COUNT DE GRAMMONT, ST. EVREMOND, AND LORD ROCHESTER.

De Grammont's Choice.--His Influence with Turenne.--The Church or

the Army?--An Adventure at Lyons.--A brilliant Idea.--De

Grammont's Generosity.--A Horse 'for the

Cards.'--Knight-Cicisbeism.--De Grammont's first Love.--His

Witty Attacks on Mazarin.--Anne Lucie de la Mothe

Houdancourt.--Beset with Snares.--De Grammont's Visits to

England.--Charles II.--The Court of Charles II.--Introduction

of Country-dances.--Norman Peculiarities.--St. Evremond, the

Handsome Norman.--The most Beautiful Woman in Europe.--Hortense

Mancini's Adventures.--Madame Mazarin's House at

Chelsea.--Anecdote of Lord Dorset.--Lord Rochester in his

Zenith.--His Courage and Wit.--Rochester's Pranks in the

City.--Credulity, Past and Present.--'Dr. Bendo,' and La Belle

Jennings.--La Triste Heritière.--Elizabeth, Countess of

Rochester.--Retribution and Reformation.--Conversion.--Beaux

without Wit.--Little Jermyn.--An Incomparable Beauty.--Anthony

Hamilton, De Grammont's Biographer.--The Three Courts.--'La

Belle Hamilton.'--Sir Peter Lely's Portrait of her.--The

Household Deity of Whitehall.--Who shall have the Calèche?--A

Chaplain in Livery.--De Grammont's Last Hours.--What might he

not have been?

It has been observed by a French critic, that the Mémoires de Grammont

afford the truest specimens of French character in our language. To this

it may be added, that the subject of that animated narrative was most

completely French in principle, in intelligence, in wit that hesitated

at nothing, in spirits that were never daunted, and in that incessant

activity which is characteristic of his countrymen. Grammont, it was

said, 'slept neither night nor day;' his life was one scene of incessant

excitement.

His father, supposed to have been the natural son of Henry the Great, of

France, did not suppress that fact, but desired to publish it: for the

morals of his time were so depraved, that it was thought to be more

honourable to be the illegitimate son of a king than the lawful child of

lowlier parents. Born in the Castle of Semeac, on the banks of the

Garonne, the fame of two fair ancestresses, Corisande and Menadame, had

entitled the family of De Grammont to expect in each successive member

an inheritance of beauty. Wit, courage, good nature, a charming address,

and boundless assurance, were the heritage of Philibert de Grammont.

Beauty was not in his possession; good nature, a more popular quality,

he had in abundance:

'His wit to scandal never stooping,

His mirth ne'er to buffoonery drooping.'

As Philibert grew up, the two aristocratic professions of France were

presented for his choice: the army, or the church. Neither of these

vocations constitutes now the ambition of the high-born in France: the

church, to a certain extent, retains its _prestige_, but the army, ever

since officers have risen from the ranks, does not comprise the same

class of men as in England. In the reign of Louis XIII., when De

Grammont lived it was otherwise. All political power was vested in the

church. Richelieu was, to all purposes, the ruler of France, the

dictator of Europe; and, with regard to the church, great men, at the

head of military affairs, were daily proving to the world, how much

intelligence could effect with a small numerical power. Young men took

one course or another: the sway of the cabinet, on the one hand, tempted

them to the church; the brilliant exploits of Turenne, and of Condé, on

the other, led them to the camp. It was merely the difference of dress

between the two that constituted the distinction: the soldier might be

as pious as the priest, the priest was sure to be as worldly as the

soldier; the soldier might have ecclesiastical preferment; the priest

sometimes turned out to fight.

Philibert de Grammont chose to be a soldier. He was styled the Chevalier

de Grammont, according to custom, his father being still living. He

fought under Turenne, at the siege of Trino. The army in which he served

was beleaguering that city when the gay youth from the banks of the

Garonne joined it, to aid it not so much by his valour as by the fun,

the raillery, the off-hand anecdote, the ready, hearty companionship

which lightened the soldier's life in the trenches: adieu to

impatience, to despair, even to gravity. The very generals could not

maintain their seriousness when the light-hearted De Grammont uttered a

repartee--

'Sworn enemy to all long speeches,

Lively and brilliant, frank and free,

Author of many a repartee:

Remember, over all, that he

Was not renowned for storming breaches.'

Where he came, all was sunshine, yet there breathed not a colder, graver

man than the Calvinist Turenne: modest, serious, somewhat hard, he gave

the young nobility who served under him no quarter in their

shortcomings; but a word, a look, from De Grammont could make him,

_malgrê lui_, unbend. The gay chevalier's white charger's prancing, its

gallant rider foremost in every peril, were not forgotten in

after-times, when De Grammont, in extreme old age, chatted over the

achievements and pleasures of his youth.

Amongst those who courted his society in Turenne's army was Matta, a

soldier of simple manners, hard habits, and handsome person, joined to a

candid, honest nature. He soon persuaded De Grammont to share his

quarters, and there they gave splendid entertainments, which,

Frenchman-like, De Grammont paid for out of the successes of the

gaming-tables. But chances were against them; the two officers were at

the mercy of their _maitre d'hôtel_, who asked for money. One day, when

De Grammont came home sooner than usual, he found Matta fast asleep.

Whilst De Grammont stood looking at him, he awoke, and burst into a

violent fit of laughter.

'What is the matter?' cried the chevalier.

'Faith, chevalier,' answered Matta, 'I was dreaming that we had sent

away our _maitre d'hôtel_, and were resolved to live like our neighbours

for the rest of the campaign.'

'Poor fellow!' cried De Grammont. 'So, you are knocked down at once:

what would have become of you if you had been reduced to the situation I

was in at Lyons, four days before I came here? Come, I will tell you all

about it.'

'Begin a little farther back,' cried Matta, 'and tell me about the

manner in which you first paid your respects to Cardinal Richelieu. Lay

aside your pranks as a child, your genealogy, and all your ancestors

together; you cannot know anything about them.'

'Well,' replied De Grammont, 'it was my father's own fault that he was

not Henry IV.'s son: see what the Grammonts have lost by this

crossed-grained fellow! Faith, we might have walked before the Counts de

Vendôme at this very moment.'

Then he went on to relate how he had been sent to Pau, to the college,

to be brought up to the church, with an old servant to act both as his

valet and his guardian. How his head was too full of gaming to learn

Latin. How they gave him his rank at college, as the youth of quality,

when he did not deserve it; how he travelled up to Paris to his brother

to be polished, and went to court in the character of an abbé. 'Ah,

Matta, you know the kind of dress then in vogue. No, I would not change

my dress, but I consented to draw over it a cassock. I had the finest

head of hair in the world, well curled and powdered above my cassock,

and below were my white buskins and spurs.'

Even Richelieu, that hypocrite, he went on to relate, could not help

laughing at the parti-coloured costume, sacerdotal above, soldier-like

below; but the cardinal was greatly offended--not with the absence of

decorum, but with the dangerous wit, that could laugh in public at the

cowl and shaven crown, points which constituted the greatest portion of

Richelieu's sanctity.

De Grammont's brother, however, thus addressed the Chevalier:--'Well, my

little parson,' said he, as they went home, 'you have acted your part to

perfection; but now you must choose your career. If you like to stick to

the church, you will possess great revenues, and nothing to do; if you

choose to go into the army, you will risk your arm or your leg, but in

time you may be a major-general with a wooden leg and a glass eye, the

spectacle of an indifferent, ungrateful court. Make your choice.'

The choice, Philibert went on to relate, was made. For the good of his

soul, he renounced the church, but for his own advantage, he kept his

abbacy. This was not difficult in days when secular abbés were common;

nothing would induce him to change his resolution of being a soldier.

Meantime he was perfecting his accomplishments as a fine gentleman, one

of the requisites for which was a knowledge of all sorts of games. No

matter that his mother was miserable at his decision. Had her son been

an abbé, she thought he would have become a saint: nevertheless, when he

returned home, with the air of a courtier and a man of the world, boy as

he was, and the very impersonation of what might then be termed _la

jeune France_, she was so enchanted with him that she consented to his

going to the wars, attended again by Brinon, his valet, equerry, and

Mentor in one. Next in De Grammont's narrative came his adventure at

Lyons, where he spent the 200 louis his mother had given Brinon for him,

in play, and very nearly broke the poor old servant's heart; where he

had duped a horse-dealer; and he ended by proposing plans, similarly

_honourable_, to be adopted for their present emergencies.

The first step was to go to head-quarters, to dine with a certain Count

de Cameran, a Savoyard, and invite him to supper. Here Matta interposed.

'Are you mad?' he exclaimed. 'Invite him to supper! we have neither

money nor credit; we are ruined; and to save us you intend to give a

supper!'

'Stupid fellow!' cried De Grammont. 'Cameran plays at quinze: so do I:

we want money. He has more than he knows what to do with: we give a

supper, he pays for it. However,' he added, 'it is necessary to take

certain precautions. You command the Guards: when night comes on, order

your _Sergent-de-place_ to have fifteen or twenty men under arms, and

let them lay themselves flat on the ground between this and

head-quarters. Most likely we shall win this stupid fellow's money. Now

the Piedmontese are suspicious, and he commands the Horse. Now, you

know, Matta, you cannot hold your tongue, and are very likely to let out

some joke that will vex him. Supposing he takes it into his head that he

is being cheated? He has always eight or ten horsemen: we must be

prepared.'

