat track in that wild region, and they conducted the
convoy with so much skill, through apparently impassable ways, that they
reached the French camp without having suffered the slightest loss.
This service, for which they were liberally rewarded, laid the foundation
of their fortune. The contractors and commissaries employed them, and
promoted them rapidly; and, at no distant time, the brothers became
themselves contractors, and extensive commercial speculators. Riches
rapidly flowed in upon them, and they were called to take a share
in managing the finances of the state. They experienced, however, a
temporary eclipse during the ascendancy of Law, to whom they were
hostile, and who avenged himself by procuring their exile into Dauphiné.
The flight of Law put an end to their banishment; they returned to Paris,
were in higher credit than ever, and contributed much to mitigate the
evils which had been caused by the Mississippi scheme. They continued to
have great weight in the government, till they lost it in consequence of
a political intrigue, in which Joseph Paris imprudently engaged, with the
Marchioness de Prie, the Duke of Bourbon’s mistress. Their intent was to
exclude Cardinal de Fleury from public affairs, and to give the duke an
unbounded ascendancy over the youthful monarch. Fleury discovered the
plot; the duke was deprived of power; and the brothers were once more
exiled. Joseph was soon after arrested, at his asylum near Langres, and
was sent to the Bastile, where he remained for nearly two years. In 1730,
however, he recovered his influence, and he kept it till his death, in
1770. France is indebted to Joseph Duverney for the project of the Royal
Military School, which was carried into execution in 1751.
Two grandsons of the unfortunate Fouquet, the Count de Belleisle, and
the Chevalier de Belleisle, were involved in the fall of Le Blanc, and
were for some time inmates of the Bastile. The count was born in 1684;
the chevalier in 1693. The count had acquired a high military character,
in the war of the succession, and in the Spanish campaign of 1719, when,
with his brother, he was immured in a prison. After his release, he
served with distinction in various quarters, and rose to the rank of
marshal. Cardinal de Fleury placed entire confidence in his civil as well
as his military talents. It was not, however, till the breaking out
of the war of 1741 that his genius shone forth in its full lustre. The
secret negotiations for raising the Elector of Bavaria to the dignity of
emperor were carried on by him, and on this occasion he gave convincing
proof of his diplomatic skill. Placed at the head of the French army,
which was to maintain Charles VII. on the throne, Belleisle carried
Prague by assault. But while, as ambassador extraordinary of Louis XV.,
he was securing the election of Charles at Frankfort, the Austrians
threatened to deprive him of his recent conquests. He, therefore,
hastened back to his army, obtained some advantages, and would probably
have triumphed, had not the sudden defection of Prussia and Saxony left
him to bear the whole weight of Maria Theresa’s forces.
Prague, garrisoned by 28,000 French, was soon invested by 60,000 enemies.
Belleisle offered to give up the Bohemian capital, on condition of being
allowed to retire without molestation; but the besiegers would listen
to nothing short of a surrender at discretion. After having made a
protracted defence, he began to be threatened by famine, and, in this
extremity, he resolved to break through the Austrian quarters. At the
head of 15,000 men, with twelve days’ provisions, he sallied from Prague,
on the night of the 16th of December, 1742, and directed his march upon
Egra, which city was at the distance of thirty-eight leagues. He took
his measures so well, that, though he was closely pursued by the enemy’s
light troops, he sustained little injury. The sufferings of the French
army were, nevertheless, extreme. Compelled to bivouac for ten nights
among snow and ice, and often without wood for fires, the mortality among
the troops was appalling. The line of the retreat was marked throughout
by whole platoons frozen to death; seventeen hundred men perished in the
course of the ten days. In 1746 and 1747, Belleisle was charged with
the defence of Dauphiné; these were his last campaigns. In 1748 he was
created a duke and peer, and in 1757 he became war minister. He held the
war department for three years, and reformed many abuses. In 1761 he died
childless, the last of his family, his heir, the Count of Gisors, having
fallen at the battle of Crevelt.
