MADAME DE SEVIGNE HER CONTEMPORARIES. VOL. I. DE SEVIGNE AND HER CONTEMPORARIES. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1841. ] ADVERTISEMENT. As the nature and objects of the following brief and desultory sketches are made sufficiently ap- parent by the introductory chapter, it is unneces- sary to trouble the reader with any further prefatory remarks. As, however, many students of the social his- tory of Europe may chance to make these volumes their first step towards a more extended knowledge of the highly-interesting " Times" to which they more particularly relate, it may be convenient to append a list of the chief authorities which have been used or consulted in preparing them. They are as follow : Sismondi's Histoire des Frai^ais. Voltaire's Siecle de Louis XIV. Lettres de Maintenon. A2 IV ADVERTISEMENT. Lettres de Villars. Lettres de La Fayette. Memoires de Retz. Memoires de Motteville. Memoires de Montpensier. Memoires de Cou- langes. Memoires de Saint- Simon. Vie de Fen61on, par de Bausset. Vie de Bossuet. Genie de Bossuet (Euvres de Bourdaloue. Biographic Universelle. Essai sur 1'Eloquence de la Chaire. (Euvres de La Fayette. Les Essais de Craufurd. Vie de Moliere, par Tas- chereau. The writer has also consulted various collec- tions of MS. letters preserved in public libraries at Paris. CONTENTS THE FIRST VOLUME. PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 Cardinal Richelieu 7 Pere Joseph 32 Bois-Robert 34 Corneille 36 Pascal 39 Duke and Duchess de Montmorency 46 Duchess de Chevreuse 50 Cardinal Mazarin 75 Gaston, Duke of Orleans 84 Comte de Bussy Rabutin 96 Comte de la Riviere 99 Cardinal de Retz 102 Th^. Queen of Poland 123 The Princess Palatine 128 Duchess de Longueville 135 VI CONTENTS. FACE Duke de la Rochefoucauld 155 La Bruyere . 165 La Marquise de Ganges 168 The Abbe de Ranee 174 The Iron Mask 181 Madame de SevigTie 1 I 183 Madame de Grignan J Madame de la Fayette 227 Mademoiselle de Scudery ^ J ( 230 Pellisson J Madame de la Sabliere 245 La Fontaine 250 Racine 260 Moliere 271 Boileau 286 The Abbe Cotin 289 Duchess of Orleans 298 Bossuet 332 Mascaron (Bishop of Tulle) 348 Flechier (Bishop of Nismes) 349 INTRODUCTION. THESE volumes embrace a period of above a century, beginning with the government of the Cardinal de Richelieu, whose spirit reigned over France long after his decease, and prepared the brilliancy of the reign of Louis XIV. ; continuing through the miserable years of the old age of that monarch, with the triumph of the Jesuits; and closing with the death of the great king. The times referred to are inexhaustible in history, anec- dote, and reflection ; and the work might have been extended to many more volumes. It has VOL. I. B 2 INTRODUCTION. been drawn up in the form of divisions, or bio- graphical chapters, for the convenience of those who may desire to illustrate the book with por- traits. The materials have been taken from many sources, chiefly foreign libraries and rare old books. These materials have been collected for the bet- ter understanding of letters admired by all the world those of Madame de Sevigne. A great many passages from those letters, from the Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz, and from Madame de Maintenon's letters, have been left in the original French ; as all who read and appre- ciate Madame de Sevigne may be supposed to understand that language nearly as well as their own. In taking into consideration the changes and variations of society and manners in France during the times here treated of, allowance must be made for the change everywhere that one hun- dred years brings, in morals, manners, fashions, and education; though that change in France during the period in question was not nearly so great as it was in England. The times of Louis XIIL, of Madame de Se- INTRODUCTION 3 vigne, and of Louis XIV., ran parallel to the days of James I. and his favourite, Buckingham ; to the proposed Spanish match; to the unfortunate con- nexion of Charles I. with France; the visits of Mary de Medicis to her daughter in England; Henrietta-Maria's return to France after the tragical end of her husband ; the usurpation of Cromwell ; the introduction, after the Restoration, of the worst description of foreigners, both men and women, at the court of Charles II., (" ou il n'y avait ni foi n loi ;") and, finally, the expulsion of James II. and the reign of Queen Anne, whose death preceded that of Louis XIV. Anything like a history of society, or rather the usages of society, as exemplified in the history of individuals, could not be put together in England as it has been done often in France ; but could it be so reported with fidelity, it would prove the most instructive of stories. In England we must look at what was the existence of the great families residing in their castles and manor-houses, and seek the routine of life at Penshurst, Wilton, Haddon, Bolsover, and Hatfield, in the olden time. But this could never be undertaken without access to the private letters of those families. B2 4 INTRODUCTION. Mr. Lodge's curious letters, called " Illustra- tions of British History," ending in the reign of James I., make us better acquainted with the cor- ruption in politics, the family quarrels, the