SHIRT, AND BELLEISLE IS SEEN WITH PAPERS.
While Friedrich was so busy in Silesia, the world was not asleep around
him; the world never is, though it often seems to be, round a man and
what action he does in it. That Sunday morning, First Day of the Year
1741, in those same hours while Friedrich, with energy, with caution,
was edging himself into Breslau, there went on in the Court of
Versailles an interior Phenomenon; of which, having by chance got access
to it face to face, we propose to make the reader participant before
going farther.
Readers are languidly aware that phenomena do go on round their
Friedrich; that their busy Friedrich, with his few Voltaires and
renowned persons, are not the only population of their Century, by
any means. Everybody is aware of that fact; yet, in practice, almost
everybody is as good as not aware; and the World all round one's Hero
is a darkness, a dormant vacancy. How strange when, as here, some
Waste-paper spill (so to speak) turns up, which you can KINDLE; and, by
the brief flame of it, bid a reader look with his own eyes!--From
Herr Doctor Busching, who did the GEOGRAPHY and about a Hundred other
Books,--a man of great worth, almost of genius, could he have elaborated
his Hundred Books into Ten (or distilled, into flasks of aqua-vitae,
what otherwise lies tumbling as tanks of mash and wort, now run very
sour and mal-odorous);--it is from Herr Busching that we gain the
following rough Piece, illuminative if one can kindle it:--
The Titular-Herr Baron Anton von Geusau, a gentleman of good parts,
scholastic by profession, and of Protestant creed, was accompanying as
Travelling Tutor, in those years, a young Graf von Reuss. Graf von Beuss
is one of those indistinct Counts Reuss, who always call themselves
"Henry;" and, being now at the eightieth and farther, with uncountable
collateral Henrys intertwisted, are become in effect anonymous, or of
nomenclature inscrutable to mankind. Nor is the young one otherwise of
the least interest to us;--except that Herr Anton, the Travelling Tutor,
punctually kept a Journal of everything. Which Journal, long afterwards,
came into the hands of Busching, also a punctual man; and was by him
abridged, and set forth in print in his _Beitrage._ Offering at present
a singular daguerrotype glimpse of the then actual world, wherever Graf
von Reuss and his Geusau happened to be. Nine-tenths of it, even in
Busching's Abridgment, are now fallen useless and wearisome; but to
one studying the days that then were, even the effete commonplace of it
occasionally becomes alive again. And how interesting to catch, here and
there, a Historical Figure on these conditions; Historical Figure's very
self, in his work-day attitude; eating his victuals; writing, receiving
letters, talking to his fellow-creatures; unaware that Posterity,
miraculously through some chink of the Travelling Tutor's producing, has
got its eye upon him.
"SUNDAY, 1st JANUARY, 1741, Geusau and his young Gentleman leave Paris,
at 5 in the morning, and drive out to Versailles; intending to see the
ceremonies of New-year's day there. Very wet weather it had been, all
Wednesday, and for days before; [See in _Barbier_ (ii. 283 et seqq.)
what terrible Noah-like weather it had been; big houses, long in soak,
tumbling down at last into the Seine; CHASSE of St. Genevieve brought
out (two days ago), December 30th, to try it by miracle; &c. &c.] but
on this Sunday, New-year's morning, all is ice and glass; and they slid
about painfully by lamplight,--with unroughened horses, and on the
Hilly or Meudon road, having chosen that as fittest, the waters being
out;--not arriving at Court till 9. Nor finding very much to
comfort them, except on the side of curiosity, when there. Ushers,
INTRODUCTEURS, Cabinet Secretaries, were indeed assiduous to oblige; and
the King's Levee will be: but if you follow it, to the Chapel Royal to
witness high mass, you must kneel at elevation of the host; and this,
as reformed Christians, Reuss and his Tutor cannot undertake to do. They
accept a dinner invitation (12 the hour) from some good Samaritan of
Quality; and, for sights, will content themselves with the King's
Levee itself, and generally with what the King's Antechamber and the
OEil-de-Boeuf can exhibit to them. The Most Christian King's Levee
[LEVER, literally here his Getting out of Bed] is a daily miracle of
these localities, only grander on New-year's day; and it is to the
following effect:--
"Till Majesty please to awaken, you saunter in the Salle des
Ambassadeurs; whole crowds jostling one another there; gossiping
together in a diligent, insipid manner;" gossip all reported; snatches
of which have acquired a certain flavor by long keeping;--which the
reader shall imagine. "Meanwhile you keep your eye on the Grate of the
Inner Court, which as yet is only ajar, Majesty inaccessible as yet.
