“Ah, Mesdames,” said he, gravely, and with a low bow, “I am sorry for

your disappointment. As long as you contented yourselves with robbery,

it were a shame to have interfered with your innocent amusements; but

cold steel becomes serious. Monsieur D’Argenson will favour you with

some inquiries to-morrow; at present, I recommend you to empty what

remains in the bottle. Adieu! Monsieur, to whom I am so greatly

indebted, honour me with your arm down these stairs. You” (turning to

his friend) “will follow us, and keep a sharp look behind. _Allons! Vive

Henri Quatre_!”

As we descended the dark and rough stairs, my new companion said, “What

an excellent antidote to the effects of the _vin de champagne_ is this

same fighting! I feel as if I had not tasted a drop these six hours.

What fortune brought you hither, Monsieur?” addressing me.

We were now at the foot of the first flight of stairs; a high and small

window admitted the moonlight, and we saw each other’s faces clearly.

“That fortune,” answered I, looking at my acquaintance steadily, but

with an expression of profound respect,--“that fortune which watches

over kingdoms, and which, I trust, may in no place or circumstance be a

deserter from your Highness.”

“Highness!” said my companion, colouring, and darting a glance, first

at his friend and then at me. “Hist, Sir, you know me, then,--speak

low,--you know, then, for whom you have drawn your sword?”

“Yes, so please your Highness. I have drawn it this night for Philip of

Orleans; I trust yet, in another scene and for another cause, to draw it

for the Regent of France!”

CHAPTER IX.

A PRINCE, AN AUDIENCE, AND A SECRET EMBASSY.

THE Regent remained silent for a moment: he then said in an altered and

grave voice, “_C’est bien, Monsieur_! I thank you for the distinction

you have made. It were not amiss” (he added, turning to his comrade)

“that _you_ would now and then deign, henceforward, to make the same

distinction. But this is neither time, nor place for parlance. On,

gentlemen!” We left the house, passed into the street, and moved on

rapidly, and in silence, till the constitutional gayety of the Duke

recovering its ordinary tone, he said with a laugh,--

“Well, now, it is a little hard that a man who has been toiling all day

for the public good should feel ashamed of indulging for an hour or two

at night in his private amusements; but so it is. ‘Once grave, always

grave!’ is the maxim of the world; eh, Chatran?”

The companion bowed. “‘Tis a very good saying, please your Royal

Highness, and is intended to warn us from the sin of _ever_ being

grave!”

“Ha! ha! you have a great turn for morality, my good Chatran!” cried the

Duke, “and would draw a rule for conduct out of the wickedest _bon mot_

of Dubois. Monsieur, pardon me, but I have seen you before: you are the

Count--”

“Devereux, Monseigneur.”

“True, true! I have heard much of you: you are intimate with Milord

Bolingbroke. Would that I had fifty friends like _him_.”

“Monseigneur would have little trouble in his regency if his wish were

realized,” said Chatran.

“_Tant mieux_, so long as I had little odium, as well as little

trouble,--a happiness which, thanks to you and Dubois, I am not likely

to enjoy,--but there is the carriage!”

And the Duke pointed to a dark, plain carriage, which we had suddenly

come upon.

“Count Devereux,” said the merry Regent, “you will enter; my duty

requires that, at this seductive hour, I should see a young gentleman of

your dangerous age safely lodged at his hotel!”

We entered, Chatran gave the orders, and we drove off rapidly.

The Regent hummed a tune, and his two companions listened to it in

respectful silence.

“Well, well, Messieurs,” said he, bursting out at last into open voice,

“I will ever believe, in future, that the gods _do_ look benignantly on

us worshippers of the Alma Venus! Do you know much of Tibullus, Monsieur

Devereux? And can you assist my memory with the continuation of the

line--

“‘Quisquis amore tenetur, eat--’”

“‘tutusque sacerque

Qualibet, insidias non timuisse decet,’”*

answered I.

* “Whosoever is possessed by Love may go safe and holy withersoever he

likes. It becomes not him to fear snares.”

“_Bon_!” cried the Duke. “I love a gentleman, from my very soul, when

he can both fight well and read Latin! I hate a man who is merely a

winebibber and blade-drawer. By Saint Louis, though it is an excellent

thing to fill the stomach, especially with Tokay, yet there is no reason

in the world why we should not fill the head too. But here we are.

Adieu, Monsieur Devereux: we shall see you at the Palace.”

I expressed my thanks briefly at the Regent’s condescension, descended

from the carriage (which instantly drove off with renewed celerity), and

once more entered my hotel.

Two or three days after my adventure with the Regent, I thought it

expedient to favour that eccentric prince with a visit. During the early

part of his regency, it is well known how successfully he combated with

his natural indolence, and how devotedly his mornings were surrendered

to the toils of his new office; but when pleasure has grown habit, it

requires a stronger mind than that of Philippe le Debonnaire to give it

a permanent successor in business. Pleasure is, indeed, like the genius

of the fable, the most useful of slaves, while you subdue it; the most

intolerable of tyrants the moment your negligence suffers it to subdue

you.

The hours in which the Prince gave audience to the comrades of his

lighter rather than graver occupations were those immediately before and

after his _levee_. I thought that this would be the best season for

me to present myself. Accordingly, one morning after the _levee_, I

repaired to his palace.

The ante-chamber was already crowded. I sat myself quietly down in one

corner of the room, and looked upon the motley groups around. I smiled

inly as they reminded me of the scenes my own anteroom, in my younger

days of folly and fortune, was wont to exhibit; the same heterogeneous

assemblage (only upon a grander scale) of the ministers to the physical

appetites and the mental tastes. There was the fretting and impudent

mountebank, side by side with the gentle and patient scholar; the

harlot’s envoy and the priest’s messenger; the agent of the police and

the licensed breaker of its laws; there--but what boots a more prolix

description? What is the anteroom of a great man, who has many wants

and many tastes, but a panorama of the blended disparities of this

compounded world?

While I was moralizing, a gentleman suddenly thrust his head out of a

door, and appeared to reconnoitre us. Instantly the crowd swept up to

him. I thought I might as well follow the general example, and pushing

aside some of my fellow-loiterers, I presented myself and my name to the

gentleman, with the most ingratiating air I could command.

The gentleman, who was tolerably civil for a great man’s great man,

promised that my visit should be immediately announced to the Prince;

and then, with the politest bow imaginable, slapped the door in my face.

After I had waited about seven or eight minutes longer, the gentleman

reappeared, singled me from the crowd, and desired me to follow him; I

passed through another room, and was presently in the Regent’s presence.

I was rather startled when I saw, by the morning light, and in

deshabille, the person of that royal martyr to dissipation. His

countenance was red, but bloated, and a weakness in his eyes added

considerably to the jaded and haggard expression of his features. A

proportion of stomach rather inclined to corpulency seemed to betray the

taste for the pleasures of the table, which the most radically coarse,

and yet (strange to say) the most generally accomplished and

really good-natured of royal profligates, combined with his other

qualifications. He was yawning very elaborately over a great heap of

papers when I entered. He finished his yawn (as if it were too brief

and too precious a recreation to lose), and then said, “Good morning,

Monsieur Devereux; I am glad that you have found me out _at last_.”

“I was afraid, Monseigneur, of appearing an intruder on your presence,

by offering my homage to you before.”

“So like my good fortune,” said the Regent, turning to a man seated at

another table at some distance, whose wily, astute countenance, piercing

eye, and licentious expression of lip and brow, indicated at once the

ability and vice which composed his character. “So like my good fortune,

is it not, Dubois? If ever I meet with a tolerably pleasant fellow,

who does not disgrace me by his birth or reputation, he is always so

terribly afraid of intruding! and whenever I pick up a respectable

personage without wit, or a wit without respectability, he attaches

himself to me like a burr, and can’t live a day without inquiring after

my health.”

Dubois smiled, bowed, but did not answer, and I saw that his look was

bent darkly and keenly upon me.

“Well,” said the Prince, “what think you of our opera, Count Devereux?

It beats your English one--eh?”

“Ah, certainly, Monseigneur; ours is but a reflection of yours.”

“So says your friend, Milord Bolingbroke, a person who knows about

operas almost as much as I do, which, vanity apart, is saying a great

deal. I should like very well to visit England; what should I learn best

there? In Spain (I shall always love Spain) I learned to cook.”

“Monseigneur, I fear,” answered I, smiling, “could obtain but little

additional knowledge in that art in our barbarous country. A few rude

and imperfect inventions have, indeed, of late years, astonished the

cultivators of the science; but the night of ignorance rests still upon

its main principles and leading truths. Perhaps, what Monseigneur would

find best worth studying in England would be--the women.”

“Ah, the women all over the world!” cried the Duke, laughing; “but

I hear your _belles Anglaises_ are sentimental, and love _a

l’Arcadienne_.”

“It is true at present; but who shall say how far Monseigneur’s example

might enlighten them in a train of thought so erroneous?”

“True. Nothing like example, eh, Dubois? What would Philip of Orleans

have been but for thee?”

“‘L’exemple souvent n’est qu’un miroir trompeur;

Quelquefois l’un se brise ou l’autre s’est sauve,

Et par ou l’un perit, un autre est conserve,’”*

answered Dubois, out of “Cinna.”

* “Example is often but a deceitful mirror, where sometimes one destroys

himself, while another comes off safe; and where one perishes, another

is preserved.”

“Corneille is right,” rejoined the Regent. “After all, to do thee

justice, _mon petit Abbe_, example has little to do with corrupting us.

Nature pleads the cause of pleasure as Hyperides pleaded that of Phryne.

She has no need of eloquence: she unveils the bosom of her client, and

the client is acquitted.”

“Monseigneur shows at least that he has learned to profit by my humble

instructions in the classics,” said Dubois.

The Duke did not answer. I turned my eyes to some drawings on the table;

I expressed my admiration of them. “They are mine,” said the Regent.

“Ah! I should have been much more accomplished as a private gentleman

than I fear I ever shall be as a public man of toil and business.

Business--bah! But Necessity is the only real sovereign in the world,

the only despot for whom there is no law. What! are you going already,

Count Devereux?”

“Monseigneur’s anteroom is crowded with less fortunate persons than

myself, whose sins of envy and covetousness I am now answerable for.”

“Ah--well! I must hear the poor devils; the only pleasure I have is in

seeing how easily I can make them happy. Would to Heaven, Dubois, that

one could govern a great kingdom only by fair words! Count Devereux, you

have seen me to-day as my acquaintance; see me again as my petitioner.

_Bon jour, Monsieur_.”

And I retired, very well pleased with my reception; from that time,

indeed, during the rest of my short stay at Paris, the Prince honoured

me with his especial favour. But I have dwelt too long on my sojourn at

the French court. The persons whom I have described, and who alone made

that sojourn memorable, must be my apology.

One day I was honoured by a visit from the Abbe Dubois. After a short

conversation upon indifferent things, he accosted me thus:--

“You are aware, Count Devereux, of the partiality which the Regent

has conceived towards you. Fortunate would it be for the Prince” (here

Dubois elevated his brows with an ironical and arch expression), “so

good by disposition, so injured by example, if his partiality had been

more frequently testified towards gentlemen of your merit. A mission of

considerable importance, and one demanding great personal address, gives

his Royal Highness an opportunity of testifying his esteem for you.

He honoured me with a conference on the subject yesterday, and has now

commissioned me to explain to you the technical objects of this mission,

and to offer to you the honour of undertaking it. Should you accept

the proposals, you will wait upon his Highness before his _levee_

to-morrow.”

Dubois then proceeded, in the clear, rapid manner peculiar to him, to

comment on the state of Europe. “For France,” said he, in concluding his

sketch, “peace is absolutely necessary. A drained treasury, an exhausted

country, require it. You see, from what I have said, that Spain

and England are the principal quarters from which we are to dread

hostilities. Spain we must guard against; England we must propitiate:

the latter object is easy in England in any case, whether James or

George be uppermost. For whoever is king in England will have quite

enough to do at home to make him agree willingly enough to peace abroad.

