Memoirs of the Court of Louis XIV. and of the Regency Part 27

[The learned Journal of Gottengin for the year 1789, No. 30, observes there must be some mistake here, because in 1689, when this circ.u.mstance is supposed to have occurred, the administrateur had been married seven years, and had children at Stuttgard.]

she had herself painted as Andromeda and her cousin as Perseus as the latter wore no helmet, everybody could of course recognize him. But when he went away without having married her, she had a casque painted, which concealed the face, and said she would not have another face inserted until she should be married. She was then about nineteen years old.

Her mother said once at Court, "My daughter has not come with me to-day because she is gone to confess; but, poor child, what can she have to say to her confessor, except that she has dropped some st.i.tches in her work."

Madame de Fiennes, who was present, whispered, "The placid old fool!

as if a stout, healthy girl of nineteen had no other sins to confess than having dropped some st.i.tches."

A village pastor was examining his parishioners in their catechism. The first question in the Heidelberg catechism is this: "What is thy only consolation in life and in death?" A young girl, to whom the pastor put this question, laughed, and would not answer. The priest insisted.

"Well, then," said she at length, "if I must tell you, it is the young shoemaker who lives in the Rue Agneaux."

The late Madame de Nemours had charitably brought up a poor child.

When the child was about nine years old, she said to her benefactress, "Madame, no one can be more grateful for your charity than I am, and I cannot acknowledge it better than by telling everybody I am your daughter; but do not be alarmed, I will not say that I am your lawful child, only your illegitimate daughter."

The Memoirs of Queen Margaret of Navarre are merely a romance compared with those of Mdlle. de La Force. The auth.o.r.ess's own life was a romance. Being extremely poor, although of an ancient and honourable family, she accepted the office of demoiselle d'honneur to the d.u.c.h.esse de Guise. Here the Marquis de Nesle, father of the present Marquis (1720), became enamoured of her, after having received from her a small bag to wear about his neck, as a remedy against the vapours. He would have married her, but his relations opposed this intention on the score of Mdlle. de La Force's poverty, and because she had improperly quitted the d.u.c.h.esse de Guise. The Great Conde, the Marquis de Nesle's nearest relation, took him to Chattillon that he might forget his love for Mdlle.

de La Force; all the Marquis's relations were there a.s.sembled for the purpose of declaring to him that they would never consent to his marriage with Mdlle. de La Force; and he on his part told them that he would never while he lived marry any other person. In a moment of despair, he rushed out to the garden and would have thrown himself into the ca.n.a.l, but that the strings, with which Mdlle. de La Force had tied the bag about his neck, broke, and the bag fell at his feet. His thoughts appeared to undergo a sudden change, and Mdlle. de La Force seemed to him to be as ugly as she really is. He went instantly to the Prince and his other relations who were there, and told them what had just happened. They searched about in the garden for the bag and the strings, and, opening it, they found it to contain two toads' feet holding a heart wrapped up in a bat's wing, and round the whole a paper inscribed with unintelligible cyphers. The Marquis was seized with horror at the sight.

He told me this story with his own mouth. Mdlle. de La Force after this fell in love with Baron, but as he was not bewitched, the intrigue did not last long: he used to give a very amusing account of the declaration she made to him. Then a M. Briou, the son of a Councillor of that name, became attached to her; his relations, who would by no means have consented to such a marriage, shut the young man up. La Force, who has a very fertile wit, engaged an itinerant musician who led about dancing bears in the street, and intimated to her lover that, if he would express a wish to see the bears dance in the courtyard of his, own house, she would come to him disguised in a bear's skin. She procured a bear's skin to be made so as to fit her, and went to M. Briou's house with the bears; the young man, under the pretence of playing with this bear, had an opportunity of conversing with her and of laying their future plans.