Behold, at last, Grate opens itself wide; sign that Majesty is out of
bed; that the privileged of mankind may approach, and see the miracles."
Geusau continues, abridged by Busching and us:--
"The whole Assemblage passed now into the King's Anteroom; had to wait
there about half an hour more, before the King's bedroom was opened.
But then at last, lo you,--there is the King, visible to Geusau and
everybody, washing his hands. Which effected itself in this way: 'The
King was seated; a gentleman-in-waiting knelt, before him, and held
the Ewer, a square vessel silver-gilt, firm upon the King's breast; and
another gentleman-in-waiting poured water on the King's hands.' Merely
an official washing, we perceive; the real, it is to be hoped, had, in
a much more effectual way, been going on during the half-hour
just elapsed. After washing, the King rose for an instant; had his
dressing-gown, a grand yellow silky article with silver flowerings,
pulled off, and flung round his loins; upon which he sat down again,
and,"--observe it, ye privileged of mankind,--"the Change of Shirt took
place! 'They put the clean shirt down over his head,' says Anton, 'and
plucked up the dirty one from within, so that of the naked skin you saw
little or nothing.'" Here is a miracle worth getting out of bed to look
at!
"His Majesty now quitted chair and dressing-gown; stood up before the
fire; and, after getting on the rest of his clothing, which, on account
of Czarina Anne's death [readers remember that], was of violet or
mourning color, he had the powder-mantle thrown round him, and sat down
at the Toilette to have his hair frizzled. The Toilette, a table with
white cover shoved into the middle of the room, had on it a mirror, a
powder-knife, and"--no mortal cares what. "The King," what all mortals
note, as they do the heavenly omens, "is somewhat talky; speaks
sometimes with the Dutch Ambassador, sometimes with the Pope's Nuncio,
who seems a jocose kind of gentleman; sometimes with different French
Lords, and at last with the Cardinal Fleury also,--to whom, however, he
does not look particularly gracious,"--not particularly this time.
These are the omens; happy who can read them!--Majesty then did
his morning-prayer, assisted only by the common Almoners-in-waiting
(Cardinal took no hand, much less any other); Majesty knelt before his
bed, and finished the business 'in less than six seconds.' After which
mankind can ebb out to the Anteroom again; pay their devoir to the
Queen's Majesty, which all do; or wait for the Transit to Morning
Chapel, and see Mesdames of France and the others flitting past in their
sedans.
"Queen's Majesty was already altogether dressed," says Geusau, almost
as if with some disappointment; "all in black; a most affable courteous
Majesty; stands conversing with the Russian Ambassador, with the Dutch
ditto, with the Ladies about her, and at last, 'in a friendly and merry
tone,' with old Cardinal Fleury. Her Ladies, when the Queen spoke with
them, showed no constraint at all; leant loosely with their arms on
the fire-screens, and took things easy. Mesdames of France"--Geusau saw
Mesdames. Poor little souls, they are the LOQUE, the COCHON (Rag, Pig,
so Papa would call them, dear Papa), who become tragically visible again
in the Revolution time:--all blooming young children as yet (Queen's
Majesty some thirty-seven gone), and little dreaming what lies fifty
years ahead! King Louis's career of extraneous gallantries, which ended
in the Parc-aux-Cerfs, is now just beginning: think of that too; and of
her Majesty's fine behavior under it; so affable, so patient, silent,
now and always!--"In a little while, their Majesties go along the Great
Gallery to Chapel;" whither the Protestant mind cannot with comfort
accompany. [Busching, _Beitrage,_ ii. 59-78.]
