Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Part 18

It is a very short story, and yet it is the longest history of that Christmas that I have been able to find. I wanted to compare this celebration of Christmas, grimly intended for its desecration, with some of the celebrations which were got up with painstaking intention. But, alas, pageants leave little history, after the lights have smoked out, and the hangings have been taken away. Leaving, for the moment, King James's Christmas and Englishmen, I thought it would be a pleasant thing to study the contrast of a Christmas in the countries where they say Christmas has its most enthusiastic welcome. So I studied up the war in the Palatinate,--I went into the chronicles of Spain, where I thought they would take pains about Christmas,--I tried what the men of "la religion," the Huguenots, were doing at Roch.e.l.le, where a great a.s.sembly was gathering. But Christmas day would not appear in memoirs or annals.

I tried Rome and the Pope, but he was dying, like the King of Spain, and had not, I think, much heart for pageantry. I looked in at Vienna, where they had all been terribly frightened by Bethlem Gabor, who was a great Transylvanian prince of those days, a sort of successful Kossuth, giving much hope to beleaguered Protestants farther west, who, I believe, thought for a time that he was some sort of seal or trumpet, which, however, he did not prove to be. At this moment of time he was retreating I am afraid, and at all events did not set his historiographer to work describing his Christmas festivities.

Pa.s.sing by Bethlem Gabor then, and the rest, from mere failure of their chronicles to make note of this Christmas as it pa.s.sed, I returned to France in my quest. Louis XIII. was at this time reigning with the a.s.sistance of Luynes, the short-lived favorite who preceded Richelieu.

Or it would, perhaps, be more proper to say that Luynes was reigning under the name of Louis XIII. Louis XIII. had been spending the year in great activity, deceiving, thwarting, and undoing the Protestants of France. He had made a rapid march into their country, and had spread terror before him. He had had ma.s.s celebrated in Navarreux, where it had not been seen or heard in fifty years. With Bethlem Gabor in the ablative,--with the Palatinate quite in the vocative,--these poor Huguenots here outwitted and outgeneralled, and Brewster and Carver freezing out there in America, the Reformed Religion seems in a bad way to one looking at that Christmas. From his triumphal and almost bloodless campaign, King Louis returns to Paris, "and there," says Ba.s.sompierre, "he celebrated the _fetes_ this Christmas." So I thought I was going to find in the memoirs of some gentleman at court, or unoccupied mistress of the robes, an account of what the most Christian King was doing, while the blisters were forming on John Carver's hands, and while John Billington was, or was not, shooting wild turkeys on that eventful Christmas day.

But I reckoned without my king. For this is all a mistake, and whatever else is certain, it seems to be certain that King Louis XIII. did not keep either Christmas in Paris, either the Christmas of the Old Style, or that of the New. Such, alas, is history, dear friend! When you read in to-night's "Evening Post" that your friend Dalrymple is appointed Minister to Russia, where he has been so anxious to go, do not suppose he will make you his Secretary of Legation. Alas! no; for you will read in to-morrow's "Times" that it was all a mistake of the telegraph, and that the dispatch should have read "O'Shaughnessy," where the dispatch looked like "Dalrymple." So here, as I whetted my pencil, wetted my lips, and drove the attentive librarian at the Astor almost frantic as I sent him up stairs for you five times more, it proved that Louis XIII.

did not spend Christmas in Paris, but that Ba.s.sompierre, who said so, was a vile deceiver. Here is the truth in the _Mercure Francaise_,--flattering and obsequious Annual Register of those days:

"The King at the end of this year, visited the frontiers of Picardy. In this whole journey, which lasted from the 14th of December to the 12th of January (New Style), the weather was bad, and those in his Majesty's suite found the roads bad." Change the style back to the way our Puritans counted it, and observe that on the same days, the 5th of December to the 3d of January, Old Style, those in the suite of John Carver found the weather bad and the roads worse. Let us devoutly hope that his most Christian Majesty did not find the roads as bad as his suite did.