'Embrace me!' cried Matta, 'embrace me! for thou art unparalleled. I

thought you only meant to prepare a pack of cards, and some false dice.

But the idea of protecting a man who plays at quinze by a detachment of

foot is excellent: thine own, dear Chevalier.'

Thus, like some of Dumas' heroes, hating villany as a matter of course,

but being by no means ashamed to acknowledge it, the Piedmontese was

asked to supper. He came. Nevertheless, in the midst of the affair, when

De Cameran was losing as fast as he could, Matta's conscience touched

him: he awoke from a deep sleep, heard the dice shaking, saw the poor

Savoyard losing, and advised him to play no more.

'Don't you know, Count, you _cannot_ win?'

'Why?' asked the Count.

'Why, faith, because we are cheating you,' was the reply.

The Chevalier turned round impatiently, 'Sieur Matta,' he cried, 'do you

suppose it can be any amusement to Monsieur le Comte to be plagued with

your ill-timed jests? For my part, I am so weary of the game, that I

swear by Jupiter I can scarcely play any more.' Nothing is more

distasteful to a losing gamester than a hint of leaving off; so the

Count entreated the Chevalier to continue, and assured him that

'Monsieur Matta might say what he pleased, for it did not give him the

least uneasiness to continue.'

The Chevalier allowed the Count to play upon credit, and that act of

courtesy was taken very kindly: the dupe lost 1,500 pistoles, which he

paid the next morning, when Matta was sharply reprimanded for his

interference.

'Faith,' he answered, 'it was a point of conscience with me; besides, it

would have given me pleasure to have seen his Horse engaged with my

Infantry, if he had taken anything amiss.'

The sum thus gained set the spendthrifts up; and De Grammont satisfied

his conscience by giving it away, to a certain extent, in charity. It is

singular to perceive in the history of this celebrated man that moral

taint of character which the French have never lost: this total absence

of right reasoning on all points of conduct, is coupled in our Gallic

neighbours with the greatest natural benevolence, with a generosity only

kept back by poverty, with impulsive, impressionable dispositions, that

require the guidance of a sound Protestant faith to elevate and correct

them.

The Chevalier hastened, it is related, to find out distressed comrades,

officers who had lost their baggage, or who had been ruined by gaming;

or soldiers who had been disabled in the trenches; and his manner of

relieving them was as graceful and as delicate as the bounty he

distributed was welcome. He was the darling of the army. The poor

soldier knew him personally, and adored him; the general was sure to

meet him in the scenes of action, and to seek his company in those of

security.

And, having thus retrieved his finances, the gay-hearted Chevalier used,

henceforth, to make De Cameran go halves with him in all games in which

the odds were in his own favour. Even the staid Calvinist, Turenne, who

had not then renounced, as he did in after-life, the Protestant faith,

delighted in the off-hand merriment of the Chevalier. It was towards the

end of the siege of Trino, that De Grammont went to visit that general

in some new quarters, where Turenne received him, surrounded by fifteen

or twenty officers. According to the custom of the day, cards were

introduced, and the general asked the Chevalier to play.

'Sir,' returned the young soldier, 'my tutor taught me that when a man

goes to see his friends it is neither prudent to leave his own money

behind him nor civil to take theirs.'

'Well,' answered Turenne, 'I can tell you you will find neither much

money nor deep play among us; but that it cannot be said that we allowed

you to go off without playing, suppose we each of us stake a horse.'

De Grammont agreed, and, lucky as ever, won from the officers some

fifteen or sixteen horses, by way of a joke; but seeing several faces

pale, he said, 'Gentlemen, I should be sorry to see you go away from

your general's quarters on foot; it will do very well if you all send me

to-morrow your horses, except one, which I give for the cards.'

The _valet-de-chambre_ thought he was jesting. 'I am serious,' cried

the Chevalier. '_Parole d'honneur_ I give a horse for the cards; and

what's more, take which you please, only don't take mine.'

'Faith,' said Turenne, pleased with the novelty of the affair, 'I don't

believe a horse was ever before given for the cards.'

Young people, and indeed old people, can perhaps hardly remember the

time when, even in England, money used to be put under the candlesticks

'for the cards,' as it was said, but in fact for the servants, who

waited. Winner or loser, the tax was to be paid, and this custom of

vails was also prevalent in France.

Trino at last surrendered, and the two friends rushed from their

campaigning life to enjoy the gaieties of Turin, at that time the centre

of pleasure; and resolved to perfect their characters as military

heroes--by falling in love, if respectably, well; if disreputably, well

too, perhaps all the more agreeable, and venturesome, as they thought.

The court of Turin was then presided over by the Duchess of Savoy,

_Madame Royale_, as she was called in France, the daughter of Henry IV.

of France, the sister of Henrietta Maria of England. She was a woman of

talent and spirit, worthy of her descent, and had certain other

qualities which constituted a point of resemblance between her and her

father; she was, like him, more fascinating than respectable.

The customs of Turin were rather Italian than French. At that time

every lady had her professed lover, who wore the liveries of his

mistress, bore her arms, and sometimes assumed her very name. The

office of the lover was, never to quit his lady in public, and never

to approach her in private: to be on all occasions her esquire. In the

tournament her chosen knight-cicisbeo came forth with his coat, his

housings, his very lance distinguished with the cyphers and colours of

her who had condescended to invest him with her preference. It was the

remnant of chivalry that authorized this custom; but of chivalry

demoralized--chivalry denuded of her purity, her respect, the chivalry

of corrupted Italy, not of that which, perhaps, fallaciously, we

assign to the earlier ages.

Grammont and Matta enlisted themselves at once in the service of two

beauties. Grammont chose for the queen of beauty, who was to 'rain

influence' upon him, Mademoiselle de St. Germain, who was in the very

bloom of youth. She was French, and, probably, an ancestress of that

all-accomplished Comte de St. Germain, whose exploits so dazzled

successive European courts, and the fullest account of whom, in all its

brilliant colours, yet tinged with mystery, is given in the Memoirs of

Maria Antoinette, by the Marquise d'Adhémar, her lady of the bed-chamber.

The lovely object of De Grammont's 'first love' was a radiant brunette

belle, who took no pains to set off by art the charms of nature. She had

some defects: her black and sparkling eyes were small; her forehead, by

no means 'as pure as moonlight sleeping upon snow,' was not fair,

neither were her hands; neither had she small feet--but her form

generally was perfect; her elbows had a peculiar elegance in them; and

in old times to hold the elbow out well, and yet not to stick it out,

was a point of early discipline. Then her glossy black hair set off a

superb neck and shoulders; and, moreover, she was gay, full of mirth,

life, complaisance, perfect in all the acts of politeness, and

invariable in her gracious and graceful bearing.

Matta admired her; but De Grammont ordered him to attach himself to the

Marquise de Senantes, a married beauty of the court; and Matta, in full

faith that all Grammont said and did was sure to succeed, obeyed his

friend. The Chevalier had fallen in love with Mademoiselle de St.

Germain at first sight, and instantly arrayed himself in her colour,

which was green, whilst Matta wore blue, in compliment to the marquise;

and they entered the next day upon duty, at La Venerie, where the

Duchess of Savoy gave a grand entertainment. De Grammont, with his

native tact and unscrupulous mendacity, played his part to perfection;

but his comrade, Matta, committed a hundred solecisms. The very second

time he honoured the marquise with his attentions, he treated her as if

she were his humble servant: when he pressed her hand, it was a pressure

that almost made her scream. When he ought to have ridden by the side of

her coach, he set off, on seeing a hare start from her form; then he

talked to her of partridges when he should have been laying himself at

her feet. Both these affairs ended as might have been expected.

Mademoiselle de St. Germain was diverted by Grammont, yet he could not

touch her heart. Her aim was to marry; his was merely to attach himself

to a reigning beauty. They parted without regret; and he left the then

remote court of Turin for the gayer scenes of Paris and Versailles. Here

he became as celebrated for his alertness in play as for his readiness

in repartee; as noted for his intrigues, as he afterwards was for his

bravery.

Those were stirring days in France. Anne of Austria, then in her

maturity, was governed by Mazarin, the most artful of ministers, an

Italian to the very heart's core, with a love of amassing wealth

engrafted in his supple nature that amounted to a monomania. The whole

aim of his life was gain. Though gaming was at its height, Mazarin never

played for amusement; he played to enrich himself; and when he played,

he cheated.

The Chevalier de Grammont was now rich, and Mazarin worshipped the rich.