The former requires a less simple and a more enlarged policy. I fear the

ambition of the Queen of Spain and the turbulent genius of her minion

Alberoni. We must fortify ourselves by new forms of alliance, at various

courts, which shall at once defend us and intimidate our enemies. We

wish to employ some nobleman of ability and address, on a secret mission

to Russia: will you be that person? Your absence from Paris will be but

short; you will see a very droll country, and a very droll sovereign;

you will return hither, doubly the rage, and with a just claim to more

important employment hereafter. What say you to the proposal?”

“I must hear more,” said I, “before I decide.”

The Abbe renewed. It is needless to repeat all the particulars of

the commission that he enumerated. Suffice it that, after a brief

consideration, I accepted the honour proposed to me. The Abbe wished

me joy, relapsed into his ordinary strain of coarse levity for a few

minutes, and then, reminding me that I was to attend the Regent on the

morrow, departed. It was easy to see that in the mind of that subtle and

crafty ecclesiastic, with whose manoeuvres private intrigues were always

blended with public, this offer of employment veiled a desire to banish

me from the immediate vicinity of the good-natured Regent, whose favour

the aspiring Abbe wished at that exact moment exclusively to monopolize.

Mere men of pleasure he knew would not interfere with his aims upon the

Prince; mere men of business still less: but a man who was thought to

combine the capacities of both, and who was moreover distinguished by

the Regent, he deemed a more dangerous rival than the inestimable person

thus suspected really was.

However, I cared little for the honest man’s motives. Adventure to

me had always greater charms than dissipation, and it was far more

agreeable to the nature of my ambition, to win distinction by any

honourable method, than by favouritism at a court so hollow, so

unprincipled, and so grossly licentious as that of the Regent. There to

be the most successful courtier was to be the most amusing profligate.

Alas, when the heart is away from its objects, and the taste revolts

at its excess, Pleasure is worse than palling: it is a torture! and the

devil in Jonson’s play did not perhaps greatly belie the truth when he

averred “that the pains in his native country were pastimes to the life

of a person of fashion.”

The Duke of Orleans received me the next morning with more than his

wonted _bonhomie_. What a pity that so good-natured a prince should

have been so bad a man! He enlarged more easily and carelessly than his

worthy preceptor had done upon the several points to be observed in my

mission; then condescendingly told me he was very sorry to lose me from

his court, and asked me, at all events, before I left Paris, to be a

guest at one of his select suppers. I appreciated this honour at its

just value. To these suppers none were asked but the Prince’s chums, or

_roues_,* as he was pleased to call them. As, _entre nous_, these chums

were for the most part the most good-for-nothing people in the kingdom,

I could not but feel highly flattered at being deemed, by so deep a

judge of character as the Regent, worthy to join them. I need not say

that the invitation was eagerly accepted, nor that I left Philippe

le Debonnaire impressed with the idea of his being the most admirable

person in Europe. What a fool a great man is if he does not study to

be affable: weigh a prince’s condescension in one scale, and all the

cardinal virtues in the other, and the condescension will outweigh them

all! The Regent of France ruined his country as much as he well could

do, and there was not a dry eye when he died!

* The term _roue_, now so comprehensive, was first given by the Regent

to a select number of his friends; according to them, because they would

be broken on the wheel for his sake, according to himself, because they

deserved to be so broken.--ED.

A day had now effected a change--a great change--in my fate. A new

court, a new theatre of action, a new walk of ambition, were suddenly

opened to me. Nothing could be more promising than my first employment;

nothing could be more pleasing than the anticipation of the change. “I

must force myself to be agreeable to-night,” said I, as I dressed for

the Regent’s supper. “I must leave behind me the remembrance of a _bon

mot_, or I shall be forgotten.”

And I was right. In that whirlpool, the capital of France, everything

sinks but wit: _that_ is always on the surface; and we must cling to it

with a firm grasp, if we would not go down to--“the deep oblivion.”

CHAPTER X.

ROYAL EXERTIONS FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE.

WHAT a singular scene was that private supper with the Regent of France

and his _roues_! The party consisted of twenty: nine gentlemen of the

court besides myself; four men of low rank and character, but admirable

buffoons; and six ladies, such ladies as the Duke loved best,--witty,

lively, sarcastic, and good for nothing.

De Chatran accosted me.

“Je suis ravi, mon cher Monsieur Devereux,” said he, gravely, “to see

you in such excellent company: you must be a little surprised to find

yourself here!”

“Not at all! every scene is worth one visit. He, my good Monsieur

Chatran, who goes to the House of Correction once is a philosopher: he

who goes twice is a rogue!”

“Thank you, Count, what am I then? I have been _here_ twenty times.”

“Why, I will answer you with a story. The soul of a Jesuit one night,

when its body was asleep, wandered down to the lower regions; Satan

caught it, and was about to consign it to some appropriate place;

the soul tried hard to excuse itself: you know what a cunning thing a

Jesuit’s soul is! ‘Monsieur Satan,’ said the spirit; ‘no king should

punish a traveller as he would a native. Upon my honour, I am merely

here _en voyageur_.’ ‘Go then,’ said Satan, and the soul flew back to

its body. But the Jesuit died, and came to the lower regions a second

time. He was brought before his Satanic majesty, and made the same

excuse. ‘No, no,’ cried Beelzebub; ‘once here is to be only _le diable

voyageur_; twice here, and you are _le diable tout de bon_.’”

“Ha! ha! ha!” said Chatran, laughing; “I then am the _diable tout de

bon_! ‘tis well I _am no worse_; for we reckon the _roues_ a devilish

deal worse than the very worst of the devils,--but see, the Regent

approaches us.”

And, leaving a very pretty and gay-looking lady, the Regent sauntered

towards us. It was in walking, by the by, that he lost all the grace

of his mien. I don’t know, however, that one wishes a great man to be

graceful, so long as he’s familiar.

“Aha, Monsieur Devereux!” said he, “we will give you some lessons in

cooking to-night; we shall show you how to provide for yourself in that

barbarous country which you are about to visit. _Tout voyageur doit tout

savoir!_”

“Avery admirable saying; which leads me to understand that Monseigneur

has been a great traveller,” said I.

“Ay, in all things and _all places_; eh, Count?” answered the Regent,

smiling; “but,” here he lowered his voice a little, “I have never yet

learned how you came so opportunely to our assistance that night. _Dieu

me damne_! but it reminds me of the old story of the two sisters meeting

at a gallant’s house. ‘Oh, Sister, how came _you_ here?’ said one, in

virtuous amazement. ‘_Ciel! ma soeur_!’ cries the other; ‘what brought

_you_?’”*

* The reader will remember a better version of this anecdote in one of

the most popular of the English comedies.--ED.

“Monseigneur is pleasant,” said I, laughing; “but a man does now and

then (though I own it is very seldom) do a good action, without having

previously resolved to commit a bad one!”

“I like your parenthesis,” cried the Regent; “it reminds me of my friend

St. Simon, who thinks so ill of mankind that I asked him one day whether

it was possible for him to despise anything more than men? ‘Yes,’ said

he, with a low bow, ‘women!’”

“His experience,” said I, glancing at the female part of the _coterie_,

“was, I must own, likely to lead him to that opinion.”

“None of your sarcasms, Monsieur,” cried the Regent.

“‘L’amusement est un des besoins de l’homme,’ as I hear young Arouet

very pithily said the other day; and we owe gratitude to whomsoever it

may be that supplies that want. Now, you will agree with me that none

supply it like women therefore we owe them gratitude; therefore we must

not hear them abused. Logically proved, I think!”

“Yes, indeed,” said I, “it is a pleasure to find they have so able an

advocate; and that your Highness can so well apply to yourself _both_

the assertions in the motto of the great master of fortification,

Vauban,--‘I destroy, but I defend.’”

“Enough,” said the Duke, gayly, “now to _our fortifzeations_;” and he

moved away towards the women; I followed the royal example, and soon

found myself seated next to a pretty and very small woman. We entered

into conversation; and, when once begun, my fair companion took care

that it should not cease, without a miracle. By the goddess Facundia,

what volumes of words issued from that little mouth! and on all

subjects too! church, state, law, politics, play-houses, lampoons, lace,

liveries, kings, queens, _roturiers_, beggars, you would have thought,

had you heard her, so vast was her confusion of all things, that chaos

had come again. Our royal host did not escape her. “You never before

supped here _en famille_,” said she,--“_mon Dieu_! it will do your heart

good to see how much the Regent will eat. He has such an appetite; you

know he never eats any dinner, in order to eat the more at supper. You

see that little dark woman he is talking to?--well, she is Madame de

Parabere: he calls her his little black crow; was there ever such a pet

name? Can you guess why he likes her? Nay, never take the trouble of

thinking: I will tell you at once; simply because she eats and drinks so

much. _Parole d’honneur_, ‘tis true. The Regent says he likes sympathy

in all things! is it not droll? What a hideous old man is that Noce: his

face looks as if it had caught the rainbow. That impudent fellow Dubois

scolded him for squeezing so many louis out of the good Regent. The

yellow creature attempted to deny the fact. ‘Nay,’ cried Dubois, ‘you

cannot contradict me: I see their very ghosts in your face.’”

While my companion was thus amusing herself, Noce, unconscious of her

panegyric on his personal attractions, joined us.

“Ah! my dear Noce,” said the lady, most affectionately, “how well you

are looking! I am delighted to see you.”

“I do not doubt it,” said Noce “for I have to inform you that your

petition is granted; your husband will have the place.”

“Oh, how eternally grateful I am to you!” cried the lady, in an ecstasy;

“my poor, dear husband will be so rejoiced. I wish I had wings to fly to

him!”

The gallant Noce uttered a compliment; I thought myself _de trop_, and

moved away. I again encountered Chatran.

“I overheard your conversation with Madame la Marquise,” said he,

smiling: “she has a bitter tongue; has she not?”

“Very! how she abused the poor rogue Noce!”

“Yes, and yet he is her lover!”

“Her lover!--you astonish me: why, she seemed almost fond of her

husband; the tears came in her eyes when she spoke of him.”

“She is fond of him!” said Chatran, dryly. “She loves the ground he

treads on: it is precisely for that reason she favours Noce; she is

never happy but when she is procuring something _pour son cher bon

mari_. She goes to spend a week at Noce’s country-house, and writes to

her husband, with a pen dipped in her blood, saying, ‘My _heart_ is with

thee!’”

“Certainly,” said I, “France is the land of enigmas; the sphynx must

have been a _Parisienne_. And when Jupiter made man, he made two natures

utterly distinct from one another. One was _Human nature_, and the other

_French nature_!”

At this moment supper was announced. We all adjourned to another

apartment, where to my great surprise I observed the cloth laid, the

sideboard loaded, the wines ready, but nothing to eat on the table! A

Madame de Savori, who was next me, noted my surprise.

“What astonishes you, Monsieur?”

“_Nothing_, Madame,” said I; “that is, the absence of _all_ things.”

“What! you expected to see supper?”

“I own my delusion: I did.”

“It is not cooked yet!”

“Oh! well, I can wait!”

“And officiate too!” said the lady; “in a word, this is one of the

Regent’s cooking nights.”

Scarcely had I received this explanation, before there was a general

adjournment to an inner apartment, where all the necessary articles of

cooking were ready to our hand.

“The Regent led the way,

To light us to our prey,”

and, with an irresistible gravity and importance of demeanour, entered

upon the duties of _chef_. In a very short time we were all engaged.

Nothing could exceed the zest with which every one seemed to enter into

the rites of the kitchen. You would have imagined they had been born

scullions, they handled the _batterie de cuisine_ so naturally. As for

me, I sought protection with Madame de Savori; and as, fortunately, she

was very deeply skilled in the science, she had occasion to employ me in

many minor avocations which her experience taught her would not be above

my comprehension.