He then promised his father that he would submit to his will, and thus having regained his liberty he immediately married Mdlle. de La Force, and went with her to Versailles, where the King gave them apartments, and where Madame de Briou was every day with the Dauphine of Bavaria, who admired her wit and was delighted with her society. M. de Briou was not then five-and-twenty years of age, a very good-looking and well-bred young man. His father, however, procured a dissolution of the marriage by the Parliament, and made him marry another person. Madame de Briou thus became once more Mdlle. de La Force, and found herself without husband and money. I cannot tell how it was that the King and her parents, both of whom had consented to the marriage, did not oppose its dissolution. To gain a subsistence she set about composing romances, and as she was often staying with the Princesse de Conti, she dedicated to her that of Queen Margaret.

We have had four Dukes who have bought coffee, stuffs, and even candles for the purpose of selling them again at a profit. It was the Duke de La Force who bought the candles. One evening, very recently, as he was going out of the Opera, the staircase was filled with young men, one of whom cried out, as he pa.s.sed, "His purse!"--"No," said another, "there can be no money in it; he would not risk it; it must be candles that he has bought to sell again." They then sang the air of the fourth act of 'Phaeton'.

[The Duke, together with certain other persons, made considerable purchases of spice, porcelain, and other merchandizes, for the purpose of realizing the hope of Law's Banks. As he was not held in estimation either by the public or by the Parliament, the Duke was accused of monopoly; and by a decree of the Parliament, in concert with the Peers, he was enjoined "to use more circ.u.mspection for the future, and to conduct himself irreproachably, in a manner as should be consistent with his birth and his dignity as a Peer of France."]

The Queen Catherine (de Medicis) was a very wicked woman. Her uncle, the Pope, had good reason for saying that he had made a bad present to France. It is said that she poisoned her youngest son because he had discovered her in a common brothel whither she had gone privately. Who can wonder that such a woman should drink out of a cup covered with designs from Aretino. The Pope had an object in sending her to France.

Her son was the Duc d'Alencon; and as they both remained incog. the world did not know that they were mother and son, which occasioned frequent mistakes.

The young Count Horn, who has just been executed here (1720), was descended from a well-known Flemish family; he was distinguished at first for the amiable qualities of his head and for his wit. At college he was a model for good conduct, application, and purity of morals; but the intimacy which he formed with some libertine young men during his stay at the Academy of Paris entirely changed him. He contracted an insatiable desire for play, and even his own father said to him, "You will die by the hands of the executioner." Being dest.i.tute of money, the young Count took up the trade of a pickpocket, which he carried on in the pit of the theatres, and by which he made considerable gains in silver-hilted swords and watches. At length, having lost a sum of five-and-twenty thousand crowns at the fair of Saint-Germain, he was led to commit that crime which he has just expiated on the scaffold. For the purpose of discharging the debt he had contracted, he sent for a banker's clerk to bring him certain bank bills, which he proposed to purchase. Having connected himself with two other villains, he attacked the clerk as soon as he arrived, and stabbed him with poniards which he had bought three days before on the Pont Neuf. Hoping to conceal the share which he had taken in this crime, he went immediately after its perpetration to the Commissaire du Quartier, and told him, with a cool and determined air, that he had been obliged, in his own defence, to kill the clerk, who had attacked him and put him in danger of his life. The Commissaire looking at him steadfastly, said, "You are covered with blood, but you are not even wounded; I must retain you in custody until I can examine this affair more minutely." At this moment the accomplice entered the room.

"Here, sir," said the Count to the Commissaire, "is one who can bear testimony that the account I have given you of this business is perfectly true." The accomplice was quite terrified at hearing this; he thought that Count Horn had confessed his crime, and that there could be no advantage in continuing to deny it; he therefore confessed all that had taken place, and thus the murder was revealed. The Count was not more than two-and-twenty years of age, and one of the handsomest men in Paris.

Some of the first persons in France solicited in his favour, but the Duke Regent thought it necessary to make an example of him on account of the prevalent excess of crime. Horn was publicly broken on the wheel with his second accomplice; the other died just before: they were both gentlemen and of n.o.ble families. When they arrived at the place of punishment, they begged the people to implore the pardon of Heaven upon their sins. The spectators were affected to tears, but they nevertheless agreed in the just severity of their punishment. The people said aloud after the execution, "Our Regent has done justice."