He was witty; and his wit soon procured him admission into the clique

whom the wily Mazarin collected around him in Paris. Whatever were De

Grammont's faults, he soon perceived those of Mazarin; he detected, and

he detested, the wily, grasping, serpent-like attributes of the Italian;

he attacked him on every occasion on which a 'wit combat' was possible:

he gracefully showed Mazarin off in his true colours. With ease he

annihilated him, metaphorically, at his own table. Yet De Grammont had

something to atone for: he had been the adherent and companion in arms

of Condé; he had followed that hero to Sens, to Nordlingen, to Fribourg,

and had returned to his allegiance to the young king, Louis XIV., only

because he wished to visit the court at Paris. Mazarin's policy,

however, was that of pardon and peace--of duplicity and treachery--and

the Chevalier seemed to be forgiven on his return to Paris, even by Anne

of Austria. Nevertheless, De Grammont never lost his independence; and

he could boast in after-life that he owed the two great cardinals who

had governed France nothing that they could have refused. It was true

that Richelieu had left him his abbacy; but he could not refuse it to

one of De Grammont's rank. From Mazarin he had gained nothing except

what he had won at play.

After Mazarin's death the Chevalier intended to secure the favour of the

king, Louis XIV., to whom, as he rejoiced to find, court alone was now

to be paid. He had now somewhat rectified his distinctions between right

and wrong, and was resolved to have no regard for favour unless

supported by merit; he determined to make himself beloved by the

courtiers of Louis, and feared by the ministers; to dare to undertake

anything to do good, and to engage in nothing at the expense of

innocence. He still continued to be eminently successful in play, of

which he did not perceive the evil, nor allow the wickedness; but he was

unfortunate in love, in which he was equally unscrupulous and more rash

than at the gaming-table.

Among the maids of honour of Anne of Austria was a young lady named Anne

Lucie de la Mothe Houdancourt. Louis, though not long married, showed

some symptoms of admiration for this _débutante_ in the wicked ways of

the court.

Gay, radiant in the bloom of youth and innocence, the story of this

young girl presents an instance of the unhappiness which, without guilt,

the sins of others bring upon even the virtuous. The queen-dowager, Anne

of Austria, was living at St. Germains when Mademoiselle de la Mothe

Houdancourt was received into her household. The Duchess de Noailles, at

that time _Grande Maitresse_, exercised a vigilant and kindly rule over

the maids of honour; nevertheless, she could not prevent their being

liable to the attentions of Louis: she forbade him however to loiter, or

indeed even to be seen in the room appropriated to the young damsels

under her charge; and when attracted by the beauty of Annie Lucie de la

Mothe, Louis was obliged to speak to her through a hole behind a clock

which stood in a corridor.

Annie Lucie, notwithstanding this apparent encouragement of the king's

addresses, was perfectly indifferent to his admiration. She was secretly

attached to the Marquis de Richelieu, who had, or pretended to have,

honourable intentions towards her. Everything was tried, but tried in

vain, to induce the poor girl to give up all her predilections for the

sake of a guilty distinction--that of being the king's mistress: even

her _mother_ reproached her with her coldness. A family council was

held, in hopes of convincing her of her wilfulness, and Annie Lucie was

bitterly reproached by her female relatives; but her heart still clung

to the faithless Marquis de Richelieu, who, however, when he saw that a

royal lover was his rival, meanly withdrew.

Her fall seemed inevitable; but the firmness of Anne of Austria saved

her from her ruin. That queen insisted on her being sent away; and she

resisted even the entreaties of the queen, her daughter-in-law, and the

wife of Louis XIV.; who, for some reasons not explained, entreated that

the young lady might remain at the court. Anne was sent away in a sort

of disgrace to the convent of Chaïllot, which was then considered to be

quite out of Paris, and sufficiently secluded to protect her from

visitors. According to another account, a letter full of reproaches,

which she wrote to the Marquis de Richelieu upbraiding him for his

desertion, had been intercepted.

It was to this young lady that De Grammont, who was then, in the very

centre of the court, 'the type of fashion and the mould of form,'

attached himself to her as an admirer who could condescend to honour

with his attentions those whom the king pursued. The once gay girl was

thus beset with snares: on one side was the king, whose disgusting

preference was shown when in her presence by sighs and sentiment; on the

other, De Grammont, whose attentions to her were importunate, but failed

to convince her that he was in love; on the other was the time-serving,

heartless De Richelieu, whom her reason condemned, but whom her heart

cherished. She soon showed her distrust and dislike of De Grammont: she

treated him with contempt; she threatened him with exposure, yet he

would not desist: then she complained of him to the king. It was then

that he perceived that though love could equalize conditions, it could

not act in the same way between rivals. He was commanded to leave the

court. Paris, therefore, Versailles, Fontainbleau, and St. Germains were

closed against this gay Chevalier; and how could he live elsewhere?

Whither could he go? Strange to say, he had a vast fancy to behold the

man who, stained with the crime of regicide, and sprung from the people,

was receiving magnificent embassies from continental nations, whilst

Charles II. was seeking security in his exile from the power of Spain in

the Low Countries. He was eager to see the Protector, Cromwell. But

Cromwell, though in the height of his fame when beheld by De

Grammont--though feared at home and abroad--was little calculated to win

suffrages from a mere man of pleasure like De Grammont. The court, the

city, the country, were in his days gloomy, discontented, joyless: a

proscribed nobility was the sure cause of the thin though few

festivities of the now lugubrious gallery of Whitehall. Puritanism drove

the old jovial churchmen into retreat, and dispelled every lingering

vestige of ancient hospitality: long graces and long sermons,

sanctimonious manners, and grim, sad faces, and sad-coloured dresses

were not much to De Grammont's taste; he returned to France, and

declared that he had gained no advantage from his travels. Nevertheless,

either from choice or necessity, he made another trial of the damps and

fogs of England.[8]

When he again visited our country, Charles II. had been two years seated

on the throne of his father. Everything was changed, and the British

court was in its fullest splendour; whilst the rejoicings of the people

of England at the Restoration were still resounding through the land.

If one could include royal personages in the rather gay than worthy

category of the 'wits and beaux of society,' Charles II. should figure

at their head. He was the most agreeable companion, and the worst king

imaginable. In the first place he was, as it were, a citizen of the

world: tossed about by fortune from his early boyhood; a witness at the

tender age of twelve of the battle of Edge Hill, where the celebrated

Harvey had charge of him and of his brother. That inauspicious

commencement of a wandering life had perhaps been amongst the least of

his early trials. The fiercest was his long residence as a sort of royal

prisoner in Scotland. A travelled, humbled man, he came back to England

with a full knowledge of men and manners, in the prime of his life,

with spirits unbroken by adversity, with a heart unsoured by that 'stern

nurse,' with a gaiety that was always kindly, never uncourteous, ever

more French than English; far more natural did he appear as the son of

Henrietta Maria than as the offspring of the thoughtful Charles.

In person, too, the king was then agreeable, though rather what the

French would call _distingué_ than dignified; he was, however, tall, and

somewhat elegant, with a long French face, which in his boyhood was

plump and full about the lower part of the cheeks, but now began to sink

into that well-known, lean, dark, flexible countenance, in which we do

not, however, recognize the gaiety of the man whose very name brings

with it associations of gaiety, politeness, good company, and all the

attributes of a first-rate wit, except the almost inevitable ill-nature.

There is in the physiognomy of Charles II. that melancholy which is

often observable in the faces of those who are mere men of pleasure.

De Grammont found himself completely in his own sphere at Whitehall,

where the habits were far more French than English. Along that stately

Mall, overshadowed with umbrageous trees, which retains--and it is to be

hoped ever will retain--the old name of the 'Birdcage Walk,' one can

picture to oneself the king walking so fast that no one can keep up with

him; yet stopping from time to time to chat with some acquaintances. He

is walking to Duck Island, which is full of his favourite water-fowl,

and of which he has given St. Evremond the government. How pleasant is

his talk to those who attend him as he walks along; how well the quality

of good-nature is shown in his love of dumb animals: how completely he

is a boy still, even in that brown wig of many curls, and with the

George and Garter on his breast! Boy, indeed, for he is followed by a

litter of young spaniels: a little brindled greyhound frisks beside him;

it is for that he is ridiculed by the '_psalm_' sung at the Calves' Head

Club: these favourites were cherished to his death.

'His dogs would sit in council boards

Like judges in their seats:

We question much which had most sense,

The master or the curs.'

Then what capital stories Charles would tell, as he unbent at night

amid the faithful, though profligate, companions of his exile! He told

his anecdotes, it is true, over and over again, yet they were always

embellished with some fresh touch--like the repetition of a song which

has been encored on the stage. Whether from his inimitable art, or from

his royalty, we leave others to guess, but his stories bore repetition

again and again: they were amusing, and even novel to the very last.

To this seducing court did De Grammont now come. It was a delightful

exchange from the endless ceremonies and punctilios of the region over

which Louis XIV. presided. Wherever Charles was, his palace appeared to

resemble a large hospitable house--sometimes town, sometimes country--in

which every one did as he liked; and where distinctions of rank were

kept up as a matter of convenience, but were only valued on that score.

In other respects, Charles had modelled his court very much on the plan

of that of Louis XIV., which he had admired for its gaiety and spirit.