This is the daily miracle done at Versailles to the believing multitude;
only that on New-year's day, and certain supreme occasions, the shirt
is handed by a Prince of the Blood, and the towel for drying the royal
hands by a ditto, with other improvements; and the thing comes out in
its highest power of effulgence,--especially if you could see high mass
withal. In the Antechamber and (OEil-de-Boeuf, Geusau), among hundreds
of phenomena fallen dead to us, saw the Four following, which have
still some life:--1. Many Knights of the Holy Ghost (CHEVALIERS DU SAINT
ESPRIT) are about; magnificently piebald people, indistinct to us, and
fallen dead to us: but there, among the company, do not we indisputably
see, "in full Cardinal's costume," Fleury the ancient Prime Minister
talking to her Majesty? Blandly smiling; soft as milk, yet with a flavor
of alcoholic wit in him here and there. That is a man worth looking at,
had they painted him at all. Red hat, red stockings; a serenely
definite old gentleman, with something of prudent wisdom, and a touch
of imperceptible jocosity at times; mildly inexpugnable in manner: this
King, whose Tutor he was twenty years ago, still looks to him as
his father; Fleury is the real King of France at present. His age is
eighty-seven gone; the King's is thirty (seven years younger than his
Queen): and the Cardinal has red stockings and red hat; veritably there,
successively in both Antechambers, seen by Geusau, January 1st, 1741:
that is all I know. 2. The Prince de Clermont, a Prince of the Blood,
"handed the shirt," TESTE Geusau. Some other Prince, notable to Geusau,
and to us nameless, had the honor of the "towel:" but this Prince de
Clermont, a dissolute fellow of wasted parts, kind of Priest, kind of
Soldier too, is seen visibly handing the shirt there;--whom the reader
and I, if we cared about it, shall again see, getting beaten by Prince
Ferdinand, at Crefeld, within twenty years hence. These are points first
and second, slightly noticeable, slightly if at all.
Of the actual transit to high mass, transit very visible in the Great
Gallery or OEil-de-Boeuf, why should a human being now say anything?
Queen, poor Stanislaus's Daughter, and her Ladies, in their sublime
sedans, one flood of jewels, sail first; next sails King Louis, shirt
warm on his back, with "thirty-four Chevaliers of the Holy Ghost"
escorting; next "the Dauphin" (Boy of eleven, Louis XVI.'s. Father),
and "Mesdames of France, with"--but even Geusau stops short. Protestants
cannot enter that Chapel, without peril of idolatry; wherefore Geusau
and Pupil kept strolling in the general (OEil-de-Boeuf),--and "the Dutch
Ambassador approved of it," he for one. And here now is another point,
slightly noticeable:--3. High mass over, his Majesty sails back from
Chapel, in the same magnificently piebald manner; and vanishes into
the interior; leaving his Knights of the Holy Ghost, and other Courtier
multitude, to simmer about, and ebb away as they found good. Geusau and
his young Reuss had now the honor of being introduced to various people;
among others "to the Prince de Soubise." Prince de Soubise: frivolous,
insignificant being; of whom I have no portrait that is not nearly
blank, and content to be so;--though Herr von Geusau would have one,
with features and costume to it, when he heard of the Beating at
Rossbach, long after! Prince de Soubise is pretty much a blank to
everybody:--and no sooner are we loose of him, than (what every reader
will do well to note) 4. Our Herren Travellers are introduced to a real
Notability: Monseigneur, soon to be Marechal, the Comte de Belleisle;
whom my readers and I are to be much concerned with, in time coming.
"A tall lean man (LANGER HAGERER MANN), without much air of quality,"
thinks Geusau; but with much swift intellect and energy, and a
distinguished character, whatever Geusau might think. "Comte de
Belleisle was very civil; but apologized, in a courtly and kind way, for
the hurry he was in; regretting the impossibility of doing the honors
to the Comte de Reuss in this Country,--his, Belleisle's, Journey into
Germany, which was close at hand, overwhelming him with occupations and
engagements at present. And indeed, even while he spoke to us," says
Geusau, "all manner of Papers were put into his hand." [Busching, ii.
79; see Barbier, ii. 282, 287.]
"Journey to Germany, Papers put into his hand:" there is perhaps no
Human Figure in the world, this Sunday (except the one Figure now in
those same moments over at Breslau, gently pressing upon the locked
Gates there), who is so momentous for our Silesian Operations; and
indeed he will kindle all Europe into delirium; and produce mere thunder
and lightning, for seven years to come,--with almost no result in it,
except Silesia! A tall lean man; there stands he, age now fifty-six,
just about setting out on such errand. Whom one is thankful to have seen
for a moment, even in that slight manner.
OF BELLEISLE AND HIS PLANS.
Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, Comte de Belleisle, is Grandson of that
Intendant Fouquet, sumptuous Financier, whom Louis XIV. at last threw
out, and locked into the Fortress of Pignerol, amid the Savoy Alps,
there to meditate for life, which lasted thirty years longer. It was
never understood that the sumptuous Fouquet had altogether stolen public
moneys, nor indeed rightly what he had done to merit Pignerol; and
always, though fallen somehow into such dire disfavor, he was pitied and
respected by a good portion of the public. "Has angered Colbert," said
the public; "dangerous rivalry to Colbert; that is what has brought
Pignerol upon him." Out of Pignerol that Fouquet never came; but his
Family bloomed up into light again; had its adventures, sometimes its
troubles, in the Regency time, but was always in a rising way:--and
here, in this tall lean man getting papers put into his hand, it
has risen very high indeed. Going as Ambassador Extraordinary to
the Germanic Diet, "to assist good neighbors, as a neighbor and Most
Christian Majesty should, in choosing their new Kaiser to the best
advantage:" that is the official color his mission is to have. Surely a
proud mission;--and Belleisle intends to execute it in a way that will
surprise the Germanic Diet and mankind. Privately, Belleisle intends
that he, by his own industries, shall himself choose the right Kaiser,
such Kaiser as will suit the Most Christian Majesty and him; he intends
to make a new French thing of Germany in general; and carries in his
head plans of an amazing nature! He and a Brother he has, called the
Chevalier de Belleisle, who is also a distinguished man, and seconds
M. le Comte with eloquent fire and zeal in all things, are grandsons of
that old Fouquet, and the most shining men in France at present. France
little dreams how much better it perhaps were, had they also been kept
safe in Pignerol!--
The Count, lean and growing old, is not healthy; is ever and anon
tormented, and laid up for weeks, with rheumatisms, gouts and ailments:
but otherwise he is still a swift ardent elastic spirit; with grand
schemes, with fiery notions and convictions, which captivate and hurry
off men's minds more than eloquence could, so intensely true are they to
the Count himself;--and then his Brother the Chevalier is always there
to put them into the due language and logic, where needed. [Voltaire,
xxviii. 74; xxix. 392; &c.] A magnanimous high-flown spirit; thought to
be of supreme skill both in War and in Diplomacy; fit for many things;
and is still full of ambition to distinguish himself, and tell the world
at all moments, "ME VOILA; World, I too am here!"--His plans, just
now, which are dim even to himself, except on the hither skirt of them,
stretch out immeasurable, and lie piled up high as the skies. The hither
skirt of them, which will suffice the reader at present, is:--
That your Grand-Duke Franz, Maria Theresa's Husband, shall in no wise,
as the world and Duke Franz expect, be the Kaiser chosen. Not he, but
another who will suit France better: "Kur-Sachsen perhaps, the so-called
King of Poland? Or say it were Karl Albert Kur-Baiern, the hereditary
friend and dependent of France? We are not tied to a man: only, at any
and at all rates, not Grand-Duke Franz." This is the grand, essential
and indispensable point, alpha and omega of points; very clear this
one to Belleisle,--and towards this the first steps, if as yet only
the first, are also clear to him. Namely that "the 27th of February
next",--which is the time set by Kur-Mainz and the native Officials for
the actual meeting of their Reichstag to begin Election Business, will
be too early a time; and must be got postponed. [Adelung, ii. 185 ("27th
February-1st March, 1741, at Frankfurt-on-Mayn," appointed by Kur-Mainz
"Arch-Chancellor of the REICH," under date November 3d, 1740);--ib.
236 ("Delay for a month or two," suggests Kur-Pfalz, on January
12th, seconded by others in the French interest);--upon which the
appointment, after some arguing, collapsed into the vague, and there
ensued delay enough; actual Election not till January 24th, 1742.]
Postponed; which will be possible, perhaps for long; one knows not for
how long: that is a first step definitely clear to Belleisle. Towards
which, as preliminary to it and to all the others in a dimmer state,
there is a second thing clear, and has even been officially settled (all
but the day): That, in the mean while, and surely the sooner the better,
he, Belleisle, Most Christian Majesty's Ambassador Extraordinary to the
Reichstag coming,--do, in his most dazzling and persuasive manner, make
a Tour among German Courts. Let us visit, in our highest and yet in our
softest splendor, the accessible German Courts, especially the likely
or well-disposed: Mainz, Koln, Trier, these, the three called Spiritual,
lie on our very route; then Pfalz, Baiern, Sachsen:--we will tour
diligently up and down; try whether, by optic machinery and art-magic of
the mind, one cannot bring them round.