One lady was blaming another, her intimate friend, for loving a very ugly man. The latter said, "Did he ever speak to you tenderly or pa.s.sionately?"--"No," replied the former. "Then you cannot judge," said her friend, "whether I ought to love him or not."

Madame de Nemours used to say, "I have observed one thing in this country, 'Honour grows again as well as hair.'"

An officer, a gentleman of talent, whose name was Hautmont, wrote the following verses upon Cardinal Mazarin, for which he was locked up in the Bastille for eighteen months:

Creusons tous le tombeau A qui nous persecute; A ce Jules nouveauu Cherchons un nouveau Brute.

Que le jour serait beau, Si nous voyions sa chute!

The Queen-mother could not endure Boisrobert on account of his impiety; she did not like him to visit her sons, the King and Monsieur, in their youth, but they were very fond of him because he used to amuse them.

When he was at the point of death, the Queen-mother sent some priests to convert him and to prepare him for confession. Boisrobert appeared inclined to confess. "Yes, mon Dieu," said he, devoutly joining his hands, "I sincerely implore Thy pardon, and confess that I am a great sinner, but thou knowest that the Abbe de Villargeau is a much greater sinner than I am."

Cardinal Mazarin sent him once to compliment the English Amba.s.sador on his arrival. When he reached the hotel, an Englishman said to him, "Milord, il est pret; my ladi, il n'est pas pret, friselire ses chevaux, prendre patience." The late King used to relate stories of this same Boisrobert in a very whimsical manner.

The life which folks lead at Paris becomes daily more scandalous; I really tremble for the city every time it thunders. Three ladies of quality have just committed a monstrous imprudence. They have been running after the Turkish Amba.s.sador; they made his son drunk and kept him with them three days; if they go on in this way even the Capuchins will not be safe from them. The Turks must needs have a very becoming notion of the conduct of ladies of quality in a Christian country. The young Turk is said to have told Madame de Polignac, who was one of the three ladies, "Madame, your reputation has reached Constantinople, and I see that report has only done you justice." The Amba.s.sador, it is said, is very much enraged with his son, and has enjoined him to keep his adventure profoundly a secret, because he would risk the top of his head on his return to Constantinople if it were known that he had a.s.sociated with Christian women. It is to be feared that the young man will get safely out of France. Madame de Polignac has fleeced all the young men of quality here. I do not know how her relations and those of her husband choose to suffer her to lead so libertine a life. But all shame is extinct in France, and everything is turned topsy-turvy.

It is very unfortunate that n.o.blemen like the Elector-Palatine John William should suffer themselves to be governed by the priesthood; nothing but evil can result from it. He would do much better if he would follow the advice of able statesmen, and throw his priest into the Necker. I would advise him to do so, and I think I should advise him well.

I cannot conceive why the Duke Maximilian (brother of George I. of England)

[Prince Maximilian of Hanover, the second brother of George I., had, after the death of his brother, Frederick Augustus, certain rights over the Bishopric of Osnaburgh; love and his monks caused him to embrace the catholic faith.]

changed his religion, for he had very little faith in general; none of his relations solicited him to do so, and he was induced by no personal interest.

I have heard a story of this Prince, which does him little honour. I have been told that he complained to the Emperor of his mother, who bred him tenderly, but who had not sent him eight thousand crowns which he had asked her for. This is abominable, and he can hope for happiness neither in this nor in the next world; I can never forgive him for it. The first idea of this must have originated with Father Wolff, who has also excited him against Prince Edward Augustus.--[Maximilian contested the Bishopric of Osnaburgh with his younger brother.]--What angers me most with this cursed monk is, that he will not suffer Duke Maximilian to have a single n.o.bleman about him; he will only allow him to be approached by beggars like himself.