Corneille, Racine, Molière, Boileau, were encouraged by _le Grand

Monarque_. Wycherley and Dryden were attracted by Charles to celebrate

the festivities, and to amuse the great and the gay. In various points

De Grammont found a resemblance. The queen-consort, Catherine of

Braganza, was as complacent to her husband's vices as the queen of

Louis. These royal ladies were merely first sultanas, and had no right,

it was thought, to feel jealousy, or to resent neglect. Each returning

sabbath saw Whitehall lighted up, and heard the tabors sound for a

_branle_, (Anglicised 'brawl'). This was a dance which mixed up

everybody, and called a brawl, from the foot being shaken to a quick

time. Gaily did his Majesty perform it, leading to the hot exercise Anne

Hyde, Duchess of York, stout and homely, and leaving Lady Castlemaine to

his son, the Duke of Monmouth. Then Charles, with ready grace, would

begin the coranto, taking a single lady in this dance along the gallery.

Lords and ladies one after another followed, and 'very noble,' writes

Pepys, 'and great pleasure it was to see.' Next came the country dances,

introduced by Mary, Countess of Buckingham, the grandmother of the

graceful duke who is moving along the gallery;--and she invented those

once popular dances in order to introduce, with less chance of failure,

her rustic country cousins, who could not easily be taught to carry

themselves well in the brawl, or to step out gracefully in the coranto,

both of which dances required practice and time. In all these dances the

king shines the most, and dances much better than his brother the Duke

of York.

In these gay scenes De Grammont met with the most fashionable belles of

the court: fortunately for him they all spoke French tolerably; and he

quickly made himself welcome amongst even the few--and few indeed there

were--who plumed themselves upon untainted reputations. Hitherto those

French noblemen who had presented themselves in England had been poor

and absurd. The court had been thronged with a troop of impertinent

Parisian coxcombs, who had pretended to despise everything English, and

who treated the natives as if they were foreigners in their own country.

De Grammont, on the contrary, was familiar with every one: he ate, he

drank, he lived, in short, according to the custom of the country that

hospitably received him, and accorded him the more respect, because they

had been insulted by others.

He now introduced the _petits soupers_, which have never been understood

anywhere so well as in France, and which are even there dying out to

make way for the less social and more expensive dinner; but, perhaps, he

would even here have been unsuccessful, had it not been for the society

and advice of the famous St. Evremond, who at this time was exiled in

France, and took refuge in England.

This celebrated and accomplished man had some points of resemblance with

De Grammont. Like him, he had been originally intended for the church;

like him he had turned to the military profession; he was an ensign

before he was full sixteen; and had a company of foot given him after

serving two or three campaigns. Like De Grammont, he owed the facilities

of his early career to his being the descendant of an ancient and

honourable family. St. Evremond was the Seigneur of St Denis le Guast,

in Normandy, where he was born.

Both these sparkling wits of society had at one time, and, in fact, at

the same period, served under the great Condé; both were pre-eminent,

not only in literature, but in games of chance. St. Evremond was famous

at the University of Caen, in which he studied, for his fencing; and

'St. Evremond's pass' was well known to swordsmen of his time;--both

were gay and satirical; neither of them pretended to rigid morals; but

both were accounted men of honour among their fellow-men of pleasure.

They were graceful, kind, generous.

In person St. Evremond had the advantage, being a Norman--a race which

combines the handsomest traits of an English countenance with its blond

hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. Neither does the slight tinge of the

Gallic race detract from the attractions of a true, well-born Norman,

bred up in that province which is called the Court-end of France, and

polished in the capital. Your Norman is hardy, and fond of field-sports:

like the Englishman, he is usually fearless; generous, but, unlike the

English, somewhat crafty. You may know him by the fresh colour, the

peculiar blue eye, long and large; by his joyousness and look of health,

gathered up in his own marshy country, for the Norman is well fed, and

lives on the produce of rich pasture-land, with cheapness and plenty

around him. And St. Evremond was one of the handsomest specimens of this

fine locality (so mixed up as it is with _us_); and his blue eyes

sparkled with humour; his beautifully-turned mouth was all sweetness;

and his noble forehead, the whiteness of which was set off by thick dark

eyebrows, was expressive of his great intelligence, until a wen grew

between his eyebrows, and so changed all the expression of his face that

the Duchess of Mazarin used to call him the 'Old Satyr.' St. Evremond

was also Norman in other respects: he called himself a thorough Roman

Catholic, yet he despised the superstitions of his church, and prepared

himself for death without them. When asked by an ecclesiastic sent

expressly from the court of Florence to attend his death-bed, if he

'would be reconciled,' he answered, 'With all my heart; I would fain be

reconciled to my stomach, which no longer performs its usual

functions.' And his talk, we are told, during the fortnight that

preceded his death, was not regret for a life we should, in seriousness,

call misspent, but because partridges and pheasants no longer suited his

condition, and he was obliged to be reduced to boiled meats. No one,

however, could tell what might also be passing in his heart. We cannot

always judge of a life, any more than of a drama, by its last scene; but

this is certain, that in an age of blasphemy St. Evremond could not

endure to hear religion insulted by ridicule. 'Common decency,' said

this man of the world, 'and a due regard to our fellow-creatures, would

not permit it.' He did not, it seems, refer his displeasure to a higher

source--to the presence of the Omniscient,--who claims from us all not

alone the tribute of our poor frail hearts in serious moments, but the

deep reverence of every thought in the hours of careless pleasure.

It was now St. Evremond who taught De Grammont to collect around him the

wits of that court, so rich in attractions, so poor in honour and

morality. The object of St. Evremond's devotion, though he had, at the

æra of the Restoration, passed his fiftieth year, was Hortense Mancini,

once the richest heiress, and still the most beautiful woman in Europe,

and a niece, on her mother's side, of Cardinal Mazarin. Hortense had

been educated, after the age of six, in France. She was Italian in her

accomplishments, in her reckless, wild disposition, opposed to that of

the French, who are generally calculating and wary, even in their vices:

she was Italian in the style of her surpassing beauty, and French to the

core in her principles. Hortense, at the age of thirteen, had been

married to Armand Duc de Meilleraye and Mayenne, who had fallen so

desperately in love with this beautiful child, that he declared 'if he

did not marry her he should die in three months.' Cardinal Mazarin,

although he had destined his niece Mary to this alliance, gave his

consent on condition that the duke should take the name of Mazarin. The

cardinal died a year after this marriage, leaving his niece Hortense the

enormous fortune of £1,625,000; yet she died in the greatest

difficulties, and her corpse was seized by her creditors.

The Duc de Mayenne proved to be a fanatic, who used to waken his wife

in the dead of the night to hear his visions; who forbade his child to

be nursed on fast-days; and who believed himself to be inspired. After

six years of wretchedness poor Hortense petitioned for a separation and

a division of property. She quitted her husband's home and took refuge

first in a nunnery, where she showed her unbelief, or her irreverence,

by mixing ink with holy-water, that the poor nuns might black their

faces when they crossed themselves; or, in concert with Madame de

Courcelles, another handsome married woman, she used to walk through the

dormitories in the dead of night, with a number of little dogs barking

at their heels; then she filled two great chests that were over the

dormitories with water, which ran over, and, penetrating through the

chinks of the floor, wet the holy sisters in their beds. At length all

this sorry gaiety was stopped by a decree that Hortense was to return to

the Palais Mazarin; and to remain there until the suit for a separation

should be decided. That the result should be favourable was doubtful:

therefore, one fine night in June, 1667, Hortense escaped. She dressed

herself in male attire, and, attended by a female servant, managed to

get through the gate at Paris, and to enter a carriage. Then she fled to

Switzerland; and, had not her flight been shared by the Chevalier de

Rohan, one of the handsomest men in France, one could hardly have blamed

an escape from a half-lunatic husband. She was only twenty-eight when,

after various adventures, she came in all her unimpaired beauty to

England. Charles was captivated by her charms, and, touched by her

misfortunes, he settled on her a pension of £4,000 a year, and gave her

rooms in St. James's. Waller sang her praise:--

'When through the world fair Mazarine had run,

Bright as her fellow-traveller, the sun:

Hither at length the Roman eagle flies,

As the last triumph of her conquering eyes.'

If Hortense failed to carry off from the Duchess of Portsmouth--then the

star of Whitehall--the heart of Charles, she found, at all events, in

St. Evremond, one of those French, platonic, life-long friends, who, as

Chateaubriand worshipped Madame Récamier, adored to the last the exiled

niece of Mazarin. Every day, when in her old age and his, the warmth of

love had subsided into the serener affection of pitying, and yet

admiring friendship, St. Evremond was seen, a little old man in a black

coif, carried along Pall Mall in a sedan chair, to the apartment of

Madame Mazarin, in St. James's. He always took with him a pound of

butter, made in his own little dairy, for her breakfast. When De

Grammont was installed at the court of Charles, Hortense was, however,

in her prime. Her house at Chelsea, then a country village, was famed

for its society and its varied pleasures. St. Evremond has so well

described its attractions that his words should be literally given.