magni- ficence and the meanness of our ancestors, their expenditure and their debts, in fact, with their social condition generally, than all the composed books in the world could possibly do: but the letters, as letters, are ill written, and what saun- terers in reading deem tiresome. Evelyn, Pepys, and Lord Clarendon's letters are as stiff and formal as the old fashioned Dutch gardens of the time, with their trees cut in shapes and carved hedge- rows : but the persons, the letters, the houses, and the gardens were all suited to each other, and admirable in their way. No good letter writers appeared in England until the days of Horace Walpole and Lady Mary Wortley Montague. This was a full century after the brilliant days of French letter- writing. One way of accounting for this superiority was, the manner in which the French women passed their time. Neither music nor painting formed part of the education of the upper ranks in France. Those talents were left to professional persons, INTRODUCTION. and, with the exception of Ninon de PEnclos, no person is ever named as playing on any instru- ment. The enormous portion of time this absence of what we call accomplishments gave to the French women was passed at their tapestry- frames; and every lady of high degree had a demoiselle de compagnie, who read aloud to the indefatigable workers. By this means the women acquired much in- formation, good or bad, according to their turn of mind. With some it formed the style ; and the least gifted amongst them had at least their heads and fingers employed on their work. This passion for work has of late years become universal in England ; and it has been remarked by an eminent physician in great practice, that, since its introduction into society, it has diminished the cases of love-sick damsels by one hal These same workers in silks and worsteds would have passed their days in idleness, or in the perusal of sentimental novels, that are now no longer read, and therefore no longer written, for want of readers. The natural and easy style of French corre- spondence is also accounted for by the constant INTRODUCTION. habit of dictating the letter, and its being written by some young person, as part of their education. The Duchesse de Bourgogne and Madame de Caylus perpetually wrote Madame de Maintenon's letters; and those letters more resemble conver- sation than the letters written by herself. Many of the ladies of rank in France were edu- cated by men of learning. After their marriage, some of them passed much of their time in the church ceremonies of Catholicism ; some with their families, others in the great world or at court. Those who had a turn for reading studied the more solid parts of learning in the Latin authors, or church divinity ; others cultivated the litera- ture of the day, (and those days were the glorious days of Pascal, Bossuet, Corneille, Racine and Moliere ;) and when separated from their families, these persons wrote as naturally as they would have conversed. The grace of language, the depth of thought, and the knowledge that these studies imparted, can readily be traced in the let- ters of Madame de Sevigne, Madame de Grignan, Madame de Main ten on, Madame de Villars, Ma- demoiselle de Scudery, Madame de la Fayette, and many others. THE TIMES AND SOCIETY MADAME DE SEVIGNE. THE CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. Born, 1585; died, 1642. THE French find a parallel in history as to cha- racter, means, and ends, between the Cardinal de Richelieu and Napoleon, as they do between De Retz and Talleyrand ; but the likeness is stronger between our English Wolsey and Richelieu. Riche- lieu was the better politician and the worse man of the two. He had to do with a poor weak king ; Wolsey had a tyrant for a monarch, and when his ambition was thwarted, his better nature rose from the ashes of his hopes. 8 CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. Richelieu was a man " Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking Himself with princes ; one that by suggestion Ty'd all the kingdom ; simony was fair play, His own opinion was his law : i' th' presence He would say untruths, and be ever double Both in his words and meaning ; he was never But when he meant to ruin, pitiful; His promises were, as he then was, mighty ; But his performance, as he now is, nothing. Of his own body he was ill, and gave The clergy ill example." As the faithful Griffith says to Catharine " May it please your highness To hear me speak his good, now ? This Cardinal, undoubtedly, Was fashioned to much honour. From his cradle He was a scholar ; Exceeding wise, fair spoken, and persuading ; Lofty and sour to them that loved him not; But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer ; And though he were unsatisfied in getting, (Which was a sin,) yet in bestowing He was most princely." All Shakspeare's worst characters have some claim upon our kindly regard ; so Wolsey has, so has Richelieu ; and no doubt Shakspeare would have seized upon such a character for an historical play. Ambition, that scarlet sin, prompted both Wolsey and Richelieu to remove all obstructions in the way of their preferment. Like Wolsey, CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. Richelieu