After we had spent a certain time in this dignified occupation, we

returned to the _salle a manger_. The attendants placed the dishes on

the table, and we all fell to. Whether out of self-love to their own

performances, or complaisance to the performances of others, I cannot

exactly say, but certain it is that all the guests acquitted themselves

_a merveille_: you would not have imagined the Regent the only one who

had gone without dinner to eat the more at supper. Even that devoted

wife to her _cher bon mari_, who had so severely dwelt upon the good

Regent’s infirmity, occupied herself with an earnestness that would have

seemed almost wolf-like in a famished grenadier.

Very slight indeed was the conversation till the supper was nearly over;

then the effects of the wine became more perceptible. The Regent was the

first person who evinced that he had eaten sufficiently to be able to

talk. Utterly dispensing with the slightest veil of reserve or royalty,

he leaned over the table, and poured forth a whole tide of jests. The

guests then began to think it was indecorous to stuff themselves

any more, and, as well as they were able, they followed their host’s

example. But the most amusing personages were the buffoons: they

mimicked and joked, and lampooned and lied, as if by inspiration. As the

bottle circulated, and talk grew louder, the lampooning and the lying

were not, however, confined to the buffoons. On the contrary, the best

born and best bred people seemed to excel the most in those polite arts.

Every person who boasted a fair name or a decent reputation at court was

seized, condemned, and mangled in an instant. And how elaborately the

good folks slandered! It was no hasty word and flippant repartee which

did the business of the absent: there was a precision, a polish, a

labour of malice, which showed that each person had brought so many

reputations already cut up. The good-natured convivialists differed from

all other backbiters that I have ever met, in the same manner as the

toads of Surinam differ from all other toads; namely, their venomous

offspring were not half formed, misshapen tadpoles of slander, but

sprang at once into life,--well shaped and fully developed.

“_Chantons_!” cried the Regent, whose eyes, winking and rolling, gave

token of his approaching state which equals the beggar to the king; “let

us have a song. Noce, lift up thy voice, and let us hear what the Tokay

has put into thy head!”

Noce obeyed, and sang as men half drunk generally do sing.

“_O Ciel_!” whispered the malicious Savori, “what a hideous screech: one

would think he had _turned his face into a voice!_”

“_Bravissimo_!” cried the Duke, when his guest had ceased,--“what happy

people we are! Our doors are locked; not a soul can disturb us: we have

plenty of wine; we are going to get drunk; and we have all Paris to

abuse! what were you saying of Marshal Villars, my little Parabere?”

And pounce went the little Parabere upon the unfortunate marshal.

At last slander had a respite: nonsense began its reign; the full

inspiration descended upon the orgies; the good people lost the use of

their faculties. Noise, clamour, uproar, broken bottles, falling chairs,

and (I grieve to say) their occupants falling too,--conclude the scene

of the royal supper. Let us drop the curtain.

CHAPTER XI.

AN INTERVIEW.

I WENT a little out of my way, on departing from Paris, to visit Lord

Bolingbroke, who at that time was in the country. There are some men

whom one never really sees in capitals; one sees their masks, not

themselves: Bolingbroke was one. It was in retirement, however brief

it might be, that his true nature expanded itself; and, weary of being

admired, he allowed one to love, and, even in the wildest course of his

earlier excesses, to respect him. My visit was limited to a few hours,

but it made an indelible impression on me.

“Once more,” I said, as we walked to and fro in the garden of his

temporary retreat, “once more you are in your element; minister and

statesman of a prince, and chief supporter of the great plans which are

to restore him to his throne.”

A slight shade passed over Bolingbroke’s fine brow. “To you, my constant

friend,” said he, “to you,--who of all my friends alone remained true in

exile, and unshaken by misfortune,--to you I will confide a secret that

I would intrust to no other. I repent me already of having espoused this

cause. I did so while yet the disgrace of an unmerited attainder tingled

in my veins; while I was in the full tide of those violent and warm

passions which have so often misled me. Myself attainted; the best

beloved of my associates in danger; my party deserted, and seemingly

lost but for some bold measure such as then offered,--these were all

that I saw. I listened eagerly to representations I now find untrue; and

I accepted that rank and power from one prince which were so rudely

and gallingly torn from me by another. I perceive that I have acted

imprudently; but what is done, is done: no private scruples, no private

interest, shall make me waver in a cause that I have once pledged myself

to serve; and if I _can_ do aught to make a weak cause powerful, and a

divided party successful, I will; but, Devereux, you are wrong,--this is

_not_ my element. Ever in the paths of strife, I have sighed for quiet;

and, while most eager in pursuit of ambition, I have languished the most

fondly for content. The littleness of intrigue disgusts me, and while

_the branches_ of my power soared the highest, and spread with the most

luxuriance, it galled me to think of the miry soil in which that power

was condemned to strike _the roots_,* upon which it stood, and by which

it must be nourished.”

* “Occasional Writer,” No. 1. The Editor has, throughout this work,

usually, but not invariably, noted the passages in Bolingbroke’s

writings, in which there occur similes, illustrations, or striking

thoughts, correspondent with those in the text.

I answered Bolingbroke as men are wont to answer statesmen who complain

of their calling,--half in compliment, half in contradiction; but he

replied with unusual seriousness,

“Do not think I affect to speak thus: you know how eagerly I snatch

any respite from state, and how unmovedly I have borne the loss of

prosperity and of power. You are now about to enter those perilous

paths which I have trod for years. Your passions, like mine, are strong!

Beware, oh, beware, how you indulge them without restraint! They are the

fires which should warm: let them not be the fires which destroy.”

Bolingbroke paused in evident and great agitation; he resumed: “I speak

strongly, for I speak in bitterness; I was thrown early into the world;

my whole education had been framed to make me ambitious; it succeeded

in its end. I was ambitious, and of all success,--success in pleasure,

success in fame. To wean me from the former, my friends persuaded me

to marry; they chose my wife for her connections and her fortune, and

I gained those advantages at the expense of what was better than

either,--happiness! You know how unfortunate has been that marriage, and

how young I was when it was contracted. Can you wonder that it failed in

the desired effect? Every one courted me; every temptation assailed me:

pleasure even became more alluring abroad, when at home I had no longer

the hope of peace; the indulgence of one passion begat the indulgence of

another; and, though my better sense _prompted_ all my actions, it never

_restrained_ them to a proper limit. Thus the commencement of my actions

has been generally prudent, and their _continuation_ has deviated into

rashness, or plunged into excess. Devereux, I have paid the forfeit of

my errors with a terrible interest: when my motives have been pure, men

have seen a fault in the conduct, and calumniated the motives; when my

conduct has been blameless, men have remembered its former errors,

and asserted that its present goodness only arose from some sinister

intention: thus I have been termed crafty, when I was in reality rash,

and that was called the inconsistency of interest which in reality was

the inconsistency of passion.* I have reason, therefore, to warn you

how you suffer your subjects to become your tyrants; and believe me no

experience is so deep as that of one who has committed faults, and who

has discovered their causes.”

* This I do believe to be the real (though perhaps it is a new) light in

which Lord Bolingbroke’s life and character are to be viewed. The same

writers who tell us of his ungovernable passions, always prefix to his

name the epithets “designing, cunning, crafty,” etc. Now I will venture

to tell these historians that, if they had studied human nature instead

of party pamphlets, they would have discovered that there are certain

incompatible qualities which can never be united in one character,--that

no man can have violent passions _to which he is in the habit of

yielding_, and be systematically crafty and designing. No man can be all

heat, and at the same time all coolness; but opposite causes not unoften

produce like effects. Passion usually makes men changeable, so sometimes

does craft: hence the mistake of the uninquiring or the shallow; and

hence while------writes, and------compiles, will the characters of great

men be transmitted to posterity misstated and belied.--ED.

“Apply, my dear Lord, that experience to your future career. You

remember what the most sagacious of all pedants,* even though he was an

emperor, has so happily expressed,--‘Repentance is a goddess, and the

preserver of those who have erred.’”

* The Emperor Julian. The original expression is paraphrased in the

text.

“May I _find_ her so!” answered Bolingbroke; “but as Montaigne or

Charron would say,* ‘Every man is at once his own sharper and his own

bubble.’ We make vast promises to ourselves; and a passion, an example,

sweeps even the remembrance of those promises from our minds. One is too

apt to believe men hypocrites, if their conduct squares not with their

sentiments; but perhaps no vice is more rare, for no task is more

difficult, than systematic hypocrisy; and the same susceptibility which

exposes men to be easily impressed by the allurements of vice renders

them at heart most struck by the loveliness of virtue. Thus, their

language and their hearts worship the divinity of the latter, while

their conduct strays the most erringly towards the false shrines

over which the former presides. Yes! I have never been blind to the

surpassing excellence of GOOD. The still, sweet whispers of virtue have

been heard, even when the storm has been loudest, and the bark of Reason

been driven the most impetuously over the waves: and, at this moment, I

am impressed with a foreboding that, sooner or later, the whispers will

not only be heard, but their suggestion be obeyed; and that, far from

courts and intrigue, from dissipation and ambition, I shall learn,

in retirement, the true principles of wisdom, and the real objects of

life.”

* “Spirit of Patriotism.”

Thus did Bolingbroke converse, and thus did I listen, till it was

time to depart. I left him impressed with a melancholy that was rather

soothing than distasteful. Whatever were the faults of that most

extraordinary and most dazzling genius, no one was ever more candid* in

confessing his errors. A systematically bad man either ridicules what is

good or disbelieves in its existence; but no man can be hardened in vice

whose heart is still sensible of the excellence and the glory of virtue.

* It is impossible to read the letter to Sir W. Windham without being

remarkably struck with the dignified and yet open candour which it

displays. The same candour is equally visible in whatever relates _to

himself_, in all Lord Bolingbroke’s writings and correspondence; and

yet candour is the last attribute usually conceded to him. But never was

there a writer whom people have talked of more and read less; and I

do not know a greater proof of this than the ever-repeated assertion

(echoed from a most incompetent authority) of the said letter to Sir W.

Windham being the finest of all Lord Bolingbroke’s writings. It is an

article of great value to the history of the times; but, as to all

the higher graces and qualities of composition, it is one of the

least striking (and on the other hand it is one of the most verbally

incorrect) which he has bequeathed to us (the posthumous works always

excepted). I am not sure whether the most brilliant passages, the most

noble illustrations, the most profound reflections, and most useful

truths, to be found in all his writings, are not to be gathered from

the least popular of them,--such as that volume entitled “Political

Tracts.”--ED.

BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.

A PORTRAIT.

MYSTERIOUS impulse at the heart, which never suffers us to be at rest,

which urges us onward as by an unseen yet irresistible law--human

planets in a petty orbit, hurried forever and forever, till our course

is run and our light is quenched--through the circle of a dark and

impenetrable destiny! art thou not some faint forecast and type of our

wanderings hereafter; of the unslumbering nature of the soul; of

the everlasting progress which we are predoomed to make through the

countless steps and realms and harmonies in the infinite creation? Oh,

often in my rovings have I dared to dream so,--often have I soared on

the wild wings of thought above the “smoke and stir” of this dim earth,

and wrought, from the restless visions of my mind, a chart of the

glories and the wonders which the released spirit may hereafter visit

and behold!

What a glad awakening from self,--what a sparkling and fresh draught

from a new source of being,--what a wheel within wheel, animating,

impelling, arousing all the rest of this animal machine, is the first

excitement of Travel! the first free escape from the bonds of the linked

and tame life of cities and social vices,--the jaded pleasure and

the hollow love, the monotonous round of sordid objects and dull

desires,--the eternal chain that binds us to things and beings,

mockeries of ourselves,--alike, but oh, how different! the shock that

brings us nearer to men only to make us strive against them, and learn,

from the harsh contest of veiled deceit and open force, that the more we

share the aims of others, the more deeply and basely rooted we grow to

the littleness of self!