'Freedom and discretion are equally to be found there. Every one is made

more at home than in his own house, and treated with more respect than

at court. It is true that there are frequent disputes there, but they

are those of knowledge and not of anger. There is play there, but it is

inconsiderable, and only practised for its amusement. You discover in no

countenance the fear of losing, nor concern for what is lost. Some are

so disinterested that they are reproached for expressing joy when they

lose, and regret when they win. Play is followed by the most excellent

repasts in the world. There you will find whatever delicacy is brought

from France, and whatever is curious from the Indies. Even the commonest

meats have the rarest relish imparted to them. There is neither a plenty

which gives a notion of extravagance, nor a frugality that discovers

penury or meanness.'

What an assemblage it must have been! Here lolls Charles, Lord

Buckhurst, afterwards Lord Dorset, the laziest, in matters of business

or court advancement--the boldest, in point of frolic and pleasure, of

all the wits and beaux of his time. His youth had been full of adventure

and of dissipation. 'I know not how it is,' said Wilmot, Lord Rochester,

'but my Lord Dorset can do anything, and is never to blame.' He had, in

truth, a heart; he could bear to hear others praised; he despised the

arts of courtiers; he befriended the unhappy; he was the most engaging

of men in manners, the most loveable and accomplished of human beings;

at once poet, philanthropist, and wit; he was also possessed of

chivalric notions, and of daring courage.

Like his royal master, Lord Dorset had travelled; and when made a

gentleman of the bedchamber to Charles II., he was not unlike his

sovereign in other traits; so full of gaiety, so high-bred, so lax, so

courteous, so convivial, that no supper was complete without him: no

circle 'the right thing,' unless Buckhurst, as he was long called, was

there to pass the bottle round, and to keep every one in good-humour.

Yet, he had misspent a youth in reckless immorality, and had even been

in Newgate on a charge, a doubtful charge it is true, of highway robbery

and murder, but had been found guilty of manslaughter only. He was again

mixed up in a disgraceful affair with Sir Charles Sedley. When brought

before Sir Robert Hyde, then Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, his name

having been mentioned, the judge inquired whether that was the Buckhurst

lately tried for robbery? and when told it was, he asked him whether he

had so soon forgotten his deliverance at that time: and whether it would

not better become him to have been at his prayers begging God's

forgiveness than to come into such courses again?

The reproof took effect, and Buckhurst became what was then esteemed a

steady man; he volunteered and fought gallantly in the fleet under James

Duke of York: and he completed his reform, to all outward show, by

marrying Lady Falmouth.[9] Buckhurst, in society, the most good-tempered

of men, was thus referred to by Prior, in his poetical epistle to

Fleetwood Sheppard:--

'When crowding folks, with strange ill faces,

Were making legs, and begging places:

And some with patents, some with merit,

Tired out my good Lord Dorset's spirit.'

Yet his pen was full of malice, whilst his heart was tender to all.

Wilmot, Lord Rochester, cleverly said of him:--

'For pointed satire I would Buckhurst chuse,

The best good man with the worst-natured muse.'

Still more celebrated as a beau and wit of his time, was John Wilmot,

Lord Rochester. He was the son of Lord Wilmot, the cavalier who so

loyally attended Charles II. after the Battle of Worcester; and, as, the

offspring of that royalist, was greeted by Lord Clarendon, then

Chancellor of the University of Oxford, when he took his degree as

Master of Arts, with a kiss.[10] The young nobleman then travelled,

according to custom; and then most unhappily for himself and for others,

whom he corrupted by his example, he presented himself at the court of

Charles II. He was at this time a youth of eighteen, and one of the

handsomest persons of his age. The face of Buckhurst was hard and plain;

that of De Grammont had little to redeem it but its varying

intelligence; but the countenance of the young Earl of Rochester was

perfectly symmetrical: it was of a long oval, with large, thoughtful,

sleepy eyes; the eyebrows arched and high above them; the brow, though

concealed by the curls of the now modest wig, was high and smooth; the

nose, delicately shaped, somewhat aquiline; the mouth full, but

perfectly beautiful, was set off by a round and well-formed chin. Such

was Lord Rochester in his zenith; and as he came forward on state

occasions, his false light curls hanging down on his shoulders--a

cambric kerchief loosely tied, so as to let the ends, worked in point,

fall gracefully down: his scarlet gown in folds over a suit of light

steel armour--for men had become carpet knights then, and the coat of

mail worn by the brave cavaliers was now less warlike, and was mixed up

with robes, ruffles, and rich hose--and when in this guise he appeared

at Whitehall, all admired; and Charles was enchanted with the

simplicity, the intelligence, and modesty of one who was then an

ingenuous youth, with good aspirations, and a staid and decorous

demeanour.

Woe to Lady Rochester--woe to the mother who trusted her son's innocence

in that vitiated court! Lord Rochester forms one of the many instances

we daily behold, that it is those most tenderly cared for, who often

fall most deeply, as well as most early, into temptation. He soon lost

every trace of virtue--of principle, even of deference to received

notions of propriety. For a while there seemed hopes that he would not

wholly fall: courage was his inheritance, and he distinguished himself

in 1665, when as a volunteer, he went in quest of the Dutch East India

fleet, and served with heroic gallantry under Lord Sandwich. And when he

returned to court, there was a partial improvement in his conduct. He

even looked back upon his former indiscretions with horror: he had now

shared in the realities of life: he had grasped a high and honourable

ambition; but he soon fell away--soon became almost a castaway. 'For

five years,' he told Bishop Burnet, when on his death-bed, 'I was never

sober.' His reputation as a wit must rest, in the present day, chiefly

upon productions which have long since been condemned as unreadable.

Strange to say, when not under the influence of wine, he was a constant

student of classical authors, perhaps the worst reading for a man of his

tendency: all that was satirical and impure attracting him most.

Boileau, among French writers, and Cowley among the English, were his

favourite authors. He also read many books of physic; for long before

thirty his constitution was so broken by his life, that he turned his

attention to remedies, and to medical treatment; and it is remarkable

how many men of dissolute lives take up the same sort of reading, in the

vain hope of repairing a course of dissolute living. As a writer, his

style was at once forcible and lively; as a companion, he was wildly

vivacious: madly, perilously, did he outrage decency, insult virtue,

profane religion. Charles II. liked him on first acquaintance, for

Rochester was a man of the most finished and fascinating manners; but at

length there came a coolness, and the witty courtier was banished from

Whitehall. Unhappily for himself, he was recalled, and commanded to wait

in London until his majesty should choose to readmit him into his

presence.

Disguises and practical jokes were the fashion of the day. The use of

the mask, which was put down by proclamation soon after the accession of

Queen Anne, favoured a series of pranks with which Lord Rochester,

during the period of his living concealed in London, diverted himself.

The success of his scheme was perfect. He established himself, since he

could not go to Whitehall, in the City. 'His first design,' De Grammont

relates, 'was only to be initiated into the mysteries of those fortunate

and happy inhabitants; that is to say, by changing his name and dress,

to gain admittance to their feasts and entertainments.... As he was able

to adapt himself to all capacities and humours, he soon deeply

insinuated himself into the esteem of the substantial wealthy aldermen,

and into the affections of their more delicate, magnificent, and tender

ladies; he made one in all their feasts and at all their assemblies; and

whilst in the company of the husbands, he declaimed against the faults

and mistakes of government; he joined their wives in railing against the

profligacy of the court ladies, and in inveighing against the king's

mistresses: he agreed with them, that the industrious poor were to pay

for these cursed extravagances; that the City beauties were not inferior

to those at the other end of the town,... after which, to outdo their

murmurings, he said, that he wondered Whitehall was not yet consumed by

fire from heaven, since such rakes as Rochester, Killigrew, and Sidney

were suffered there.'

This conduct endeared him so much to the City, and made him so welcome

at their clubs, that at last he grew sick of their cramming, and endless

invitations.

He now tried a new sphere of action; and instead of returning, as he

might have done, to the court, retreated into the most obscure corners

of the metropolis; and again changing his name and dress, gave himself

out as a German doctor named Bendo, who professed to find out

inscrutable secrets, and to apply infallible remedies; to know, by

astrology, all the past, and to foretell the future.

If the reign of Charles was justly deemed an age of high civilization,

it was also one of extreme credulity. Unbelief in religion went hand in

hand with blind faith in astrology and witchcraft; in omens,

divinations, and prophecies: neither let us too strongly despise, in

these their foibles, our ancestors. They had many excuses for their

superstitions; and for their fears, false as their hopes, and equally

groundless. The circulation of knowledge was limited: the public

journals, that part of the press to which we now owe inexpressible

gratitude for its general accuracy, its enlarged views, its purity, its

information, was then a meagre statement of dry facts: an announcement,

not a commentary. 'The Flying Post,' the 'Daily Courant,' the names of

which may be supposed to imply speed, never reached lone country places

till weeks after they had been printed on their one duodecimo sheet of

thin coarse paper. Religion, too, just emerging into glorious light from

the darkness of popery, had still her superstitions; and the mantle that

priestcraft had contrived to throw over her exquisite, radiant, and

simple form, was not then wholly and finally withdrawn. Romanism still

hovered in the form of credulity.