drew together a world of wealth for his own ends, ever intent on personal aggrandize- ment. Sir Edward Bulwer found out the power of his character as to dramatic effect, and has made an excellent play of Richelieu, but not quite contented us. We criticize the difference between Shak- speare's and Schiller's treating a character that belongs to history, and his management of the subject. Genius is truth, and not embellish- ment ; and we feel the want of Shakspeare's lines of truth, written in gold or iron, on historical sub- jects. Sir Edward Bulwer has made Richelieu a patriot as well as a hero. He exclaims " In thy unseen and abstract majesty, My France, my country, I have bodied forth A thing to love. What are these robes of state, This pomp, this palace ? Perishable baubles I In this world, two things only are immortal * Fame and a People.' " Another passage much admired is, the midnight soliloquy in the Castle of Ruelle too long to quote ; but it is not exactly in character with the Cardinal's nightly reflections. Sir Edward B3 10 CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. Bulwer has given him a great heart as well as a powerful intellect, joined to the subtlety of the consummate statesman. The dialogue is beautiful, the stage effect of the play is admirably managed, and the interest sus- tained to the end, when the Cardinal throws off his fox's skin, to the dismay of the King and the courtiers, and rises from a bed of sickness to power and glory. The incident upon which the play closes is the betrayal of the treaty : a fact in the conspiracy of Cinq-Mars, which is treated with historic truth. Armand du Plessis, the Cardinal de Richelieu, was born at Paris, in 1585. He was educated for the army, and passed successively from the col- leges of Navarre and Liseux to the Military Academy; but the destiny of his elder brother controlled his, as was often the case in France. His brother, already Bishop of Luon, became a monk, and it was represented to the young Ar- mand that a bishopric which had belonged to his great uncle and to his brother ought to remain in the family; he accordingly quitted the army to study theology with great ardour. CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. 11 His youth might have retarded his appoint- ments, but he went to Rome, and pronounced before the pope a Latin oration, which no longer allowed of his being thought too young. He became a bishop at one and twenty, and gave him- self up to ecclesiastical business, till the assembly of the clergy, in 1614, when the Bishop of Luon was charged to become the bearer of the griev- ances of the clergy to the King. He complained that the clergy were but rarely called to the councils of their monarch ; as if the honour of serving God made them unfit to serve the king, his image here on earth. The orator brought forward the example of the ancient Druids, whom the Gauls consulted in times of peril ; he praised the prudence of the king in leaving the government of France hi the hands of the Queen Mother ; he entreated the young monarch to per- severe in this wise conduct, and to add to the august title of " Reine-Mere," " Mere du Royaume." Thus Richelieu boldly opened the road to fortune, and the dignity of Almoner to the Queen was his first recompence. For some time the King was pleased at Riche- 12 CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. lieu's moderating the passions and resentments of his mother ; but when he followed her to Blois, Louis, doubting his good offices, sent him to his diocese, and afterwards banished him to the Pope's dominions at Avignon. Richelieu now took to his pen, and wrote his work called " La Perfection du Chretien." Two years thus passed, and Marie de Medicis managed that the Duke d'Epernon, who was in rebellion against the King, should carry her off from the Castle of Blois. The King's minister, the Duke de Luynes, became uneasy at the turn matters were taking, and Pere Joseph reminded him that the only person who could appease Marie de Medicis was in exile at Avignon. Richelieu was accordingly summoned ; but, to the surprise of the Queen, he advised her re- lying solely on those faithful servants who had brought her out of captivity. She wished to name him her chancellor, but he declined, and his political sagacity made him wait till division had broken forth amongst all parties ; and, faith- ful to a system of management of the King, the Queen, and the favourite de Luynes, he never CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. 