"And the King," continues the _Mercure_, "sent an extraordinary Amba.s.sador to the King of Great Britain, at London, the Marshal Cadenet"

(brother of the favorite Luynes). "He departed from Calais on Friday, the first day of January, very well accompanied by _n.o.blesse_. He arrived at Dover the same evening, and did not depart from Dover until the Monday after."

Be pleased to note, dear reader, that this Monday, when this Amba.s.sador of a most Christian King departs from Dover, is on Monday the 25th day of December, of Old Style, or Protestant Style, when John Carver is learning wood-cutting, by way of encouraging the others. Let us leave the King of France to his bad roads, and follow the fortunes of the favorite's brother, for we must study an English Christmas after all. We have seen the Christmas holidays of men who had hard times for the reward of their faith in the Star of Bethlehem. Let us try the fortunes of the most Christian King's people, as they keep their second Christmas of the year among a Protestant people. Observe that a week after their own Christmas of New Style, they land in Old Style England, where Christmas has not yet begun. Here is the _Mercure Francais's_ account of the Christmas holidays,--flattering and obsequious, as I said:

"Marshal Cadenet did not depart from Dover till the Monday after"

(Christmas day, O. S.). "The English Master of Ceremonies had sent twenty carriages and three hundred horses for his suite." (If only we could have ten of the worst of them at Plymouth! They would have drawn our logs for us that half quarter of a mile. But we were not born in the purple!) "He slept at Canterbury, where the Grand Seneschal of England, well accompanied by English n.o.blemen, received him on the part of the King of England. Wherever he pa.s.sed, the officers of the cities made addresses to him, and offers, even ordering their own archers to march before him and guard his lodgings. When he came to Gravesend, the Earl of Arundel visited him on the part of the King, and led him to the Royal barge. His whole suite entered into twenty-five other barges, painted, hung with tapestry, and well adorned" (think of our poor, rusty shallop there in Plymouth bay), "in which, ascending the Thames, they arrived in London Friday the 29th December" (January 8th, N. S.). "On disembarking, the Amba.s.sador was led by the Earl of Arundel to the palace of the late Queen, which had been superbly and magnificently arranged for him. The day was spent in visits on the part of his Majesty the King of Great Britain, of the Prince of Wales, his son, and of the amba.s.sadors of kings and princes, residing in London." So splendidly was he entertained, that they write that on the day of his reception he had four tables, with fifty covers each, and that the Duke of Lennox, Grand Master of England, served them with magnificent order.

"The following Sunday" (which we could not spend on sh.o.r.e), "he was conducted to an audience by the Marquis of Buckingham," (for shame, Jamie! an audience on Sunday! what would John Knox have said to that!) "where the French and English n.o.bility were dressed as for a great feast day. The whole audience was conducted with great respect, honor, and ceremony. The same evening, the King of Great Britain sent for the Marshal by the Marquis of Buckingham and the Duke of Lennox; and his Majesty and the Amba.s.sador remained alone for more than two hours, without any third person hearing what they said. The following days were all receptions, banquets, visits, and hunting-parties, till the emba.s.sy departed."

That is the way history gets written by a flattering and obsequious court editor or organ at the time. That is the way, then, that the dread sovereign of John Carver and Edward Winslow spent his Christmas holidays, while they were spending theirs in beginning for him an empire. Dear old William Brewster used to be a servant of Davison's in the days of good Queen Bess. As he blows his fingers there in the twenty-foot storehouse before it is roofed, does he tell the rest sometimes of the old wa.s.sail at court, and the Christmas when the Earl of Southampton brought Will. Shakespeare in? Perhaps those things are too gay,--at all events, we have as much fuel here as they have at St.

James's.

Of this precious emba.s.sy, dear reader, there is not a word, I think, in Hume, or Lingard, or the "Pictorial"--still less, if possible, in the abridgments. Would you like, perhaps, after this truly elegant account thus given by a court editor, to look behind the canvas and see the rough ends of the worsted? I always like to. It helps me to understand my morning "Advertiser" or my "Evening Post," as I read the editorial history of to-day. If you please, we will begin in the Domestic State Papers of England, which the good sense of somebody, I believe kind Sir Francis Palgrave, has had opened for you and me and the rest of us.