But now, with shame be it spoken, in the full noonday genial splendour

of our Reformed Church, with newspapers, the leading articles of which

rise to a level with our greatest didactic writers, and are competent

even to form the mind as well as to amuse the leisure hours of the young

readers: with every species of direct communication, we yet hold to

fallacies from which the credulous in Charles's time would have shrunk

in dismay and disgust. Table-turning, spirit-rapping, _clairvoyance_,

Swedenborgianism, and all that family of follies, would have been far

too strong for the faith of those who counted upon dreams as their

guide, or looked up to the heavenly planets with a belief, partly

superstitious, partly reverential, for their guidance; and in a dim and

flickering faith trusted to their _stars_.

'Dr. Bendo,' therefore, as Rochester was called--handsome, witty,

unscrupulous, and perfectly acquainted with the then small circle of the

court--was soon noted for his wonderful revelations. Chamber-women,

waiting-maids, and shop-girls were his first customers: but, very soon,

gay spinsters from the court came in their hoods and masks to ascertain

with anxious faces, their fortunes; whilst the cunning, sarcastic 'Dr.

Bendo,' noted in his diary all the intrigues which were confided to him

by these lovely clients. La Belle Jennings, the sister of Sarah Duchess

of Marlborough, was among his disciples; she took with her the beautiful

Miss Price, and, disguising themselves as orange girls, these young

ladies set off in a hackney-coach to visit Dr. Bendo; but when within

half a street of the supposed fortune-teller's, were prevented by the

interruption of a dissolute courtier named Brounker.

'Everything by turns and nothing long.' When Lord Rochester was tired of

being an astrologer, he used to roam about the streets as a beggar; then

he kept a footman who knew the Court well, and used to dress him up in a

red coat, supply him with a musket, like a sentinel, and send him to

watch at the doors of all the fine ladies, to find out their goings on:

afterwards, Lord Rochester would retire to the country, and write libels

on these fair victims, and, one day, offered to present the king with

one of his lampoons; but being tipsy, gave Charles, instead, one written

upon himself.

At this juncture we read with sorrow Bishop Burnet's forcible

description of his career:--

'He seems to have freed himself from all impressions of virtue or

religion, of honour or good nature.... He had but one maxim, to which he

adhered firmly, that he has to do everything, and deny himself in

nothing that might maintain his greatness. He was unhappily made for

drunkenness, for he had drunk all his friends dead, and was able to

subdue two or three sets of drunkards one after another; so it scarce

ever appeared that he was disordered after the greatest drinking: an

hour or two of sleep carried all off so entirely, that no sign of them

remained.... This had a terrible conclusion.'

Like many other men, Rochester might have been saved by being kept far

from the scene of temptation. Whilst he remained in the country he was

tolerably sober, perhaps steady. When he approached Brentford on his

route to London, his old propensities came upon him.

When scarcely out of his boyhood he carried off a young heiress,

Elizabeth Mallett, whom De Grammont calls _La triste heritière_: and

triste, indeed, she naturally was. Possessed of a fortune of £2500 a

year, this young lady was marked out by Charles II. as a victim for the

profligate Rochester. But the reckless young wit chose to take his own

way of managing the matter. One night, after supping at Whitehall with

Miss Stuart, the young Elizabeth was returning home with her

grandfather, Lord Haly, when their coach was suddenly stopped near

Charing Cross by a number of bravos, both on horseback and on foot--the

'Roaring Boys and Mohawks,' who were not extinct even in Addison's time.

They lifted the affrighted girl out of the carriage, and placed her in

one which had six horses; they then set off for Uxbridge, and were

overtaken; but the outrage ended in marriage, and Elizabeth became the

unhappy, neglected Countess of Rochester. Yet she loved him--perhaps in

ignorance of all that was going on whilst _she_ stayed with her four

children at home.

'If,' she writes to him, 'I could have been troubled at anything, when I

had the happiness of receiving a letter from you, I should be so,

because you did not name a time when I might hope to see you, the

uncertainty of which very much afflicts me.... Lay your commands upon me

what I am to do, and though it be to forget my children, and the long

hope I have lived in of seeing you, yet will I endeavour to obey you; or

in the memory only torment myself, without giving you the trouble of

putting you in mind that there lives a creature as

'Your faithful, humble servant.'

And he, in reply: 'I went away (to Rochester) like a rascal, without

taking leave, dear wife. It is an unpolished way of proceeding, which a

modest man ought to be ashamed of. I have left you a prey to your own

imaginations amongst my relations, the worst of damnations. But there

will come an hour of deliverance, till when, may my mother be merciful

unto you! So I commit you to what I shall ensue, woman to woman, wife to

mother, in hopes of a future appearance in glory....

'Pray write as often as you have leisure, to your

'ROCHESTER.'

To his son, he writes: 'You are now grown big enough to be a man, if

you can be wise enough; and the way to be truly wise is to serve God,

learn your book, and observe the instructions of your parents first, and

next your tutor, to whom I have entirely resigned you for this seven

years; and according as you employ that time, you are to be happy or

unhappy for ever. I have so good an opinion of you, that I am glad to

think you will never deceive me. Dear child, learn your book and be

obedient, and you will see what a father I shall be to you. You shall

want no pleasure while you are good, and that you may be good are my

constant prayers.'

Lord Rochester had not attained the age of thirty, when he was

mercifully awakened to a sense of his guilt here, his peril hereafter.

It seemed to many that his very nature was so warped that penitence in

its true sense could never come to him; but the mercy of God is

unfathomable; He judges not as man judges; He forgives, as man knows not

how to forgive.

'God, our kind Master, merciful as just,

Knowing our frame, remembers man is dust:

He marks the dawn of every virtuous aim,

And fans the smoking flax into a flame;

He hears the language of a silent tear,

And sighs are incense from a heart sincere.'

And the reformation of Rochester is a confirmation of the doctrine of a

special Providence, as well as of that of a retribution, even in this

life.

The retribution came in the form of an early but certain decay; of a

suffering so stern, so composed of mental and bodily anguish, that never

was man called to repentance by a voice so distinct as Rochester. The

reformation was sent through the instrumentality of one who had been a

sinner like himself, who had sinned _with_ him; an unfortunate lady,

who, in her last hours, had been visited, reclaimed, consoled by Bishop

Burnet. Of this, Lord Rochester had heard. He was then, to all

appearance, recovering from his last sickness. He sent for Burnet, who

devoted to him one evening every week of that solemn winter when the

soul of the penitent sought reconciliation and peace.

The conversion was not instantaneous; it was gradual, penetrating,

effective, sincere. Those who wish to gratify curiosity concerning the

death-bed of one who had so notoriously sinned, will read Burnet's

account of Rochester's illness and death with deep interest; and nothing

is so interesting as a death-bed. Those who delight in works of nervous

thought, and elevated sentiments, will read it too, and arise from the

perusal gratified. Those, however, who are true, contrite Christians

will go still farther; they will own that few works so intensely touch

the holiest and highest feelings; few so absorb the heart; few so

greatly show the vanity of life; the unspeakable value of purifying

faith. 'It is a book which the critic,' says Doctor Johnson, 'may read

for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, the saint for its

piety.'

Whilst deeply lamenting his own sins, Lord Rochester became anxious to

redeem his former associates from theirs.

'When Wilmot, Earl of Rochester,'[11] writes William Thomas, in a

manuscript preserved in the British Museum, 'lay on his death-bed, Mr.

Fanshawe came to visit him, with an intention to stay about a week with

him. Mr. Fanshawe, sitting by the bedside, perceived his lordship

praying to God, through Jesus Christ, and acquainted Dr. Radcliffe, who

attended my Lord Rochester in this illness and was then in the house,

with what he had heard, and told him that my lord was certainly

delirious, for to his knowledge, he said, he believed neither in God nor

in Jesus Christ. The doctor, who had often heard him pray in the same

manner, proposed to Mr. Fanshawe to go up to his lordship to be further

satisfied touching this affair. When they came to his room the doctor

told my lord what Mr. Fanshawe said, upon which his lordship addressed

himself to Mr. Fanshawe to this effect: "Sir, it is true, you and I have

been very bad and profane together, and then I was of the opinion you

mention. But now I am quite of another mind, and happy am I that I am

so. I am very sensible how miserable I was whilst of another opinion.

Sir, you may assure yourself that there is a Judge and a future state;"

and so entered into a very handsome discourse concerning the last

judgment, future state &c., and concluded with a serious and pathetic

exhortation to Mr. Fanshawe to enter into another course of life; adding

that he (Mr. F.) knew him to be his friend; that he never was more so

than at this time; and "sir," said he, "to use a Scripture expression, I

am not mad, but speak the words of truth and soberness." Upon this Mr.

Fanshawe trembled, and went immediately a-foot to Woodstock, and there

hired a horse to Oxford, and thence took coach to London.'

There were other butterflies in that gay court; beaux without wit;

remorseless rakes, incapable of one noble thought or high pursuit; and

amongst the most foolish and fashionable of these was Henry Jermyn, Lord

Dover. As the nephew of Henry Jermyn, Lord St. Albans, this young

simpleton was ushered into a court life with the most favourable

auspices. Jermyn Street (built in 1667) recalls to us the residence of

Lord St. Albans, the supposed husband of Henrietta Maria. It was also

the centre of fashion when Henry Jermyn the younger was launched into

its unholy sphere. Near Eagle Passage lived at that time La Belle

Stuart, Duchess of Richmond; next door to her Henry Savile, Rochester's

friend. The locality has since been purified by worthier associations:

Sir Isaac Newton lived for a time in Jermyn Street, and Gray lodged

there.