13 rested till he had brought about peace, and a mar- riage between his niece and the nephew of de Luynes. After the death of the Connetable de Luynes, in 1622, Richelieu became Cardinal. He went to place his new honours at the feet of Marie de Medicis, and said to her "The purple honours I owe your majesty will always make me remember the vows I have made to spend my blood in your majesty's service." The Queen, after, de Luynes's death, was admitted to the council an advantage denied to Richelieu. On the Queen remonstrating, Louis explained himself thus on the subject : " I know him better than you do ; he is a man of unbounded ambition." At last Richelieu's perseverance got the better; and he was admitted to the council on certain conditions. But when thus at the summit of his hopes, he excused himself on the plea of bad health, and only put himself forward on the King's positive order. He then gradually felt his strength, resigned his bishopric, and was expected modestly to take his place at the council-board; but when 14 CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. there, he behaved as one who has neither colleagues nor equals. " With grave Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd A pillar of state." All and every one gave way before his strong will, under which the King and the kingdom bent during eighteen succeeding years. In various affairs he shewed his wisdom and judgment; and the miserable private position in which Louis XIII. stood, wounded in all his dearest affections, made him see in Richelieu a safeguard against the do- mestic perils of treason with which he was sur- rounded from the conspiracies of his own family. The life of the Cardinal was now often menaced with assassination. After the conspiracy of Cha- lais, a guard was attached to his person, which was gradually augmented to a retinue of foot and horse. Some months after this conspiracy, Richelieu wrote to the King and asked leave to retire. It was then that Louis sent to the Cardinal that most flattering of letters that ever was penned from a sovereign. "Do not fear calumny," said the monarch, " it cannot be avoided at courts. I know CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. 15 opinions; and I have always put you on your guard against those who were envious of you, and I shall never know of any enemy without letting you hear of it" The letter ended with protes- tations of attachment : " Be assured that I can never give you up. The Queen, my mother, says the same ; believe that to you I can never change, and that I shall be your second in defending you from all attacks made upon you." One of Richelieu's maxims was never to let a fault go unpunished ; but in order to deceive the world, he sometimes adopted sentiments of mild- ness. One of the dreams of Richelieu's early life had been the lowering of the Huguenots in their strong hold of La Rochelle. The English attacked the Island of Rhe, and the Cardinal's fertile genius appeared in a new light, taking upon himself the command of the siege. To render the blockade effectual, it was necessary to stop up the port, and the officers in the French service could devise no means of doing this. Richelieu took council from his classical reading; and having learned how 16 CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. Alexander the Great reduced Tyre, he determined upon erecting a mound, which one night's storm destroyed. He persevered, however ; he personally encouraged the workmen ; the harbour was blocked up, the Cardinal triumphed, and La Rochelle was taken. He thus accomplished the great political object of doing away with the last rampart of the Protestant party in France. Richelieu behaved with moderation to the Hugue- nots ; contenting himself with a triumph over his hated enemy, Buckingham, and with having taken the command over the heads of the Duke d'Angou- lesme, the marshals of France, and the army. The siege over, the King acknowledged, by a proclamation, that he had taken La Rochelle by the advice, singular prudence, vigilance, and labo- rious service of his cousin, the Cardinal de Riche- lieu. He was then proclaimed by letters patent prime minister, and his exploits against the heretics procured from the Pope a cardinal's hat for his brother, the Archbishop of Lyons. After a brilliant campaign in Italy, where Louis XIII. went to establish the right of the Duke de Nevers to the duchy of Mantua, the King CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. 17 quelled the Protestants in the south of France. In December, 1629, the Cardinal went to Italy at the head of the troops. The memoirs of the times describe him in armour, with a sword by his side, and encouraging Louis to shew himself amongst his soldiers. The King became master of Pignerol, and of the states in Savoy ; but the plague raged, and, on his return, he was attacked with illness at Lyons. Here Marie de Medicis and Anne of Austria united in prevailing on the dying monarch to give up the Cardinal, who was absent with the army ; this Louis promised to do, whenever the war in Italy should be terminated. Meanwhile the courtiers deliberated how to get rid of Richelieu altogether. The Mareschal de Marillac proposed to assassinate him, the Duke de Guise would have him exiled, and the Mareschal de Bassompiere wished to confine him for life. It is a curious fact, that each of these propositions fell back upon their respective authors, so that each had the fate reserved for the object of their hatred. The King recovered, and went to Paris with 18 CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. Richelieu. He pressed the Cardinal to reconcile himself to Marie de Medicis, to which end the Cardinal used all his address, but in vain. Peace was now made with Italy, and the weak monarch was summoned by the two Queens to perform his promise of parting with his minister. On his knees did Louis ask the pardon of