In all these preliminary steps and points, and even in that alpha and
omega of excluding Grand-Duke Franz, and getting a Kaiser of his own,
Belleisle succeeded. With painful results to himself and to millions
of his fellow-creatures, to readers of this History, among others. And
became in consequence the most famous of mankind; and filled the whole
world with rumor of Belleisle, in those years.--A man of such intrinsic
distinction as Belleisle, whom Friedrich afterwards deliberately called
a great Captain, and the only Frenchman with a genius for war; and who,
for some time, played in Europe at large a part like that of Warwick
the Kingmaker: how has he fallen into such oblivion? Many of my readers
never heard of him before; nor, in writing or otherwise, is there
symptom that any living memory now harbors him, or has the least
approach to an image of him! "For the times are babbly," says Goethe,"
And then again the times are dumb:--
Denn geschwatzig sind die Zeiten,
Und sie sind auch wieder stumm."
Alas, if a man sow only chaff, in never so sublime a manner, with the
whole Earth and the long-eared populations looking on, and chorally
singing approval, rendering night hideous,--it will avail him nothing.
And that, to a lamentable extent, was Belleisle's case. His scheme of
action was in most felicitously just accordance with the national sense
of France, but by no means so with the Laws of Nature and of Fact; his
aim, grandiose, patriotic, what you will, was unluckily false and not
true. How could "the times" continue talking of him? They found they had
already talked too much. Not to say that the French Revolution has since
come; and has blown all that into the air, miles aloft,--where even
the solid part of it, which must be recovered one day, much more the
gaseous, which we trust is forever irrecoverable, now wanders and
whirls; and many things are abolished, for the present, of more value
than Belleisle!--
For my own share, being, as it were, forced accidentally to look at him
again, I find in Belleisle a really notable man; far superior to the
vulgar of noted men, in his time or ours. Sad destiny for such a man!
But when the general Life-element becomes so unspeakably phantasmal as
under Louis XV., it is difficult for any man to be real; to be other
than a play-actor, more or less eminent, and artistically dressed. Sad
enough, surely, when the truth of your relation to the Universe, and the
tragically earnest meaning of your Life, is quite lied out of you, by a
world sunk in lies; and you can, with effort, attain to nothing but to
be a more or less splendid lie along with it! Your very existence all
become a vesture, a hypocrisy, and hearsay; nothing left of you but this
sad faculty of sowing chaff in the fashionable manner! After Friedrich
and Voltaire, in both of whom, under the given circumstances, one finds
a perennial reality, more or less,--Belleisle is next; none FAILS to
escape the mournful common lot by a nearer miss than Belleisle.
Beyond doubt, there are in this man the biggest projects any French head
has carried, since Louis XIV. with his sublime periwig first took to
striking the stars. How the indolent Louis XV. and the pacific Fleury
have been got into this sublimely adventurous mood? By Belleisle
chiefly, men say;--and by King Louis's first Mistresses, blown upon by
Belleisle; poor Louis having now, at length, left his poor Queen to
her reflections, and taken into that sad line, in which by degrees he
carried it so far. There are three of them, it seems;--the first female
souls that could ever manage to kindle, into flame or into smoke:
in this or any other kind, that poor torpid male soul: those Mailly
Sisters, three in number (I am shocked to hear), successive, nay in part
simultaneous! They are proud women, especially the two younger; with
ambition in them, with a bravura magnanimity, of the theatrical or
operatic kind; of whom Louis is very fond. "To raise France to its
place, your Majesty; the top of the Universe, namely!" "Well; if it
could be done,--and quite without trouble?" thinks Louis. Bravura
magnanimity, blown upon by Belleisle, prevails among these high Improper
Females, and generally in the Younger Circles of the Court; so that poor
old Fleury has had no choice but to obey it or retire. And so Belleisle
stalks across the OEil-de-Boeuf in that important manner, visibly to
Geusau; and is the shining object in Paris, and much the topic there at
present.