Here is the first notice of the emba.s.sy:

Dec. 13. Letter from Sir Robert Naunton to Sir George Calvert.... "The King of France is expected at Calais. The Marshal of Cadenet is to be sent over to calumniate those of the religion (that is, the Protestants), and to propose Madme. Henriette for the Prince."

So they knew, it seems, ten days before we started, what we were coming for.

Dec. 22. John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton. "In spite of penury, there is to be a masque at Court this Christmas. The King is coming in from Theobalds to receive the French Amba.s.sador, Marshal Cadenet, who comes with a suite of 400 or 500."

What was this masque? Could not Mr. Payne Collier find up the libretto, perhaps? Was it Faith, Valor, Hope, and Love, founding a kingdom, perhaps? Faith with a broadaxe, Valor and Hope with a two-handled saw, while Love dug post-holes and set up timbers? Or was it a less appropriate masque of King James' devising?

Dec. 25. This is our day. Francis Willisfourd, Governor of Dover Castle to Lord Zouch, Warden of the Cinque Ports. "A French Amba.s.sador has landed with a great train. I have not fired a salute, having no instructions, and declined showing them the fortress. They are entertained as well as the town can afford."

Observe, we are a little surly. We do not like the French King very well, our own King's daughter being in such straits yonder in the Palatinate. What do these Papists here?

That is the only letter written on Christmas day in the English "Domestic Archives" for that year! Christmas is for frolic here, not for letter-writing, nor house-building, if one's houses be only built already!

But on the 27th, Wednesday, "Lord Arundel has gone to meet the French Amba.s.sador at Gravesend." And a very pretty time it seems they had at Gravesend, when you look on the back of the embroidery. Arundel called on Cadenet at his lodgings, and Cadenet did not meet him till he came to the stair--head of his chamber-door--nor did he accompany him further when he left. But Arundel was even with him the next morning. He appointed his meeting for the return call _in the street_; and when the barges had come up to Somerset House, where the party was to stay, Arundel left the Amba.s.sador, telling him that there were gentlemen who would show him his lodging. The King was so angry that he made Cadenet apologize. Alas for the Court of Governor John Carver on this side,--four days old to-day--if Ma.s.sasoit should send us an amba.s.sador!

_We_ shall have to receive him in the street, unless he likes to come into a palace without a roof! But, fortunately, he does not send till we are ready!

The Domestic Archives give another glimpse:

Dec. 30. Thomas Locke to Carleton: "The French Amba.s.sador has arrived at Somerset House with a train so large that some of the seats at Westminster Hall had to be pulled down to make room at their audience."

And in letters from the same to the same, of January 7, are accounts of entertainments given to the Amba.s.sador at his first audience (on that Sunday), on the 4th at Parliament House, on the 6th at a masque at Whitehall, where none were allowed below the rank of a Baron--and at Lord Doncaster's entertainment--where "six thousand ounces of gold are set out as a present," says the letter, but this I do not believe. At the Hampton entertainment, and at the masque there were some disputes about precedency, says John Chamberlain in another letter. Dear John Chamberlain, where are there not such disputes? At the masque at Whitehall he says, "a Puritan was flouted and abused, which was thought unseemly, considering the state of the French Protestants." Let the Marshal come over to Gov. John Carver's court and see one of our masques there, if he wants to know about Puritans. "At Lord Doncaster's house the feast cost three thousand pounds, beside three hundred pounds worth of ambergris used in the cooking," nothing about that six thousand ounces of gold. "The Amba.s.sador had a long private interview with the king; it is thought he proposed Mad. Henriette for the Prince. He left with a present of a rich jewel. He requested liberation of all the imprisoned priests in the three kingdoms, but the answer is not yet given."

By the eleventh of January the emba.s.sy had gone, and Thomas Locke says Cadenet "received a round answer about the Protestants." Let us hope it was so, for it was nearly the last, as it was. Thomas Murray writes that he "proposed a match with France,--a confederation against Spanish power, and asked his Majesty to abandon the rebellious princes,--but he refused unless they might have toleration." The Amba.s.sador was followed to Rochester for the debts of some of his train,--but got well home to Paris and New Style.