Richelieu from his imperious mother. One day, after a scene of this kind, Marie de Medicis shut herself up with the King, to attempt another trial to attain her wish of getting rid of Richelieu. The minister felt the danger of leaving the King to himself, or to his mother's sugges- tions ; he tried to penetrate into the room where the King and Queen were, but finding every avenue closed against him, he remembered an en- trance from a private chapel, whence a door had been left open, and thus introduced himself into the royal presence. The Queen reproached the Cardinal in all the terms with which rage and passion can inspire a woman. She appealed to her son's feelings, and, in floods of tears, asked him if he was unnatural enough to prefer a servant to his own mother? CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. 19 Louis, perplexed, left her to hide his indecision at his hunting-lodge at Versailles. The Cardinal thought himself lost ; his effects were packing up, and he intended to go to Havre, and Marie de Medicis in a false security triumphed at the Lux- embourg. A favourite undertook to save Riche- lieu, in suggesting to Louis the idea of one more explanation before parting for ever. The Cardinal went to Versailles, and regained, in that interview, the ascendancy of a strong mind over a weak one. Marie de Medicis ever after pretended that she should have got the better had she that day locked a door, and afterwards followed her son to Versailles. That day, 30th of Novem- ber, 1630, was named "La Journee des Dupes:" the number of them was considerable. The restoration of Richelieu to power was sig- nalised by many violent measures. The keeper of the seals, Marillac, a magistrate of irreproachable conduct, was sent into exile, where he died ; his brother, a marshal of France, and one of the gene- rals of the army of Italy, was arrested ; the Mare- schal de Bassompiere, a great general, and beloved by Louis, began his abode of twelve years in the 20 CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. Bastile, and many of the courtiers emigrated to foreign countries. Marie de Medicis, violent and passionate in all her feelings, was watched by the Cardinal, and her slightest words reported. The Cardinal kept a journal of the sayings and reports he gathered, by the means of his friends or his spies. These notes, written in his own hand, have passed to posterity under the name of " Journal kept during a great Storm at Court." They form an odious model of those secret police reports which some continental governments have since encouraged, and which have been the source of so much falsehood and perfidy. False appearances of a reconciliation between the Cardinal and the Queen now flattered the King. He saw his mother take her place at the council-board with joy ; but Marie de Medicis was a Florentine and an Italian ; she meditated vengeance; and, owing to her counsels, Gaston, the King's brother, went off to Spain. After this event, Louis was convinced that his mother's presence in the capital and at the council- board was incompatible with public tranquillity; CARDIN AL DE RICHELIEU. 21 and it was managed that the King should leave her suddenly at Compiegne, under the care of the Mareschal d'Estrees. In the utmost consternation at this sudden abandonment, she refused all terms, and after a melancholy abode of four months at Compiegne, she left France, and passed the rest of her days in regretting having done so. Marie de Medicis being now out of France, Richelieu reigned sole arbiter of power. Louis said of him, when the deputies were sent from parlia- ment, " Quiconque m'aimera, 1'aimera." But the trial and death of the Mareschal de Marillac, a man whose services to the nation were of forty years standing, excited the most general indignation : he was taken from the head of the army, tried in the Cardinal's own hall in the Castle of Ruelle, condemned to death, and executed in the Place de Greve. In another six months the J)uke de Montmorency, the bravest of the brave, and the gallant descendant of five constables of France, perished on the scaf- fold. He had been the friend and supporter of Richelieu; but cruel policy determined that he should die, and the Cardinal's severity increased daily. Now indeed did he justify the character 22 CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. he once gave of himself, speaking to the Marquis de la Vieuville : " Je n'ose rien entreprendre sans y avoir bien pense, mais quand une fois j'ai pris ma resolution, je vais a mon but, je renverse tout, je fauche tout, et ensuite je couvre tout de ma soutane rouge." But the great ambition of Richelieu's policy had always been to lower the house of Austria. The fortune of war having gone against him, the foreign troops penetrated into Picardy, and Paris was in a state of alarm. A general cry was raised against Richelieu, and he seemed disposed to retire : but this time Pere Joseph saved him, and by his intrigues contrived that the public disasters should be attributed to the cowardice of the governors of the town. The governors fled, and a price was put on then: heads. The French princes now leagued together to assassinate Richelieu, and it would have been all over with the Cardinal had not Gaston held back from the crime of murder. Richelieu, in his literary character, was jealous of the praise of authorship. He gave a pension to Corneille; but afterwards quarrelled with him, and after many scenes of jealousy of his poetical talents, ended in being reconciled to him. CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. 