His brother, the chevalier, had gone before him, the victim of an
intemperate courage. From 1734 to 1746, the chevalier was often actively
engaged, both in fighting and negotiating, and displayed equal talents
in each occupation. It being an object of importance to open a passage
into the heart of Piedmont, the two brothers agreed that an attack
should be made on the formidable intrenched post of the Piedmontese, at
the Col de l’Assiette. The chevalier was animated by the prospect of
gaining the rank of marshal, in case of success. The position of the
enemy was all but inaccessible, and was fortified with more than usual
care, well provided with artillery, and held by a large force. Belleisle
led his men to the attack, but found it impossible even to approach his
antagonists, who scattered death among his ranks, with almost perfect
impunity to themselves. Instead of retiring from a hopeless contest, he
madly persisted in his efforts, till the slaughter became horrible. He at
last put himself at the head of a body of officers, and made a desperate
but fruitless assault, in which he fell, along with most of those who
surrounded him. Nearly four thousand of the assailants were slain, and
half as many wounded, while the loss of the Piedmontese fell far short of
a hundred men.
We have, in the former part of this chapter seen one literary female an
inmate of the Bastile, we must now contemplate in the same situation
another, of equal talents, but with a more sullied character. The second
of these females was Madame de Tencin, sister of the cardinal of that
name. Though, like most Frenchwomen of that period, it is probable that
Madame de Staal did not preserve an inviolate chastity, she certainly
paid more respect to appearances than was paid by Madame de Tencin, and
was less stimulated by mere animal passion. “I shall paint only my bust,”
Madame de Staal is said to have replied, when she was asked how, in her
Memoirs, she would contrive to speak of her love affairs; with respect
to Madame de Tencin, it may be doubted whether, at least while she was
moving in the circle of the court, she would have hesitated to delineate
a whole-length likeness of herself.
Tencin was a name derived from a small estate; the family name was
Guerin. The lady in question was born in 1681, and her father was
president of the parliament of Grenoble. She was placed in the convent of
Montfleury, near Grenoble, where she resided for five years. If credit
may be given to the statements of St. Simon and others, her conduct while
she wore the veil was anything but pious and decorous. The consequence
of one of her amours is said to have rendered it indispensable for her
to leave the convent, of which she was already tired. Her great object
was to shine in Paris, and this she accomplished. Through the interest of
Fontenelle, who took a great interest in her, she obtained a dispensation
from the Pope, and she then gave full swing to her pleasures. She
became the mistress of the ultra profligate Dubois; and the scandalous
chronicles of the time charge her with having joined in the orgies of the
regent and his companions, and prostituted her talents by the composition
of obscene works. With Law, the Mississippi projector, she was intimate,
and she and her brother appear to have profited largely by speculations
during that period of national madness. It is one pleasing feature in
her character, that she was more anxious to establish her brother than
herself.
The celebrated d’Alembert was the fruit of one of her amours; the father
was the Chevalier Destouches. The infant was, in the first instance,
deserted by its parents; it was left on the steps of the church of St.
John de la Ronde, where it was found in such a state of weakness that,
instead of sending it to the Foundling Hospital, the commissary of police
humanely gave it to the wife of a poor glazier to be nursed. Such a want
of maternal feeling, had it not been in some measure atoned for, would
have justified a sarcasm of the Abbé Trublet, who, on some one praising
to him the mild disposition of Madame de Tencin, replied, “Oh, yes! if
she had an interest in poisoning you, she would choose the mildest poison
for the purpose.” The parents are, however, said to have relented in the
course of a few days; the father settled on him a pension of 1200 livres.
It was the fatal result of another of her amours that gave her a place
in the Bastile. In 1726, La Fresnaye, one of the members of the Great
Council, shot himself through the head at her house. A paper in his
handwriting was found, in which he declared that, if ever he died a
violent death, she would be the cause of it. From this paper, which
certainly bears on the face of it a very different meaning, it was
hastily and harshly concluded, that she had a hand in his murder. She was
consequently committed to the Concièrgerie, whence she was removed to the
Bastile; but she was not long a prisoner.
In her later years, the conduct of Madame de Tencin underwent a complete
reformation; the catastrophe of La Fresnaye perhaps contributed to the
change. She kept up a correspondence with Cardinal Lambertini, which
was not discontinued when he became Pope Benedict XIV., and her house
was the resort of all the wit and talent of Paris, with Fontenelle
and Montesquieu at their head. Her assemblage of literary men she
used jocosely to call her menagerie, and her animals, and it was her
custom, on New-year’s-day, to present each individual with two ells of
velvet, for a pair of breeches. It is not easy to suppress a smile at
the ludicrous idea of such a present. Madame de Tencin died in 1749.
Her three romances, the Count de Comminge, the Siege of Calais, and the
Misfortunes of Love, still deservedly maintain a high rank among works of
that class. It has been said, that she was assisted in writing them by
two of her nephews; but the truth of this is at least doubtful.