It was, however, in De Grammont's time, the scene of all the various

gallantries which were going on. Henry Jermyn was supported by the

wealth of his uncle, that uncle who, whilst Charles II. was starving at

Brussels, had kept a lavish table in Paris: little Jermyn, as the

younger Jermyn was called, owed much indeed to his fortune, which had

procured him great _éclat_ at the Dutch court. His head was large; his

features small; his legs short; his physiognomy was not positively

disagreeable, but he was affected and trifling, and his wit consisted in

expressions learnt by rote, which supplied him either with raillery or

with compliments.

This petty, inferior being had attracted the regard of the Princess

Royal--afterwards Princess of Orange--the daughter of Charles I. Then

the Countess of Castlemaine--afterwards Duchess of Cleveland--became

infatuated with him; he captivated also the lovely Mrs. Hyde, a

languishing beauty, whom Sir Peter Lely has depicted in all her sleepy

attractions, with her ringlets falling lightly over her snowy forehead

and down to her shoulders. This lady was, at the time when Jermyn came

to England, recently married to the son of the great Clarendon. She fell

desperately in love with this unworthy being: but, happily for her

peace, he preferred the honour (or dishonour) of being the favourite of

Lady Castlemaine, and Mrs. Hyde escaped the disgrace she, perhaps,

merited.

De Grammont appears absolutely to have hated Jermyn; not because he was

immoral, impertinent, and contemptible, but because it was Jermyn's

boast that no woman, good or bad, could resist him. Yet, in respect to

their unprincipled life, Jermyn and De Grammont had much in common. The

Chevalier was at this time an admirer of the foolish beauty, Jane

Middleton; one of the loveliest women of a court where it was impossible

to turn without seeing loveliness.

Mrs. Middleton was the daughter of Sir Roger Needham, and she has been

described, even by the grave Evelyn, as a 'famous, and, indeed,

incomparable beauty.' A coquette, she was, however, the friend of

intellectual men; and it was probably at the house of St. Evremond that

the Count first saw her. Her figure was good, she was fair and delicate;

and she had so great a desire, Count Hamilton relates, to 'appear

magnificently, that she was ambitious to vie with those of the greatest

fortunes, though unable to support the expense.'

Letters and presents now flew about. Perfumed gloves, pocket

looking-glasses, elegant boxes, apricot paste, essences, and other small

wares arrived weekly from Paris; English jewellery still had the

preference, and was liberally bestowed; yet Mrs. Middleton, affected and

somewhat precise, accepted the gifts but did not seem to encourage the

giver.

The Count de Grammont, piqued, was beginning to turn his attention to

Miss Warmestre, one of the queen's maids of honour, a lively brunette,

and a contrast to the languid Mrs. Middleton; when, happily for him, a

beauty appeared on the scene, and attracted him, by higher qualities

than mere looks, to a real, fervent, and honourable attachment.

Amongst the few respected families of that period was that of Sir George

Hamilton, the fourth son of James, Earl of Abercorn, and of Mary,

grand-daughter of Walter, eleventh Earl of Ormond. Sir George had

distinguished himself during the Civil Wars: on the death of Charles I.

he had retired to France, but returned, after the Restoration, to

London, with a large family, all intelligent and beautiful.

From their relationship to the Ormond family, the Hamiltons were soon

installed in the first circles of fashion. The Duke of Ormond's sons had

been in exile with the king; they now added to the lustre of the court

after his return. The Earl of Arran, the second, was a beau of the true

Cavalier order; clever at games, more especially at tennis, the king's

favourite diversion; he touched the guitar well; and made love _ad

libitum_. Lord Ossory, his elder brother, had less vivacity but more

intellect, and possessed a liberal, honest nature, and an heroic

character.

All the good qualities of these two young noblemen seem to have been

united in Anthony Hamilton, of whom De Grammont gives the following

character:--'The elder of the Hamiltons, their cousin, was the man who,

of all the court, dressed best; he was well made in his person, and

possessed those happy talents which lead to fortune, and procure success

in love: he was a most assiduous courtier, had the most lively wit, the

most polished manners, and the most punctual attention to his master

imaginable; no person danced better, nor was any one a more general

lover--a merit of some account in a court entirely devoted to love and

gallantry. It is not at all surprising that, with these qualities, he

succeeded my Lord Falmouth in the king's favour.'

The fascinating person thus described was born in Ireland: he had

already experienced some vicissitudes, which were renewed at the

Revolution of 1688, when he fled to France--the country in which he had

spent his youth--and died at St. Germains, in 1720, aged seventy-four.

His poetry and his fairy tales are forgotten; but his 'Memoirs of the

Count de Grammont' is a work which combines the vivacity of a French

writer with the truth of an English historian.

Ormond Yard, St. James's Square, was the London residence of the Duke of

Ormond: the garden wall of Ormond House took up the greater part of York

Street: the Hamilton family had a commodious house in the same courtly

neighbourhood; and the cousins mingled continually. Here persons of the

greatest distinction constantly met; and here the 'Chevalier de

Grammont,' as he was still called, was received in a manner suitable to

his rank and style; and soon regretted that he had passed so much time

in other places; for, after he once knew the charming Hamiltons, he

wished for no other friends.

There were three courts at that time in the capital; that at Whitehall,

in the king's apartments; that in the queen's, in the same palace; and

that of Henrietta Maria, the Queen-Mother, as she was styled, at

Somerset House. Charles's was pre-eminent in immorality, and in the

daily outrage of all decency; that of the unworthy widow of Charles I.

was just bordering on impropriety; that of Katherine of Braganza was

still decorous, though not irreproachable. Pepys, in his Diary, has this

passage:--'Visited Mrs. Ferrers, and stayed talking with her a good

while, there being a little, proud, ugly, talking lady there, that was

much crying up the queene-mother's court at Somerset House, above our

queen's; there being before her no allowance of laughing and mirth that

is at the other's; and, indeed, it is observed that the greatest court

now-a-days is there. Thence to Whitehall, where I carried my wife to see

the queene in her presence-chamber; and the maydes of honour and the

young Duke of Monmouth, playing at cards.'

Queen Katherine, notwithstanding that the first words she was ever known

to say in English were '_You lie!_' was one of the gentlest of beings.

Pepys describes her as having a modest, innocent look, among all the

demireps with whom she was forced to associate. Again we turn to Pepys,

an anecdote of whose is characteristic of poor Katherine's submissive,

uncomplaining nature:--

'With Creed, to the King's Head ordinary;... and a pretty gentleman in

our company, who confirms my Lady Castlemaine's being gone from court,

but knows not the reason; he told us of one wipe the queene, a little

while ago, did give her, when she came in and found the queene under the

dresser's hands, and had been so long. "I wonder your Majesty," says

she, "can have the patience to sit so long a-dressing?"--"I have so much

reason to use patience," says the queene, "that I can very well bear

with it."'

It was in the court of this injured queen that De Grammont went one

evening to Mrs. Middleton's house: there was a ball that night, and

amongst the dancers was the loveliest creature that De Grammont had ever

seen. His eyes were riveted on this fair form; he had heard, but never

till then seen her, whom all the world consented to call 'La Belle

Hamilton,' and his heart instantly echoed the expression. From this time

he forgot Mrs. Middleton, and despised Miss Warmestre: 'he found,' he

said, that he 'had seen nothing at court till this instant.'

'Miss Hamilton,' he himself tells us, 'was at the happy age when the

charms of the fair sex begin to bloom; she had the finest shape, the

loveliest neck, and most beautiful arms in the world; she was majestic

and graceful in all her movements; and she was the original after which

all the ladies copied in their taste and air of dress. Her forehead was

open, white, and smooth; her hair was well set, and fell with ease into

that natural order which it is so difficult to imitate. Her complexion

was possessed of a certain freshness, not to be equalled by borrowed

colours; her eyes were not large, but they were lively, and capable of

expressing whatever she pleased.'[12] So far for her person; but De

Grammont was, it seems, weary of external charms: it was the

intellectual superiority that riveted his feelings, whilst his

connoisseurship in beauty was satisfied that he had never yet seen any

one so perfect.

[Illustration: DE GRAMMONT'S MEETING WITH LA BELLE HAMILTON.]

'Her mind,' he says, 'was a proper companion for such a form: she did

not endeavour to shine in conversation by those sprightly sallies which

only puzzle, and with still greater care she avoided that affected

solemnity in her discourses which produces stupidity; but without any

eagerness to talk, she just said what she ought, and no more. She had

an admirable discernment in distinguishing between solid and false wit;

and far from making an ostentatious display of her abilities, she was

reserved, though very just in her decisions. Her sentiments were always

noble, and even lofty to the highest extent, when there was occasion;

nevertheless, she was less prepossessed with her own merit than is

usually the case with those who have so much. Formed as we have

described, she could not fail of commanding love; but so far was she

from courting it, that she was scrupulously nice with respect to those

whose merit might entitle them to form any pretensions to her.'