I passed more lingeringly through France than I did through the other

portions of my route. I had dwelt long enough in the capital to be

anxious to survey the country. It was then that the last scale which the

magic of Louis Quatorze and the memory of his gorgeous court had

left upon the mortal eye fell off, and I saw the real essence of that

monarch’s greatness and the true relics of his reign. I saw the poor,

and the degraded, and the racked, and the priest-ridden, tillers and

peoplers of the soil, which made the substance beneath the glittering

and false surface,--the body of that vast empire, of which I had

hitherto beheld only the face, and THAT darkly, and for the most part

covered by a mask!

No man can look upon France, beautiful France,--her rich soil, her

temperate yet maturing clime, the gallant and bold spirits which she

produces, her boundaries so indicated and protected by Nature itself,

her advantages of ocean and land, of commerce and agriculture,--and not

wonder that her prosperity should be so bloated, and her real state so

wretched and diseased.

Let England draw the moral, and beware not only of wars which exhaust,

but of governments which impoverish. A waste of the public wealth is the

most lasting of public afflictions; and “the treasury which is drained

by extravagance must be refilled by crime.” *

* Tacitus.

I remember one beautiful evening an accident to my carriage occasioned

my sojourn for a whole afternoon in a small village. The Cure honoured

me with a visit; and we strolled, after a slight repast, into the

hamlet. The priest was complaisant, quiet in manner, and not ill

informed for his obscure station and scanty opportunities of knowledge;

he did not seem, however, to possess the vivacity of his countrymen,

but was rather melancholy and pensive, not only in his expression of

countenance, but his cast of thought.

“You have a charming scene here: I almost feel as if it were a sin to

leave it so soon.”

We were, indeed, in a pleasant and alluring spot at the time I addressed

this observation to the good Cure. A little rivulet emerged from the

copse to the left, and ran sparkling and dimpling beneath our feet, to

deck with a more living verdure the village green, which it intersected

with a winding nor unmelodious stream. We had paused, and I was leaning

against an old and solitary chestnut-tree, which commanded the whole

scene. The village was a little in the rear, and the smoke from its few

chimneys rose slowly to the silent and deep skies, not wholly unlike the

human wishes, which, though they spring from the grossness and the

fumes of earth, purify themselves as they ascend to heaven. And from the

village (when other sounds, which I shall note presently, were for an

instant still) came the whoop of children, mellowed by distance into a

confused yet thrilling sound, which fell upon the heart like the voice

of our gone childhood itself. Before, in the far expanse, stretched a

chain of hills on which the autumn sun sank slowly, pouring its yellow

beams over groups of peasantry, which, on the opposite side of the

rivulet and at some interval from us, were scattered, partly over the

green, and partly gathered beneath the shade of a little grove. The

former were of the young, and those to whom youth’s sports are dear, and

were dancing to the merry music, which (ever and anon blended with the

laugh and the tone of a louder jest) floated joyously on our ears. The

fathers and matrons of the hamlet were inhaling a more quiet joy

beneath the trees, and I involuntarily gave a tenderer interest to their

converse by supposing them to sanction to each other the rustic loves

which they might survey among their children.

“Will not Monsieur draw nearer to the dancers?” said the Cure; “there is

a plank thrown over the rivulet a little lower down.”

“No!” said I, “perhaps they are seen to better advantage where we are:

what mirth will bear too close an inspection?”

“True, Sir,” remarked the priest, and he sighed.

“Yet,” I resumed musingly, and I spoke rather to myself than to my

companion, “yet, how happy do they seem! what a revival of our Arcadian

dreams are the flute and the dance, the glossy trees all glowing in the

autumn sunset, the green sod, and the murmuring rill, and the buoyant

laugh, startling the satyr in his leafy haunts; and the rural loves

which will grow sweeter still when the sun has set, and the twilight has

made the sigh more tender and the blush of a mellower hue! Ah, why is it

only the revival of a dream? why must it be only an interval of labour

and woe, the brief saturnalia of slaves, the green resting-spot in a

dreary and long road of travail and toil?”

“You are the first stranger I have met,” said the Cure, “who seems to

pierce beneath the thin veil of our Gallic gayety; the first to whom the

scene we now survey is fraught with other feelings than a belief in the

happiness of our peasantry, and an envy at its imagined exuberance. But

as it is not the happiest individuals, so I fear it is not the happiest

nations, that are the gayest.”

I looked at the Cure with some surprise. “Your remark is deeper than the

ordinary wisdom of your tribe, my Father,” said I.

“I have travelled over three parts of the globe,” answered the Cure:

“I was not always intended for what I am;” and the priest’s mild eyes

flashed with a sudden light that as suddenly died away. “Yes, I have

travelled over the greater part of the known world,” he repeated, in a

more quiet tone; “and I have noted that where a man has many comforts to

guard, and many rights to defend, he necessarily shares the thought and

the seriousness of those who feel the value of a treasure which they

possess, and whose most earnest meditations are intent upon providing

against its loss. I have noted, too, that the joy produced by a

momentary suspense of labour is naturally great in proportion to the

toil; hence it is that no European mirth is so wild as that of the

Indian slave, when a brief holiday releases him from his task. Alas!

that very mirth is the strongest evidence of the weight of the previous

chains; even as, in ourselves, we find the happiest moment we enjoy is

that immediately succeeding the cessation of deep sorrow to the mind or

violent torture to the body.” *

* This reflection, if true, may console us for the loss of those

village dances and pleasant holidays for which “merry England” was once

celebrated. The loss of them has been ascribed to the gloomy influence

of the Puritans; but it has never occurred to the good poets, who

have so mourned over that loss, that it is also to be ascribed to

the _liberty_ which those Puritans _generalized_, if they did not

introduce.--ED.

I was struck by this observation of the priest.

“I see now,” said I, “that as an Englishman I have no reason to repine

at the proverbial gravity of my countrymen, or to envy the lighter

spirit of the sons of Italy and France.”

“No,” said the Cure; “the happiest nations are those in whose people you

witness the least sensible reverses from gayety to dejection; and that

_thought_, which is the noblest characteristic of the isolated man, is

also that of a people. Freemen are serious; they have objects at their

heart worthy to engross attention. It is reserved for slaves to indulge

in groans at one moment and laughter at another.”

“At that rate,” said I, “the best sign for France will be when the

gayety of her sons is no longer a just proverb, and the laughing lip is

succeeded by the thoughtful brow.”

We remained silent for several minutes; our conversation had shed a

gloom over the light scene before us, and the voice of the flute no

longer sounded musically on my ear. I proposed to the Cure to return to

my inn. As we walked slowly in that direction, I surveyed my companion

more attentively than I had hitherto done. He was a model of masculine

vigour and grace of form; and, had I not looked earnestly upon his

cheek, I should have thought him likely to outlive the very oaks around

the hamlet church where he presided. But the cheek was worn and hectic,

and seemed to indicate that the keen fire which burns at the deep heart,

unseen, but unslaking, would consume the mortal fuel, long before Time

should even have commenced his gradual decay.

“You have travelled, then, much, Sir?” said I, and the tone of my voice

was that of curiosity.

The good Cure penetrated into my desire to hear something of his

adventures; and few are the recluses who are not gratified by the

interest of others, or who are unwilling to reward it by recalling those

portions of life most cherished by themselves. Before we parted that

night, he told me his little history. He had been educated for the

army; before he entered the profession he had seen the daughter of a

neighbour, loved her, and the old story,--she loved him again, and died

before the love passed the ordeal of marriage. He had no longer a desire

for glory, but he had for excitement. He sold his little property and

travelled, as he had said, for nearly fourteen years, equally over the

polished lands of Europe and the far climates where Truth seems fable

and Fiction finds her own legends realized or excelled.

He returned home poor in pocket and wearied in spirit. He became what I

beheld him. “My lot is fixed now,” said he, in conclusion; “but I find

there is all the difference between quiet and content: my heart eats

itself away here; it is the moth fretting the garment laid by, more than

the storm or the fray would have worn it.”

I said something, commonplace enough, about solitude, and the blessings

of competence, and the country. The Cure shook his head gently, but

made no answer; perhaps he did wisely in thinking the feelings are

ever beyond the reach of a stranger’s reasoning. We parted more

affectionately than acquaintances of so short a date usually do; and

when I returned from Russia, I stopped at the village on purpose to

inquire after him. A few months had done the work: the moth had already

fretted away the human garment; and I walked to his lowly and nameless

grave, and felt that it contained the only quiet in which monotony is

not blended with regret!

CHAPTER II.

THE ENTRANCE INTO PETERSBURG.--A RENCONTRE WITH AN INQUISITIVE AND

MYSTERIOUS STRANGER.--NOTHING LIKE TRAVEL.

IT was certainly like entering a new world when I had the frigid

felicity of entering Russia. I expected to have found Petersburg a

wonderful city, and I was disappointed; it was a wonderful beginning

of a city, and that was all I ought to leave expected. But never,

I believe, was there a place which there was so much difficulty

in arriving at: such winds, such climate, such police

arrangements,--arranged, too, by such fellows! six feet high, with

nothing human about them but their uncleanness and ferocity! Such

vexatious delays, difficulties, ordeals, through which it was necessary

to pass, and to pass, too, with an air of the most perfect satisfaction

and content. By the Lord! one would have imagined, at all events, it

must be an earthly paradise, to be so arduous of access, instead of

a Dutch-looking town, with comfortless canals, and the most terrible

climate in which a civilized creature was ever frozen to death. “It

is just the city a nation of bears would build, if bears ever became

architects,” said I to myself, as I entered the northern capital, with

my teeth chattering and my limbs in a state of perfect insensibility.

My vehicle stopped, at last, at an hotel to which I had been directed.

It was a circumstance, I believe, peculiar to Petersburg, that, at the

time I speak of, none of its streets had a name; and if one wanted

to find out a house, one was forced to do so by oral description. A

pleasant thing it was, too, to stop in the middle of a street, to listen

to such description at full length, and find one’s self rapidly becoming

ice as the detail progressed. After I was lodged, thawed, and fed, I

fell fast asleep, and slept for eighteen hours, without waking once; to

my mind, it was a miracle that I ever woke again.

I then dressed myself, and taking my interpreter,--who was a Livonian,

a great rascal, but clever, who washed twice a week, and did not wear a

beard above eight inches long,--I put myself into my carriage, and went

to deliver my letters of introduction. I had one in particular to the

Admiral Apraxin; and it was with him that I was directed to confer,

previous to seeking an interview with the Emperor. Accordingly I

repaired to his hotel, which was situated on a sort of quay, and was

really, for Petersburg, very magnificent. In this quarter, then or a

little later, lived about thirty other officers of the court, General

Jagoyinsky, General Cyernichoff, etc.; and, appropriately enough,

the most remarkable public building in the vicinity is the great

slaughter-house,--a fine specimen that of practical satire!

On endeavouring to pass through the Admiral’s hall I had the

mortification of finding myself rejected by his domestics. As two men

in military attire were instantly admitted, I thought this a little

hard upon a man who had travelled so far to see his admiralship, and,

accordingly, hinted my indignation to Mr. Muscotofsky, my interpreter.

“You are not so richly dressed as those gentlemen,” said he.

“That is the reason, is it?”

“If it so please Saint Nicholas, it is; and, besides, those gentlemen

have two men running before them to cry, ‘Clear the way!’”

“I had better, then, dress myself better, and take two _avant

couriers_.”

“If it so please Saint Nicholas.” Upon this I returned, robed myself

in scarlet and gold, took a couple of lacqueys, returned to Admiral

Apraxin’s, and was admitted in an instant. Who would have thought these

savages so like us? Appearances, you see, produce realities all over the

world!

The Admiral, who was a very great man at court--though he narrowly

escaped Siberia, or the knout, some time after--was civil enough to me:

but I soon saw that, favourite as he was with the Czar, that great man

left but petty moves in the grand chessboard of politics to be played by

any but himself; and my proper plan in this court appeared evidently

to be unlike that pursued in most others, where it is better to win the

favourite than the prince. Accordingly, I lost no time in seeking an

interview with the Czar himself, and readily obtained an appointment to

that effect.