And so he vanishes from English history.

His king made him Duke of Chaulnes and Peer of France, but his brother, the favorite died soon after, either of a purple fever or of a broken heart, and neither of them need trouble us more.

At the moment the whole emba.s.sy seemed a failure in England,--and so it is spoken of by all the English writers of the time whom I have seen.

"There is a flaunting French Amba.s.sador come over lately," says Howel, "and I believe his errand is naught else but compliment.... He had an audience two days since, where he, with his train of ruffling long-haired Monsieurs, carried himself in such a light garb, that after the audience the king asked my Lord Keeper Bacon what he thought of the French Amba.s.sador. He answered, that he was a tall, proper man. 'Aye,'

his Majesty replied, 'but what think you of his head-piece? Is he a proper man for the office of an amba.s.sador?' 'Sir,' said Bacon, 'tall men are like houses of four or five stories, wherein commonly the uppermost room is worst furnished.'"

Hard, this, on us poor six-footers. One need not turn to the biography after this, to guess that the philosopher was five feet four.

I think there was a breeze, and a cold one, all the time, between the emba.s.sy and the English courtiers. I could tell you a good many stories to show this, but I would give them all for one anecdote of what Edward Winslow said to Madam Carver on Christmas evening. They thought it all naught because they did not know what would come of it. We do know.

And I wish you to observe, all the time, beloved reader, whom I press to my heart for your steadiness in perusing so far, and to whom I would give a jewel had I one worthy to give, in token of my consideration (how you would like a Royalston beryl or an Attleboro topaz).[A] I wish you to observe, I say, that on the Christmas tide, when the Forefathers began New England, Charles and Henrietta were first proposed to each other for that fatal union. Charles, who was to be Charles the First, and Henrietta, who was to be mother of Charles the Second, and James the Second. So this was the time, when were first proposed all the precious intrigues and devisings, which led to Charles the Second, James the Second, James the Third, so called, and our poor friend the Pretender.

Civil War--Revolution--1715--1745--Preston-Pans, Falkirk and Culloden--all are in the dispatches Cadenet carries ash.o.r.e at Dover, while we are hewing our timbers at the side of the brook at Plymouth, and making our contribution to Protestant America.

[A] Mrs. Hemans says they did not seek "bright jewels of the mine," which was fortunate, as they would not have found them. Attleboro is near Plymouth Rock, but its jewels are not from mines. The beryls of Royalston are, but they are far away. Other good mined jewels, I think, New England has none. Her garnets are poor, and I have yet seen no good amethysts.

On the one side Christmas is celebrated by fifty outcasts chopping wood for their fires--and out of the celebration springs an empire. On the other side it is celebrated by the _n.o.blesse_ of two nations and the pomp of two courts. And out of the celebration spring two civil wars, the execution of one king and the exile of another, the downfall twice repeated of the royal house, which came to the English throne under fairer auspices than ever. The whole as we look at it is the tale of ruin. Those are the only two Christmas celebrations of that year that I have found anywhere written down!

You will not misunderstand the moral, dear reader, if, indeed, you exist; if at this point there be any reader beside him who corrects the proof! Sublime thought of the solemn silence in which these words may be spoken! You will not misunderstand the moral. It is not that it is better to work on Christmas than to play. It is not that masques turn out ill, and that those who will not celebrate the great anniversaries turn out well. G.o.d forbid!

It is that these men builded better than they knew, because they did with all their heart and all their soul the best thing that they knew.

They loved Christ and feared G.o.d, and on Christmas day did their best to express the love and the fear. And King James and Cadenet,--did they love Christ and fear G.o.d? I do not know. But I do not believe, nor do you, that the masque of the one, or the emba.s.sy of the other, expressed the love, or the hope, or the faith of either!

So it was that John Carver and his men, trying to avoid the celebration of the day, built better than they knew indeed, and, in their faith, laid a corner-stone for an empire.

And James and Cadenet trying to serve themselves--forgetful of the spirit of the day, as they pretended to honor it--were so successful that they destroyed a dynasty.

There is moral enough for our truer Christmas holidays as 1867 leads in the new-born sister.