Born in 1641, Elizabeth--for such was the Christian name of this lovely

and admirable woman--was scarcely in her twentieth year when she first

appeared at Whitehall. Sir Peter Lely was at that time painting the

Beauties of the Court, and had done full justice to the intellectual and

yet innocent face that riveted De Grammont. He had depicted her with her

rich dark hair, of which a tendril or two fell on her ivory forehead,

adorned at the back with large pearls, under which a gauze-like texture

was gathered up, falling over the fair shoulders like a veil: a full

corsage, bound by a light band either of ribbon or of gold lace,

confining, with a large jewel or button, the sleeve on the shoulder,

disguised somewhat the exquisite shape. A frill of fine cambric set off,

whilst in whiteness it scarce rivalled, the shoulder and neck.

The features of this exquisite face are accurately described by De

Grammont, as Sir Peter has painted them. 'The mouth does not smile, but

seems ready to break out into a smile. Nothing is sleepy, but everything

is soft, sweet, and innocent in that face so beautiful and so beloved.'

Whilst the colours were fresh on Lely's palettes, James Duke of York,

that profligate who aped the saint, saw it, and henceforth paid his

court to the original, but was repelled with fearless _hauteur_. The

dissolute nobles of the court followed his example, even to the

'lady-killer' Jermyn, but in vain. Unhappily for La Belle Hamilton, she

became sensible to the attractions of De Grammont, whom she eventually

married.

Miss Hamilton, intelligent as she was, lent herself to the fashion of

the day, and delighted in practical jokes and tricks. At the splendid

masquerade given by the queen she continued to plague her cousin, Lady

Muskerry; to confuse and expose a stupid court beauty, a Miss Blaque;

and at the same time to produce on the Count de Grammont a still more

powerful effect than even her charms had done. Her success in

hoaxing--which we should now think both perilous and indelicate--seems

to have only riveted the chain, which was drawn around him more

strongly.

His friend, or rather his foe, St. Evremond, tried in vain to discourage

the Chevalier from his new passion. The former tutor was, it appeared,

jealous of its influence, and hurt that De Grammont was now seldom at

his house.

De Grammont's answer to his remonstrances was very characteristic. 'My

poor philosopher,' he cried, 'you understand Latin well--you can make

good verses--you are acquainted with the nature of the stars in the

firmament--but you are wholly ignorant of the luminaries in the

terrestrial globe.'

He then announced his intention to persevere, notwithstanding all the

obstacles which attached to the suit of a man without either fortune or

character, who had been exiled from his own country, and whose chief

mode of livelihood was dependent on the gaming-table.

One can scarcely read of the infatuation of La Belle Hamilton without a

sigh. During a period of six years their marriage was in contemplation

only; and De Grammont seems to have trifled inexcusably with the

feelings of this once gay and ever lovely girl. It was not for want of

means that De Grammont thus delayed the fulfilment of his engagement.

Charles II., inexcusably lavish, gave him a pension of 1500 Jacobuses:

it was to be paid to him until he should be restored to the favour of

his own king. The fact was that De Grammont contributed to the pleasures

of the court, and pleasure was the household deity of Whitehall.

Sometimes, in those days of careless gaiety, there were promenades in

Spring Gardens, or the Mall; sometimes the court beauties sallied forth

on horseback; at other times there were shows on the river, which then

washed the very foundations of Whitehall. There in the summer evenings,

when it was too hot and dusty to walk, old Thames might be seen covered

with little boats, filled with court and city beauties, attending the

royal barges; collations, music, and fireworks completed the scene, and

De Grammont always contrived some surprise--some gallant show: once a

concert of vocal and instrumental music, which he had privately brought

from Paris, struck up unexpectedly: another time a collation brought

from the gay capital surpassed that supplied by the king. Then the

Chevalier, finding that coaches with glass windows, lately introduced,

displeased the ladies, because their charms were only partially seen in

them, sent for the most elegant and superb _calèche_ ever seen: it came

after a month's journey, and was presented by De Grammont to the king.

It was a royal present in price, for it had cost two thousand livres.

The famous dispute between Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stuart, afterwards

Duchess of Richmond, arose about this _calèche_. The Queen and the

Duchess of York appeared first in it in Hyde Park, which had then

recently been fenced in with brick. Lady Castlemaine thought that the

_calèche_ showed off a fine figure better than the coach; Miss Stuart

was of the same opinion. Both these grown-up babies wished to have the

coach on the same day, but Miss Stuart prevailed.

The Queen condescended to laugh at the quarrels of these two foolish

women, and complimented the Chevalier de Grammont on his present. 'But

how is it,' she asked, 'that you do not even keep a footman, and that

one of the common runners in the street lights you home with a link?'

'Madame,' he answered, 'the Chevalier de Grammont hates pomp: my

link-boy is faithful and brave.' Then he told the Queen that he saw she

was unacquainted with the nation of link-boys, and related how that he

had, at one time, had one hundred and sixty around his chair at night,

and people had asked 'whose funeral it was? As for the parade of coaches

and footmen,' he added, 'I despise it. I have sometimes had five or six

_valets-de-chambre_, without a single footman in livery except my

chaplain.'

'How!' cried the Queen, laughing, 'a chaplain in livery? surely he was

not a priest.'

'_Pardon_, Madame, a priest, and the best dancer in the world of the

Biscayan gig.'

'Chevalier,' said the king, 'tell us the history of your chaplain

Poussatin.'

Then De Grammont related how, when he was with the great Condé, after

the campaign of Catalonia, he had seen among a company of Catalans, a

priest in a little black jacket, skipping and frisking: how Condé was

charmed, and how they recognized in him a Frenchman, and how he offered

himself to De Grammont for his chaplain. De Grammont had not much need,

he said, for a chaplain in his house, but he took the priest, who had

afterwards the honour of dancing before Anne of Austria, in Paris.

Suitor after suitor interfered with De Grammont's at last honourable

address to La Belle Hamilton. At length an incident occurred which had

very nearly separated them for ever. Philibert de Grammont was recalled

to Paris by Louis XIV. He forgot, Frenchman-like, all his engagements to

Miss Hamilton, and hurried off. He had reached Dover, when her two

brothers rode up after him. 'Chevalier de Grammont,' they said, 'have

you forgotten nothing in London?'

'I beg your pardon,' he answered, 'I forgot to marry your sister.' It is

said that this story suggested to Molière the idea of _Le Mariage

forcé_. They were, however, married.

In 1669 La Belle Hamilton, after giving birth to a child, went to reside

in France. Charles II., who thought she would pass for a handsome woman

in France, recommended her to his sister, Henrietta Duchess of Orleans,

and begged her to be kind to her.

Henceforth the Chevalier De Grammont and his wife figured at Versailles,

where the Countess de Grammont was appointed _Dame du Palais_. Her

career was less brilliant than in England. The French ladies deemed her

haughty and old, and even termed her _une Anglaise insupportable_.

She had certainly too much virtue, and perhaps too much beauty still,

for the Parisian ladies of fashion at that period to admire her.

She endeavoured in vain, to reclaim her libertine husband, and to call

him to a sense of his situation when he was on his death-bed. Louis

XIV. sent the Marquis de Dangeau to convert him, and to talk to him on a

subject little thought of by De Grammont--the world to come. After the

Marquis had been talking for some time, De Grammont turned to his wife

and said, 'Countess, if you don't look to it, Dangeau will juggle you

out of my conversion.' St. Evremond said he would gladly die to go off

with so successful a bon-mot.

He became however, in time, serious, if not devout or penitent. Ninon de

l'Enclos having written to St. Evremond that the Count de Grammont had

not only recovered but had become devout, St. Evremond answered her in

these words:--

'I have learned with a great deal of pleasure that the Count de Grammont

has recovered his former health, and acquired a new devotion. Hitherto I

have been contented with being a plain honest man; but I must do

something more: and I only wait for your example to become a devotee.

You live in a country where people have wonderful advantages of saving

their souls: there, vice is almost as opposite to the mode as virtue;

sinning passes for ill-breeding, and shocks decency and good-manners, as

much as religion. Formerly it was enough to be wicked, now one must be a

scoundrel withal to be damned in France.'

A report having been circulated that De Grammont was dead, St. Evremond

expressed deep regret. The report was contradicted by Ninon de l'Enclos.

The Chevalier was then eighty-six years of age; 'nevertheless he was,'

Ninon says, 'so young, that I think him as lively as when he hated sick

people, and loved them after they had recovered their health;' a trait

very descriptive of a man whose good-nature was always on the surface,

but whose selfishness was deep as that of most wits and beaux, who are

spoiled by the world, and who, in return, distrust and deceive the

spoilers. With this long life of eighty-six years, endowed as De

Grammont was with elasticity of spirits, good fortune, considerable

talent, an excellent position, a wit that never ceased to flow in a

clear current; with all these advantages, what might he not have been to

society, had his energy been well applied, his wit innocent, his talents

employed worthily, and his heart as sure to stand muster as his manners?