On the day before the interview took place, I amused myself with

walking over the city, gazing upon its growing grandeur, and casting, in

especial, a wistful eye upon the fortress or citadel, which is situated

in an island, surrounded by the city, and upon the building of which

more than one hundred thousand men are supposed to have perished. So

great a sacrifice does it require to conquer Nature!

While I was thus amusing myself, I observed a man in a small chaise with

one horse pass me twice, and look at me very earnestly. Like most of my

countrymen, I do not love to be stared at; however, I thought it better

in that unknown country to change my intended frown for a good-natured

expression of countenance, and turned away. A singular sight now struck

my attention: a couple of men with beards that would have hidden a

cassowary, were walking slowly along in their curious long garments, and

certainly (I say it reverently) disgracing the semblance of humanity,

when, just as they came by a gate, two other men of astonishing height

started forth, each armed with a pair of shears. Before a second was

over, off went the beards of the first two passengers; and before

another second expired, off went the skirts of their garments too: I

never saw excrescences so expeditiously lopped. The two operators, who

preserved a profound silence during this brief affair, then retired a

little, and the mutilated wanderers pursued their way with an air of

extreme discomfiture.

“Nothing like travel, certainly!” said I, unconsciously aloud.

“True!” said a voice in English behind me. I turned, and saw the man

who had noticed me so earnestly in the one horse chaise. He was a tall,

robust man, dressed very plainly, and even shabbily, in a green uniform,

with a narrow tarnished gold lace; and I judged him to be a foreigner,

like myself, though his accent and pronunciation evidently showed that

he was not a native of the country in the language of which he accosted

me.

“It is very true,” said he again; “there is nothing like travel!”

“And travel,” I rejoined courteously, “in those places where travel

seldom extends. I have only been six days at Petersburg, and till I came

hither, I knew nothing of the variety of human nature or the power

of human genius. But will you allow me to ask the meaning of the very

singular occurrence we have just witnessed?”

“Oh, nothing,” rejoined the man, with a broad strong smile, “nothing

but an attempt to make men out of brutes. This custom of shaving is not,

thank Heaven, much wanted now: some years ago it was requisite to have

several stations for barbers and tailors to perform their duties in. Now

this is very seldom necessary; those gentlemen were especially marked

out for the operation. By------” (and here the man swore a hearty

English and somewhat seafaring oath, which a little astonished me in

the streets of Petersburg), “I wish it were as easy to lop off all old

customs! that it were as easy to clip the _beard of the mind_, Sir! Ha!

ha!”

“But the Czar must have found a little difficulty in effecting even this

outward amendment; and to say truth, I see so many beards about still

that I think the reform has been more partial than universal.”

“Ah, those are the beards of the common people: the Czar leaves those

for the present. Have you seen the docks yet?”

“No, I am not sufficiently a sailor to take much interest in them.”

“Humph! humph! you are a soldier, perhaps?”

“I hope to be so one day or other: I am not yet!”

“Not yet! humph! there are opportunities in plenty for those who wish

it; what is your profession, then, and what do you know best?”

I was certainly not charmed with the honest inquisitiveness of the

stranger. “Sir,” said I, “Sir, my profession is to answer no questions;

and what I know best is--to hold my tongue!”

The stranger laughed out. “Well, well, that is what all Englishmen know

best!” said he; “but don’t be offended: if you will come home with me I

will give you a glass of brandy!”

“I am very much obliged for the offer, but business obliges me to

decline it; good morning, Sir.”

“Good morning!” answered the man, slightly moving his hat, in answer to

my salutation.

We separated, as I thought; but I was mistaken. As ill-luck would

have it, I lost my way in endeavouring to return home. While I was

interrogating a French artisan, who seemed in a prodigious hurry, up

comes my inquisitive friend in green again. “Ha! you have lost your way:

I can put you into it better than any man in Petersburg!”

I thought it right to accept the offer; and we moved on side by side. I

now looked pretty attentively at my gentleman. I have said that he was

tall and stout; he was also remarkably well-built, and had a kind of

seaman’s ease and freedom of gait and manner. His countenance was very

peculiar; short, firm, and strongly marked; a small, but thick mustachio

covered his upper lip; the rest of his face was shaved. His mouth was

wide, but closed, when silent, with that expression of iron resolution

which no feature _but_ the mouth can convey. His eyes were large,

well-opened, and rather stern; and when, which was often in the course

of conversation, he pushed back his hat from his forehead, the motion

developed two strong deep wrinkles between the eyebrows, which might be

indicative either of thought or of irascibility,--perhaps of both. He

spoke quickly, and with a little occasional embarrassment of voice,

which, however, never communicated itself to his manner. He seemed,

indeed, to have a perfect acquaintance with the mazes of the growing

city; and, every now and then, stopped to say when such a house was

built, whither such a street was to lead, etc. As each of these details

betrayed some great triumph over natural obstacles and sometimes

over national prejudice, I could not help dropping a few enthusiastic

expressions in praise of the genius of the Czar. The man’s eyes sparkled

as he heard them.

“It is easy to see,” said I, “that you sympathize with me, and that the

admiration of this great man is not confined to Englishmen. How little

in comparison seem all other monarchs!--they ruin kingdoms; the Czar

creates one. The whole history of the world does not afford an instance

of triumphs so vast, so important, so glorious as his have been. How his

subjects should adore him!”

“No,” said the stranger, with an altered and thoughtful manner, “it

is not his subjects, but _their posterity_, that will appreciate his

motives, and forgive him for wishing Russia to be an empire of MEN. The

present generation may sometimes be laughed, sometimes forced, out of

their more barbarous habits and brute-like customs, but they cannot be

reasoned out of them; and they don’t love the man who attempts to do

it. Why, Sir, I question whether Ivan IV., who used to butcher the dogs

between prayers for an occupation, and between meals for an appetite,

I question whether his memory is not to the full as much loved as the

living Czar. I know, at least, that whenever the latter attempts a

reform, the good Muscovites shrug up their shoulders, and mutter, ‘We

did not do these things in the good old days of Ivan IV.’”

“Ah! the people of all nations are wonderfully attached to their ancient

customs; and it is not unfrequently that the most stubborn enemies to

living men are their own ancestors.”

“Ha! ha!--true--good!” cried the stranger; and then, after a short

pause, he said in a tone of deep feeling which had not hitherto seemed

at all a part of his character, “We should do that which is good to the

human race, from some principle within, and should not therefore abate

our efforts for the opposition, the rancour, or the ingratitude that we

experience without. It will be enough reward for Peter I., if hereafter,

when (in that circulation of knowledge throughout the world which I can

compare to nothing better than the circulation of the blood in the

human body) the glory of Russia shall rest, not upon the extent of

her dominions, but that of her civilization,--not upon the number of

inhabitants, embruted and besotted, but the number of enlightened,

prosperous, and free men; it will be enough for him, if he be considered

to have laid the first stone of that great change,--if his labours be

fairly weighed against the obstacles which opposed them,--if, for

his honest and unceasing endeavour to improve millions, he be not too

severely judged for offences in a more limited circle,--and if,

in consideration of having fought the great battle against custom,

circumstances, and opposing nature, he be sometimes forgiven for not

having invariably conquered himself.”

As the stranger broke off abruptly, I could not but feel a little

impressed by his words and the energy with which they were spoken. We

were now in sight of my lodging. I asked my guide to enter it; but the

change in our conversation seemed to have unfitted him a little for my

companionship.

“No,” said he, “I have business now; we shall meet again; what’s your

name?”

“Certainly,” thought I, “no man ever scrupled so little to ask plain

questions:” however, I answered him truly and freely.

“Devereux!” said he, as if surprised. “Ha!--well--we shall meet again.

Good day.”

CHAPTER III.

THE CZAR.--THE CZARINA.--A FEAST AT A RUSSIAN NOBLEMAN’S.

THE next day I dressed myself in my richest attire; and, according to

my appointment, went with as much state as I could command to the

Czar’s palace (if an exceedingly humble abode can deserve so proud an

appellation). Although my mission was private, I was a little surprised

by the extreme simplicity and absence from pomp which the royal

residence presented. I was ushered for a few moments into a paltry

ante-chamber, in which were several models of ships, cannon, and houses;

two or three indifferent portraits,--one of King William III., another

of Lord Caermarthen. I was then at once admitted into the royal

presence.

There were only two persons in the room,--one a female, the other a man;

no officers, no courtiers, no attendants, none of the insignia nor the

witnesses of majesty. The female was Catherine, the Czarina; the man

was the stranger I had met the day before--and Peter the Great. I was

a little startled at the identity of the Czar with my inquisitive

acquaintance. However, I put on as assured a countenance as I could.

Indeed, I had spoken sufficiently well of the royal person to feel very

little apprehension at having unconsciously paid so slight a respect to

the royal dignity.

“Ho! ho!” cried the Czar, as I reverently approached him; “I told you

we should meet soon!” and turning round, he presented me to her Majesty.

That extraordinary woman received me very graciously: and, though I had

been a spectator of the most artificial and magnificent court in

Europe, I must confess that I could detect nothing in the Czarina’s air

calculated to betray her having been the servant of a Lutheran minister

and the wife of a Swedish dragoon; whether it was that greatness was

natural to her, or whether (which was more probable) she was an instance

of the truth of Suckling’s hackneyed thought, in “Brennoralt,”--“Success

is a rare paint,--hides all the ugliness.”

While I was making my salutations, the Czarina rose very quietly, and

presently, to my no small astonishment, brought me with her own hand

a tolerably large glass of raw brandy. There is nothing in the world I

hate so much as brandy; however, I swallowed the potation as if it had

been nectar, and made some fine speech about it, which the good Czarina

did not seem perfectly to understand. I then, after a few preliminary

observations, entered upon my main business with the Czar. Her Majesty

sat at a little distance, but evidently listened very attentively to

the conversation. I could not but be struck with the singularly bold

and strong sense of my royal host. There was no hope of deluding or

misleading him by diplomatic subterfuge. The only way by which that

wonderful man was ever misled was through his passions. His reason

conquered all errors but those of temperament. I turned the conversation

as artfully as I could upon Sweden and Charles XII. “Hatred to one

power,” thought I, “may produce love to another; and if it does, the

child will spring from a very vigorous parent.” While I was on this

subject, I observed a most fearful convulsion come over the face of the

Czar,--one so fearful that I involuntarily looked away. Fortunate was

it that I did so. Nothing ever enraged him more than being observed in

those constitutional contortions of countenance to which from his youth

he had been subjected.

After I had conversed with the Czar as long as I thought decorum

permitted, I rose to depart. He dismissed me very complaisantly. I

re-entered my fine equipage, and took the best of my way home.

Two or three days afterwards, the Czar ordered me to be invited to

a grand dinner at Apraxin’s. I went there, and so found myself in

conversation with a droll little man, a Dutch Minister, and a great

favourite with the Czar. The Admiral and his wife, before we sat down to

eat, handed round to each of their company a glass of brandy on a plate.

“What an odious custom!” whispered the little Dutch Minister, smacking

his lips, however, with an air of tolerable content.

“Why,” said I, prudently, “all countries have their customs. Some

centuries ago, a French traveller thought it horrible in us Englishmen

to eat raw oysters. But the English were in the right to eat oysters;

and perhaps, by and by, so much does civilization increase, we shall

think the Russians in the right to drink brandy. But really [we had now

sat down to the entertainment], I am agreeably surprised here. All

the guests are dressed like my own countrymen; a great decorum reigns

around. If it were a little less cold, I might fancy myself in London or

in Paris.”

“Wait,” quoth the little Dutchman, with his mouth full of jelly broth,

“wait till you hear them talk. What think you, now, that lady next me is

saying?”

“I cannot guess: but she has the prettiest smile in the world; and there

is something at once so kind and so respectful in her manner that I

should say she was either asking some great favour, or returning thanks

for one.”