A few weeks hence, he is farther--a little out of the common turn, but
not beyond his military merits or capabilities--made Marechal de France;
[_Fastes de Louis XV.,_ i. 356 (12th February, 1741).] by way of giving
him a new splendor in the German Political World, and assisting in his
operations there, which depend much upon the laws of vision. French
epigrams circulate in consequence, and there are witty criticisms;
to which Belleisle, such a dusky world of Possibility lying ahead, is
grandly indifferent. Marechal de France;--and Geusau hears (what is a
fact) that there are to be "thirty young French Lords in his suite;" his
very "Livery," or mere plush retinue, "to consist of 110 persons;"
such an outfit for magnificence as was never seen before. And in this
equipment, "early in March" (exact day not given), magnificence of
outside corresponding to grandiosity of faculty and idea, Belleisle, we
shall find, does practically set off towards Germany;--like a kind of
French Belus, or God of the Sun; capable to dazzle weak German Courts,
by optical machinery, and to set much rotten thatch on fire!--
"There are curious daguerrotype glimpses of old Paris to be found in
that Notebook of Geusau's", says another Excerpt; "which come strangely
home to us, like reality at first-hand;--and a rather unexpected Paris
it is, to most readers; many things then alive there, which are now deep
underground. Much Jansenist Theology afloat; grand French Ladies
piously eager to convert a young Protestant Nobleman like Reuss; sublime
Dorcases, who do not rouge, or dress high, but eschew the evil world,
and are thrifty for the Poor's sake, redeeming the time. There is
a Cardinal de Polignac, venerable sage and ex-political person, of
astonishing erudition, collector of Antiques (with whom we dined); there
is the Chevalier Ramsay, theological Scotch Jacobite, late Tutor of the
young Turenne. So many shining persons, now fallen indistinct again.
And then, besides gossip, which is of mild quality and in fair
proportion,--what talk, casuistic and other, about the Moral Duties,
the still feasible Pieties, the Constitution Unigenitus! All this alive,
resonant at dinner-tables of Conservative stamp; the Miracles of Abbe
Paris much a topic there:--and not a whisper of Infidel Philosophies;
the very name of Voltaire not once mentioned in the Reuss section of
Parisian things.
"There is rumor now and then of a 'Comte de Rothenbourg,' conspicuous in
the Parisian circles; a shining military man, but seemingly in want
of employment; who has lost in gambling, within the last four years,
upwards of 50,000 pounds (1,300,000 livres, the exact cipher given).
This is the Graf von Rothenburg whom Friedrich made acquaintance with,
in the Rhine Campaign six years ago, and has ever since had in his
eye;--whom, in a few weeks hence, Friedrich beckons over to him into
the Prussian States: 'Hither, and you shall have work!' Which Rothenburg
accepts; with manifold advantage to both parties:--one of Friedrich's
most distinguished friends for the rest of his life.
"Of Cardinal Polignac there is much said, and several dinners with
him are transacted, dialogue partly given: a pious wise old gentleman
really, in his kind (age now eighty-four); looking mildly forth upon
a world just about to overset itself and go topsy-turvy, as he sees it
will. His ANTI-LUCRETIUS was once such a Poem!--but we mention him
here because his fine Cabinet of Antiques came to Berlin on his death,
Friedrich purchasing; and one often hears of it (if one cared to
hear) from the Prussian Dryasdust in subsequent years. [Came to
Charlottenburg, August, 1742 (old Polignac had died November last,
ten months after those Geusau times): cost of the Polignac Cabinet
was 40,000 thalers (6,000 pounds) say some, 90,000 livres (under
4,000 pounds) say others; cheap at either price;--and, by chance, came
opportunely, "a fire having just burnt down the Academy Edifice,"
and destroyed much ware of that kind. Rodenbeck, i. 73; Seyfarth
(Anonymous), _Geschichte Friedrichs des Andern,_ i. 236.]
"Of Friedrich's unexpected Invasion of Silesia there are also talkings
and surmisings, but in a mild indifferent tone, and much in the vague.
And in the best-informed circles it is thought Belleisle will manage to
HAVE Grand-Duke Franz, the Queen of Hungary's Husband, chosen Kaiser,
and, in some mild good way, put an end to all that;"--which is far
indeed from Belleisle's intention!