“Right,” cried the little Minister, “I will interpret for you. She is

saying to that old gentleman, ‘Sir, I am extremely grateful--and may

Saint Nicholas bless you for it--for your very great kindness in having,

the day before yesterday, at your sumptuous entertainment, made me so

deliciously--drunk!’”

“You are witty, Monsieur,” said I, smiling. “_Se non e vero e ben

trovato_.”

“By my soul, it is true,” cried the Dutchman; “but, hush!--see, they are

going to cut up that great pie.”

I turned my eyes to the centre of the table, which was ornamented with a

huge pasty. Presently it was cut open, and out--walked a hideous little

dwarf.

“Are they going to eat him?” said I.

“Ha! ha!” laughed the Dutchman. “No! this is a fashion of the Czar’s,

which the Admiral thinks it good policy to follow. See, it tickles the

hebete Russians. They are quite merry on it.”

“To be sure,” said I; “practical jokes are the only witticisms savages

understand.”

“Ay, and if it were not for such jokes now and then, the Czar would

be odious beyond measure; but dwarf pies and mock processions make

his subjects almost forgive him for having shortened their clothes and

clipped their beards.”

“The Czar is very fond of those mock processions?”

“Fond!” and the little man sank his voice into a whisper; “he is the

sublimest buffoon that ever existed. I will tell you an instance--Do you

like these Hungary wines, by the by?--On the 9th of last June, the

Czar carried me, and half-a-dozen more of the foreign ministers, to his

pleasure-house (Peterhoff). Dinner, as usual, all drunk with Tokay, and

finished by a quart of brandy each, from her Majesty’s own hand. Carried

off to sleep,--some in the garden, some in the wood. Woke at four, still

in the clouds. Carried back to the pleasure-house, found the Czar there,

made us a low bow, and gave us a hatchet apiece, with orders to follow

him. Off we trudged, rolling about like ships in the Zuyder Zee, entered

a wood, and were immediately set to work at cutting a road through it.

Nice work for us of the _corps diplomatique_! And, by my soul, Sir, you

see that I am by no means a thin man! We had three hours of it, were

carried back, made drunk again, sent to bed, roused again in an hour,

made drunk a third time; and, because we _could not_ be waked again,

left in peace till eight the next morning. Invited to court to

breakfast; such headaches we had; longed for coffee; found nothing but

brandy; forced to drink; sick as dogs; sent to take an airing upon

the most damnable little horses, not worth a guilder, no bridles

nor saddles; bump--bump--bump we go, up and down before the Czar’s

window,--he and the Czarina looking at us. I do assure you I lost two

stone by that ride,--two stone, Sir!--taken to dinner; drunk again, by

the Lord, all bundled on board a _torrenschute_; devil of a storm came

on; Czar took the rudder; Czarina on high benches in the cabin, which

was full of water; waves beating; winds blowing; certain of being

drowned; charming prospect!--tossed about for seven hours; driven into

the port of Cronsflot. Czar leaves us, saying, ‘Too much of a jest,

eh, gentlemen?’ All got ashore wet as dog-fishes, made a fire, stripped

stark naked (a Dutch ambassador stark naked,--think of it, Sir!),

crept into some covers of sledges, and rose next morning with the

ague,--positive fact, Sir! Had the ague for two months. Saw the Czar in

August; ‘A charming excursion to my pleasure-house,’ said his Majesty;

‘we must make another party there soon.’”

As the Dutchman delivered himself of the little history he was by no

means forgetful of the Hungary wines; and as Bacchus and Venus have old

affinity, he now began to grow eloquent on the women.

“What think you of them yourself?” said he; “they have a rolling look,

eh?”

“They have so,” I answered: “but they all have black teeth; what’s the

reason?”

“They think it a beauty, and say white teeth are the sign of a

blackamoor.”

Here the Dutchman was accosted by some one else, and there was a pause.

Dinner at last ceased; the guests did not sit long after dinner, and for

a very good reason: the brandy bowl is a great enforcer of a prostrate

position! I had the satisfaction of seeing the company safely under the

table. The Dutchman went first, and, having dexterously manoeuvred an

escape from utter oblivion for myself, I managed to find my way home,

more edified than delighted by the character of a Russian entertainment.

CHAPTER IV.

CONVERSATIONS WITH THE CZAR.--IF CROMWELL WAS THE GREATEST MAN (CAESAR

EXCEPTED) WHO EVER _ROSE_ TO THE SUPREME POWER, PETER WAS THE GREATEST

MAN EVER _BORN_ TO IT.

IT was singular enough that my introduction to the notice of Peter

the Great and Philip le Debonnaire should have taken place under

circumstances so far similar that both those illustrious personages were

playing the part rather of subjects than of princes. I cannot, however,

conceive a greater mark of the contrast between their characters than

the different motives and manners of the incognitos severally assumed.

Philip, in a scene of low riot and debauch, hiding the Jupiter under the

Silenus,--wearing the mask only for the licentiousness it veiled,

and foregoing the prerogative of power, solely for indulgence in the

grossest immunities of vice.

Peter, on the contrary, parting with the selfishness of state in order

to watch the more keenly over the interests of his people, only omitting

to preside in order to examine, and affecting the subject only to learn

the better the duties of the prince. Had I leisure, I might here pause

to point out a notable contrast, not between the Czar and the Regent,

but between Peter the Great and Louis le Grand: both creators of a new

era,--both associated with a vast change in the condition of two mighty

empires. There ceases the likeness and begins the contrast: the blunt

simplicity of Peter, the gorgeous magnificence of Louis; the sternness

of a legislator for barbarians, the clemency of an idol of courtiers.

One the victorious defender of his country,--a victory solid, durable,

and just; the other the conquering devastator of a neighbouring

people,--a victory, glittering, evanescent, and dishonourable. The one,

in peace, rejecting parade, pomp, individual honours, and transforming

a wilderness into an empire: the other involved in ceremony, and throned

on pomp; and exhausting the produce of millions to pamper the bloated

vanity of an individual. The one a fire that burns, without enlightening

beyond a most narrow circle, and whose lustre is tracked by what it

ruins, and fed by what it consumes; the other a luminary, whose light,

not so dazzling in its rays, spreads over a world, and is noted, not for

what it destroys, but for what it vivifies and creates.

I cannot say that it was much to my credit that, while I thought

the Regent’s condescension towards me natural enough, I was a little

surprised by the favour shown me by the Czar. At Paris, I had _seemed_

to be the man of pleasure: that alone was enough to charm Philip of

Orleans. But in Russia, what could I seem in any way calculated to charm

the Czar? I could neither make ships nor could sail them when they were

made; I neither knew, nor, what was worse, cared to know, the stern

from the rudder. Mechanics were a mystery to me; road-making was an

incomprehensible science. Brandy I could not endure; a blunt bearing

and familiar manner I could not assume. What was it, then, that made

the Czar call upon me, at least twice a week in private, shut himself up

with me by the hour together, and endeavour to make me drunk with Tokay,

in order (as he very incautiously let out one night), “to learn the

secrets of my heart”? I thought, at first, that the nature of my mission

was enough to solve the riddle: but we talked so little about it that,

with all my diplomatic vanities fresh about me, I could not help feeling

I owed the honour I received less to my qualities as a minister than to

those as an individual.

At last, however, I found that the secret attraction was what the Czar

termed the philosophical channel into which our conferences flowed. I

never saw a man so partial to moral problems and metaphysical inquiries,

especially to those connected with what ought to be the beginning or the

end of all moral sciences,--politics. Sometimes we would wander out in

disguise, and select some object from the customs or things around us,

as the theme of reflection and discussion; nor in these moments would

the Czar ever allow me to yield to his rank what I might not feel

disposed to concede to his arguments. One day, I remember that he

arrested me in the streets, and made me accompany him to look upon two

men undergoing the fearful punishment of the battaog;* one was a German,

the other a Russian: the former shrieked violently, struggled in the

hands of his punishers, and, with the utmost difficulty, was subjected

to his penalty; the latter bore it patiently and in silence; he only

spoke once, and it was to say, “God bless the Czar!”

* A terrible kind of flogging, but less severe than the knout.

“Can your Majesty hear the man,” said I, warmly, when the Czar

interpreted these words to me, “and not pardon him?” Peter frowned, but

I was not silenced. “You don’t know the Russians!” said he, sharply, and

turned aside. The punishment was now over. “Ask the German,” said the

Czar to an officer, “what was his offence?” The German, who was writhing

and howling horribly, uttered some violent words against the disgrace

of the punishment, and the pettiness of his fault; what the fault was I

forget.

“Now ask the Russian,” said Peter. “My punishment was just!” said the

Russian, coolly, putting on his clothes as if nothing had happened; “God

and the Czar were angry with me!”

“Come away, Count,” said the Czar; “and now solve me a problem. I know

both those men, and the German, in a battle, would be the braver of

the two. How comes it that he weeps and writhes like a girl, while the

Russian bears the same pain without a murmur?”

“Will your Majesty forgive me,” said I, “but I cannot help wishing that

the Russian had complained more bitterly; insensibility to punishment is

the sign of a brute, not a hero. Do you not see that the German felt the

indignity, the Russian did not? and do you not see that that very pride

which betrays agony under the disgrace of the battaog is exactly the

very feeling that would have produced courage in the glory of the

battle? A sense of honour makes better soldiers and better men than

indifference to pain.”

“But had I ordered the Russian to death, he would have gone with the

same apathy and the same speech, ‘It is just! I have offended God and

the Czar!’”

“Dare I observe, Sire, that that fact would be a strong proof of the

dangerous falsity of the old maxims which extol indifference to death as

a virtue? In some individuals it may be a sign of virtue, I allow; but,

as a _national trait_, it is the strongest sign of national misery. Look

round the great globe. What countries are those where the inhabitants

bear death with cheerfulness, or, at least, with apathy? Are they the

most civilized, the most free, the most prosperous? Pardon me; no! They

are the half-starved, half-clothed, half-human sons of the forest

and the waste; or, when gathered in states, they are slaves without

enjoyment or sense beyond the hour; and the reason that they do not

recoil from the pangs of death is because they have never known the real

pleasures or the true objects of life.”

“Yet,” said the Czar, musingly, “the contempt of death was the great

characteristic of the Spartans.”

“And, therefore,” said I, “the great token that the Spartans were a

miserable horde. Your Majesty admires England and the English; you have,

beyond doubt, witnessed an execution in that country; you have noted,

even where the criminal is consoled by religion, how he trembles, and

shrinks,--how dejected, how prostrate of heart he is before the doom is

completed. Take now the vilest slave, either of the Emperor of Morocco

or the great Czar of Russia. He changes neither tint nor muscle;

he requires no consolation; he shrinks from no torture. What is the

inference? _That slaves dread death less than the free_. And it should

be so. The end of legislation is not to make _death_, but _life_, a

blessing.”

“You have put the matter in a new light,” said the Czar; “but you allow

that, in individuals, contempt of death is sometimes a virtue.”

“Yes, when it springs from mental reasonings, not physical indifference.

But your Majesty has already put in action one vast spring of a system

which will ultimately open to your subjects so many paths of existence

that they will preserve contempt for its proper objects, and not lavish

it solely, as they do now, on the degradation which sullies life and the

axe that ends it. You have already begun the conquest of another and

a most vital error in the philosophy of the ancients,--that philosophy

taught that man should have few wants, and made it a crime to increase

and a virtue to reduce them. A legislator should teach, on the contrary,

that man should have many wants: for wants are not only the sources of

enjoyment,--they are the sources of improvement; and that nation will

be the most enlightened among whose populace they are found the most

numerous. You, Sire, by circulating the arts, the graces, create a vast

herd of moral wants hitherto unknown, and in those wants will hereafter

be found the prosperity of your people, the fountain of your resources,

and the strength of your empire.”

In conversation on these topics we often passed hours together, and

from such conferences the Czar passed only to those on other topics more

immediately useful to him. No man, perhaps, had a larger share of the

mere human frailties than Peter the Great; yet I do confess that when I

saw the nobleness of mind with which he flung aside his rank as a robe,

and repaired from man to man, the humblest or the highest, the artisan

or the prince,--the prosperity of his subjects his only object, and the

acquisition of knowledge his only means to obtain it,--I do confess that

my mental sight refused even to perceive his frailties, and that I could

almost have bent the knee in worship to a being whose benevolence was

so pervading a spirit, and whose power was so glorious a minister to

utility.

Towards the end of January, I completed my mission, and took my leave of

the court of Russia.

“Tell the Regent,” said Peter, “that I shall visit him in France soon,

and shall expect to see his drawings if I show him my models.”

In effect, the next month (February 16), the Czar commenced his second

course of travels. He was pleased to testify some regard for me on my

departure. “If ever you quit the service of the French court, and your

own does not require you, I implore you to come to me; I will give you

_carte blanche_ as to the nature and appointments of your office.”

I need not say that I expressed my gratitude for the royal

condescension; nor that, in leaving Russia, I brought, from the example

of its sovereign, a greater desire to be useful to mankind than I had

known before. Pattern and Teacher of kings, if each country in each

century had produced one such ruler as you, either all mankind would

_now_ be contented with despotism or all mankind would be _free_! Oh!

when kings have only to be good, to be kept forever in our hearts

and souls as the gods and benefactors of the earth, by what monstrous

fatality have they been so blind to their fame? When we remember the

millions, the generations, they can degrade, destroy, elevate, or

save, we might almost think (even if the other riddles of the present

existence did not require a future existence to solve them), we might

almost think a hereafter _necessary_, were it but for the sole purpose

of requiting the virtues of princes,--or their SINS!*

* Upon his death-bed Peter is reported to have said, “God, I dare trust,

will look mercifully upon my faults in consideration of the good I

have done my country.” These are worthy to be the last words of a king!

Rarely has there been a monarch who more required the forgiveness of

the Creator; yet seldom perhaps has there been a human being who more

deserved it.--ED.

CHAPTER V.

RETURN TO PARIS.--INTERVIEW WITH BOLINGBROKE.--A GALLANT

ADVENTURE.--AFFAIR WITH DUBOIS.--PUBLIC LIFE IS A DRAMA, IN WHICH

PRIVATE VICES GENERALLY PLAY THE PART OF THE SCENE-SHIFTERS.

IT is a strange feeling we experience on entering a great city by

night,--a strange mixture of social and solitary impressions. I say by

night, because at that time we are most inclined to feel; and the mind,

less distracted than in the day by external objects, dwells the

more intensely upon its own hopes and thoughts, remembrances and

associations, and sheds over them, from that one feeling which it

cherishes the most, a blending and a mellowing hue.

It was at night that I re-entered Paris. I did not tarry long at my

hotel, before (though it was near upon midnight) I conveyed myself to

Lord Bolingbroke’s lodgings. Knowing his engagements at St. Germains,

where the Chevalier (who had but a very few weeks before returned

to France, after the crude and unfortunate affair of 1715), chiefly

resided, I was not very sanguine in my hopes of finding him at Paris.

I was, however, agreeably surprised. His servant would have ushered me

into his study, but I was willing to introduce myself. I withheld the

servant, and entered the room alone. The door was ajar, and Bolingbroke

neither heard nor saw me. There was something in his attitude and aspect

which made me pause to survey him, before I made myself known. He

was sitting by a table covered with books. A large folio (it was the

Casaubon edition of Polybius) was lying open before him. I recognized

the work at once: it was a favourite book with Bolingbroke, and we had

often discussed the merits of its author. I smiled as I saw that that

book, which has to statesmen so peculiar an attraction, made still the

study from which the busy, restless, ardent, and exalted spirit of the

statesman before me drew its intellectual food. But at the moment

in which I entered his eye was absent from the page, and turned

abstractedly in an opposite though still downcast direction. His

countenance was extremely pale, his lips were tightly compressed, and an

air of deep thought, mingled as it seemed to me with sadness, made the

ruling expression of his lordly and noble features. “It is the torpor of

ambition after one of its storms,” said I, inly; and I approached, and

laid my hand on his shoulder.

After our mutual greetings, I said, “Have the dead so strong an

attraction that at this hour they detain the courted and courtly

Bolingbroke from the admiration and converse of the living?”

The statesman looked at me earnestly: “Have you heard the news of the

day?” said he.

“How is it possible? I have but just arrived at Paris.”

“You do not know, then, that I have resigned my office under the

Chevalier!”

“Resigned your office!”

“Resigned is a wrong word: I received a dismissal. Immediately on his

return the Chevalier sent for me, embraced me, desired me to prepare

to follow him to Lorraine; and three days afterwards came the Duke of

Ormond to me, to ask me to deliver up the seals and papers. I put the

latter very carefully in a little letter-case, and behold an end to the

administration of Lord Bolingbroke! The Jacobites abuse me terribly;

their king accuses me of neglect, incapacity, and treachery; and Fortune

pulls down the fabric she has built for me, in order to pelt me with the

stones!”*

* Letter to Sir W. Windham.--ED.

“My dear, dear friend, I am indeed grieved for you; but I am more

incensed at the infatuation of the Chevalier. Surely, surely he must

already have seen his error, and solicited your return?”

“Return!” cried Bolingbroke, and his eyes flashed fire,--“return!--Hear

what I said to the Queen-Mother who came to attempt a reconciliation:

‘Madam,’ said I, in a tone as calm as I could command, ‘if ever this

hand draws the sword, or employs the pen, in behalf of that prince,

may it rot!’ Return! not if my head were the price of refusal! Yet,

Devereux,”--and here Bolingbroke’s voice and manner changed,--“yet it is

not at these tricks of fate that a wise man will repine. We do right to

cultivate honours; they are sources of gratification to ourselves: they

are more; they are incentives to the conduct which works benefits

to others; but we do wrong to afflict ourselves at their loss. ‘Nec

quaerere nec spernere honores oportet.’* It is good to enjoy the

blessings of fortune: it is better to submit without a pang to their

loss. You remember, when you left me, I was preparing myself for this

stroke: believe me, I am now prepared.”

* “It becomes us neither to court nor to despise honours.”

And in truth Bolingbroke bore the ingratitude of the Chevalier well.

Soon afterwards he carried his long cherished wishes for retirement

into effect; and Fate, who delights in reversing her disk, leaving

in darkness what she had just illumined, and illumining what she had

hitherto left in obscurity and gloom, for a long interval separated us

from each other, no less by his seclusion than by the publicity to which

she condemned myself.

Lord Bolingbroke’s dismissal was not the only event affecting me that

had occurred during my absence from France. Among the most active

partisans of the Chevalier, in the expedition of Lord Mar, had been

Montreuil. So great, indeed, had been either his services or the idea

entertained of their value, that a reward of extraordinary amount was

offered for his head. Hitherto he had escaped, and was supposed to be

still in Scotland.

But what affected me more nearly was the condition of Gerald’s

circumstances. On the breaking out of the rebellion he had been suddenly

seized, and detained in prison; and it was only upon the escape of the

Chevalier that he was released: apparently, however, nothing had

been proved against him; and my absence from the head-quarters

of intelligence left me in ignorance both of the grounds of his

imprisonment and the circumstances of his release.

I heard, however, from Bolingbroke, who seemed to possess some of that

information which the ecclesiastical intriguants of the day so curiously

transmitted from court to court and corner to corner, that Gerald had

retired to Devereux Court in great disgust at his confinement. However,

when I considered his bold character, his close intimacy with Montreuil,

and the genius for intrigue which that priest so eminently possessed,

I was not much inclined to censure the government for unnecessary

precaution in his imprisonment.

There was another circumstance connected with the rebellion which

possessed for me an individual and deep interest. A man of the name

of Barnard had been executed in England for seditious and treasonable

practices. I took especial pains to ascertain every particular

respecting him. I learned that he was young, of inconsiderable note,

but esteemed clever; and had, long previously to the death of the

Queen, been secretly employed by the friends of the Chevalier. This

circumstance occasioned me much internal emotion, though there could

be no doubt that the Barnard whom I had such cause to execrate had only

borrowed from this minion the disguise of his name.

The Regent received me with all the graciousness and complaisance

for which he was so remarkable. To say the truth, my mission had been

extremely fortunate in its results; the only cause in which the Regent

was concerned the interests of which Peter the Great appeared to

disregard was that of the Chevalier; but I had been fully instructed on

that head anterior to my legation.

There appears very often to be a sort of moral fitness between the

beginning and the end of certain alliances or acquaintances. This

sentiment is not very clearly expressed. I am about to illustrate it by

an important event in my political life. During my absence Dubois had

made rapid steps towards being a great man. He was daily growing into

power, and those courtiers who were neither too haughty nor too honest

to bend the knee to so vicious yet able a minion had already singled him

out as a fit person to flatter and to rise by. For me, I neither sought

nor avoided him: but he was as civil towards me as his _brusque_ temper

permitted him to be towards most persons; and as our careers were not

likely to cross one another, I thought I might reckon on his neutrality,

if not on his friendship. Chance turned the scale against me.

One day I received an anonymous letter, requesting me to be, at such

an hour, at a certain house in the Rue------. It occurred to me as

no improbable supposition that the appointment might relate to my

individual circumstances, whether domestic or political, and I certainly

had not at the moment any ideas of gallantry in my brain. At the hour

prescribed I appeared at the place of assignation. My mind misgave me

when I saw a female conduct me into a little chamber hung with tapestry

descriptive of the loves of Mars and Venus. After I had cooled my heels

in this apartment about a quarter of an hour, in sailed a tall woman,

of a complexion almost Moorish. I bowed; the lady sighed. An

_eclaircissement_ ensued; and I found that I had the good fortune to be

the object of a _caprice_ in the favourite mistress of the Abbe Dubois.

Nothing was further from my wishes! What a pity it is that one cannot

always tell a woman one’s mind!

I attempted a flourish about friendship, honour, and the respect due to

the _amante_ of the most intimate _ami_ I had in the world.

“Pooh!” said the tawny Calypso, a little pettishly, “pooh! one does not

talk of those things here.”

“Madame,” said I, very energetically, “I implore you to refrain. Do not

excite too severe a contest between passion and duty! I feel that I must

fly you: you are already too bewitching.”

Just as I rose to depart in rushes the _femme de chambre_, and

announces, not Monsieur the Abbe, but Monseigneur the Regent. Of course

(the old resort in such cases) I was thrust in a closet; in marches his

Royal Highness, and is received very cavalierly. It is quite astonishing

to me what airs those women give themselves when they have princes to

manage! However, my confinement was not long: the closet had another

door; the _femme de chambre_ slips round, opens it, and I congratulate

myself on my escape.

When a Frenchwoman is piqued, she passes all understanding. The next

day I am very quietly employed at breakfast, when my valet ushers in a

masked personage, and behold my gentlewoman again! Human endurance

will not go too far, and this was a case which required one to be in

a passion one way or the other; so I feigned anger, and talked with

exceeding dignity about the predicament I had been placed in the day

before.

“Such must always be the case,” said I, “when one is weak enough to form

an attachment to a lady who encourages so many others!”

“For your sake,” said the tender dame, “for your sake, then, I will

discard them all!”

There was something grand in this it might have elicited a few strokes

of pathos, when--never was there anything so strangely provoking--the

Abbe Dubois himself was heard in my anteroom. I thought this chance,

but it was more; the good Abbe, I afterwards found, had traced cause for

suspicion, and had come to pay me a visit of amatory police. I opened

my dressing-room door, and thrust in the lady. “There,” said I, “are the

back-stairs, and at the bottom of the back-stairs is a door.”

Would not any one have thought this hint enough? By no means; this

very tall lady stooped to the littleness of listening, and, instead of

departing, stationed herself by the keyhole.

I never exactly learned whether Dubois suspected the visit his mistress

had paid me, or whether he merely surmised, from his spies or her

escritoire, that she harboured an inclination towards me; in either case

his policy was natural, and like himself. He sat himself down, talked of

the Regent, of pleasure, of women, and, at last, of this very tall lady

in question.

“_La pauvre diablesse_,” said he, contemptuously, “I had once compassion

on her; I have repented it ever since. You have no idea what a terrible

creature she is; has such a wen in her neck, quite a _goitre_. _Mort

diable_!” (and the Abbe spat in his handkerchief), “I would sooner have

a _liaison_ with the witch of Endor!”

Not content with this, he went on in his usual gross and displeasing

manner to enumerate or to forge those various particulars of her

personal charms which he thought most likely to steel me against her

attractions. “Thank Heaven, at least,” thought I, “that she has gone!”

Scarcely had this pious gratulation flowed from my heart, before the

door was burst open, and, pale, trembling, eyes on fire, hands clenched,

forth stalked the lady in question. A wonderful proof how much sooner a

woman would lose her character than allow it to be called not worth

the losing! She entered, and had all the furies of Hades lent her their

tongues, she could not have been more eloquent. It would have been a

very pleasant scene if one had not been a partner in it. The old Abbe,

with his keen, astute marked face, struggling between surprise, fear,

the sense of the ridiculous, and the certainty of losing his mistress;

the lady, foaming at the mouth, and shaking her clenched hand most

menacingly at her traducer; myself endeavouring to pacify, and acting,

as one does at such moments, mechanically, though one flatters one’s

self afterwards that one acted solely from wisdom.

But the Abbe’s mistress was by no means content with vindicating

herself: she retaliated, and gave so minute a description of the Abbe’s

own qualities and graces, coupled with so any pleasing illustrations,

that in a very little time his coolness forsook him, and he grew in as

great a rage as herself. At last she flew out of the room. The Abbe,

trembling with passion, shook me most cordially by the hand, grinned

from ear to ear, said it was a capital joke, wished me good-by as if he

loved me better than his eyes, and left the house my most irreconcilable

and bitter foe!

How could it be otherwise? The rivalship the Abbe might have forgiven;

such things happened every day to him: but the having been made so

egregiously ridiculous the Abbe could not forgive; and the Abbe’s was

a critical age for jesting on these matters, sixty or so. And then such

unpalatable sarcasms on his appearance! “‘Tis all over in that quarter,”

said I to myself, “but we may find another,” and I drove out that very

day to pay my respects to the Regent.

What a pity it is that one’s pride should so often be the bane of one’s

wisdom. Ah! that one could be as good a man of the world in practice

as one is in theory! my master-stroke of policy at that moment would

evidently have been this: I should have gone to the Regent and made

out a story similar to the real one, but with this difference, all the

ridicule of the situation should have fallen upon me, and the

little Dubois should have been elevated on a pinnacle of respectable

appearances! This, as the Regent told the Abbe everything, would have

saved me. I saw the plan; but was too proud to adopt it; I followed

another course in my game: I threw away the knave, and played with the

king, _i.e._, with the Regent. After a little preliminary conversation,

I turned the conversation on the Abbe.

“Ah! the _scelerat_!” said Philip, smiling, “‘tis a sad dog, but very

clever and _loves me_, he would be incomparable, if he were but decently

honest.”

“At least,” said I, “he is no hypocrite, and that is some praise.”

“Hem!” ejaculated the Duke, very slowly, and then, after a pause, he

said, “Count, I have a real kindness for you, and I will therefore give

you a piece of advice: think as well of Dubois as you can, and address

him as if he were all you endeavoured to fancy him.”

After this hint, which in the mouth of any prince but Philip of Orleans

would have been not a little remarkable for its want of dignity, my

prospects did not seem much brighter; however, I was not discouraged.

“The Abbe,” said I, respectfully, “is a choleric man: one _may_

displease him; but dare I hope that so long as I preserve inviolate my

zeal and my attachment to the interests and the person of your Highness,

no--”

The Regent interrupted me. “You mean nobody shall successfully

misrepresent you to me? No, Count” (and here the Regent spoke with the

earnestness and dignity, which, when he did assume, few wore with

a nobler grace)--“no, Count, I make a distinction between those who

minister to the state and those who minister to me. I consider your

services too valuable to the former to put them at the mercy of the

latter. And now that the conversation has turned upon business I wish to

speak to you about this scheme of Gortz.”

After a prolonged conference with the Regent upon matters of business,

in which his deep penetration into human nature not a little surprised

me, I went away thoroughly satisfied with my visit. I should not have

been so had I added to my other accomplishments the gift of prophecy.

Above five days after this interview, I thought it would be but prudent

to pay the Abbe Dubois one of those visits of homage which it was

already become policy to pay him. “If I go,” thought I, “it will seem as

if nothing had happened; if I stay away, it will seem as if I attached

importance to a scene I should appear to have forgotten.”

It so happened that the Abbe had a very unusual visitor that morning,

in the person of the austere but admirable Duc de St. Simon. There was a

singular and almost invariable distinction in the Regent’s mind between

one kind of regard and another. His regard for one order of persons

always arose either out of his vices or his indolence; his regard for

another, out of his good qualities and his strong sense. The Duc de St.

Simon held the same place in the latter species of affection that Dubois

did in the former. The Duc was just coming out of the Abbe’s closet as

I entered the anteroom. He paused to speak to me, while Dubois, who had

followed the Duc out, stopped for one moment, and surveyed me with a

look like a thundercloud. I did not appear to notice it, but St. Simon

did.

“That look,” said he, as Dubois, beckoning to a gentleman to accompany

him to his closet, once more disappeared, “that look bodes you no good,

Count.”

Pride is an elevation which is a spring-board at one time and

a stumbling-block at another. It was with me more often the

stumbling-block than the spring-board. “Monseigneur le Duc,” said I,

haughtily enough, and rather in too loud a tone considering the chamber

was pretty full, “in no court to which Morton Devereux proffers his

services shall his fortune depend upon the looks of a low-born insolent

or a profligate priest.”

St. Simon smiled sardonically. “Monsieur le Comte,” said he, rather

civilly, “I honour your sentiments, and I wish you success in the

world--and a lower voice.”

I was going to say something by way of retort, for I was in a very

bad humour, but I checked myself: “I need not,” thought I, “make two

enemies, if I can help it.”

“I shall never,” I replied gravely, “I shall never despair, so long as

the Duc de St. Simon lives, of winning by the same arts the favour of

princes and the esteem of good men.”

The Duc was flattered, and replied suitably, but he very soon afterwards

went away. I was resolved that I would not go till I had fairly seen

what sort of reception the Abbe would give me. I did not wait long, he

came out of his closet, and standing in his usual rude manner with his

back to the fireplace, received the addresses and compliments of his

visitors. I was not in a hurry to present myself, but I did so at last

with a familiar yet rather respectful air. Dubois looked at me from head

to foot, and abruptly turning his back upon me, said with an oath, to a

courtier who stood next to him,--“The plagues of Pharaoh are come again;

only instead of Egyptian frogs in our chambers, we have the still more

troublesome guests,--English adventurers!”

Somehow or other my compliments rarely tell; I am lavish enough of them,

but they generally have the air of sarcasms; thank Heaven, however, no

one can accuse me of ever wanting a rude answer to a rude speech. “Ha!

ha! ha!” said I now, in answer to Dubois, with a courteous laugh, “you

have an excellent wit, Abbe. _A propos_ of adventures, I met a Monsieur

St. Laurent, Principal of the Institution of St. Michael, the other

day. ‘Count,’ said he, hearing I was going to Paris, ‘you can do me an

especial favour!’ ‘What is it?’ said I. ‘Why, a cast-off valet of mine

is living at Paris; he would have gone long since to the galleys, if he

had not taken sanctuary in the Church: if ever you meet him, give him a

good horsewhipping on my account; his name is William Dubois.’ ‘Depend

upon it,’ answered I to Monsieur St. Laurent, ‘that if he is servant to

any one not belonging to the royal family, I will fulfil your errand,

and horsewhip him soundly; if _in_ the service of the royal family, why,

respect for his masters must oblige me to content myself with putting

all persons on their guard against a little rascal, who retains, in all

situations, the manners of the apothecary’s son and the roguery of the

director’s valet.’”

All the time I was relating this charming little anecdote, it would have

been amusing to the last degree to note the horrified countenances of

the surrounding gentlemen. Dubois was too confounded, too aghast, to

interrupt me, and I left the room before a single syllable was uttered.

Had Dubois at that time been, what he was afterwards, cardinal and prime

minister, I should in all probability have had permanent lodgings in

the Bastile in return for my story. Even as it was, the Abbe was not so

grateful as he ought to have been for my taking so much pains to amuse

him! In spite of my anger on leaving the favourite, I did not forget

my prudence, and accordingly I hastened to the Prince. When the Regent

admitted me, I flung myself on my knee, and told him, _verbatim_, all

that had happened. The Regent, who seems to have had very little real

liking for Dubois, could not help laughing when I ludicrously described

to him the universal consternation my anecdote had excited.*

* On the death of Dubois, the Regent wrote to the Count de Noce, whom he

had banished for an indiscreet expression against the favourite, uttered

at one of his private suppers: “With the beast dies the venom: I expect

you to-night to supper at the Palais Royal.”

“Courage, my dear Count,” said he, kindly, “you have nothing to fear;

return home and count upon an embassy!”

I relied on the royal word, returned to my lodgings, and spent the

evening with Chaulieu and Fontenelle. The next day the Duc de St. Simon

paid me a visit. After a little preliminary conversation, he unburdened

the secret with which he was charged. I was desired to leave Paris in

forty-eight hours.

“Believe me,” said St. Simon, “that this message was not intrusted to me

by the Regent without great reluctance. He sends you many condescending

and kind messages; says he shall always both esteem and like you,

and hopes to see you again, some time or other, at the Palais Royal.

Moreover, he desires the message to be private, and has intrusted it

to me in especial, because hearing that I had a kindness for you, and

knowing I had a hatred for Dubois, he thought I should be the least

unwelcome messenger of such disagreeable tidings. ‘To tell you the

truth, St. Simon,’ said the Regent, laughing, ‘I only consent to have

him banished, from a firm conviction that if I do not Dubois will take

some opportunity of having him beheaded.’”

“Pray,” said I, smiling with a tolerably good grace, “pray give my most

grateful and humble thanks to his Highness, for his very considerate

and kind foresight. I could not have chosen better for myself than his

Highness has chosen for me: my only regret on quitting France is at

leaving a prince so affable as Philip and a courtier so virtuous as St.

Simon.”

Though the good Duc went every year to the Abbey de la Trappe for the

purpose of mortifying his sins and preserving his religion in so impious

an atmosphere as the Palais Royal, he was not above flattery; and he

expressed himself towards me with particular kindness after my speech.

At court, one becomes a sort of human ant-bear, and learns to catch

one’s prey by one’s tongue.

After we had eased ourselves a little by abusing Dubois, the Duc took

his leave in order to allow me time to prepare for my “journey,” as he

politely called it. Before he left, he, however, asked me whither my

course would be bent? I told him that I should take my chance with the

Czar Peter, and see if his czarship thought the same esteem was due to

the disgraced courtier as to the favoured diplomatist.

That night I received a letter from St. Simon, enclosing one addressed

with all due form to the Czar. “You will consider the enclosed,” wrote

St. Simon, “a fresh proof of the Regent’s kindness to you; it is a most

flattering testimonial in your favour, and cannot fail to make the Czar

anxious to secure your services.”

I was not a little touched by a kindness so unusual in princes to their

discarded courtiers, and this entirely reconciled me to a change of

scene which, indeed, under any other circumstances, my somewhat morbid

love for action and variety would have induced me rather to relish than

dislike.

Within thirty-six hours from the time of dismissal, I had turned my back

upon the French capital.

CHAPTER VI.

A LONG INTERVAL OF YEARS.--A CHANGE OF MIND AND ITS CAUSES.