23 Richelieu instituted the French Academy, built the Sorbonne, and the Palais Cardinal (now Palais Royal), and turned the old Chateau du Plessis into a residence as magnificent as any royal abode. The King, whose religious sentiments made him but little alive to the seductions of beauty, was taken with the grace and virtue of Mdlle. de la Fayette. She hated Richelieu ; and the Car- dinal tried to gain over the King's confessor, and hasten the profession of this young girl, which had been the project of years. But Pere Caussin was of opinion that the power of a religious mind over that of Louis might work for his good, and he wished Mdlle. de la Fayette to remain at court. The combat between the minister and the con- fessor did not last long, and Mdlle. de la Fayette's confidential intercourse with Louis ended in a " lettre de cachet." The Jesuit himself was sent to Rhennes, and his superiors were invited to employ his talents in a mission to Canada. Another confessor resisted longer; and the Duchess of Savoy, the King's sister, refused to let him go ; but the Cardinal insisted, and he ended his days in a fortress. 24 CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. When Richelieu wished a thing, the means troubled him but little. He shut up the Sardinian minister, the Comte d'Aglie, in the Chateau de Vincennes, as he also did M. de St. Cyran for his religious opinions; which last occasioned great indignation amongst all well-disposed persons. The Spanish General De Wert was at that time a prisoner on his parole at Paris. Cardinal Riche- lieu invited him to a superb ballet which he gave : when in conversation with the Spaniard, he asked him what he considered the most marvellous sight he had seen, to which the other replied, " To see in the dominions of his very Christian majesty bishops amusing themselves at theatres, while saints languish in prisons." In some instances Richelieu lived to regret the consequences of his intrigues: he excited Wall- stein to rebel, and Ferdinand to anger. Four years after, Wallstein* was assassinated, which made a great impression on Richelieu, who found many points of comparison between Louis and Ferdi- nand, Wallstein and himself. In his memoirs, he breaks into an anathema on " la misere de cette * Wallstein, Duke of Friedland, assassinated at Egra, in 1634. CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. 25 vie," where jealous and timid royalty crosses great and brilliant services. He entirely forgot that he had himself much contributed to the breaking out of these jealousies between the Emperor and Wallstein. All great foreign statesmen have been super- stitious ; so was Wallstein, so was Napoleon, so was Richelieu. One of the reflections he makes in his Memoirs has been thus rendered into verse : " Chance makes half my greatness. I was born Beneath the aspect of a bright-eyed star, And my triumphant adamant of soul Is but the fix'd persuasion of success." Determined on the marriage between Charles the First and Henrietta-Maria, a menace from Richelieu hastened the slowly-wrung dispensation from Rome. Buckingham* then appeared at the court of France, in all the glory of good looks and magnificent attire. To the women he seemed a degree above a mortal ; and there is a specimen of a love-letter, after his return to England, in a state despatch from the Earl of Hollandf to Buck- * George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, stabbed at Portsmouth in 1628. t Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, who suffered death on the scaffold in 1649. VOL. I. C 26 CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. ingham, very curious. Mixed up with state affairs are the hieroglyphics of love ; a crown designates the King of France, a heart the lady, and an an- chor Buckingham, the Lord High Admiral. Buckingham was a hero in romance, and by no means a disappointed lover ; but his double rival in love and politics, the Cardinal, kept on him an eye whose glances were poniards. Hume says that the causes of this war with France were in- credible, and describes Buckingham as having both English familiarity and French levity, two most offensive qualities in an ambassador ; was it then surprising that a good hatred was established between the two ministers ? In after-times, Richelieu influenced the fortunes of the unfortunate Charles. His political system, like that of Napoleon, was to form an invisible alliance with the disaffected of every government That Charles expressed a high admiration of his enemy Richelieu, in his quality of prime minister, is evident from his rebuke to Henrietta-Maria, on her once rejoicing at the supposed removal of the Cardinal from power; and that Charles himself fell a victim to strong measures in a weak government, CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. 27 was perhaps owing to that same admiration of Richelieu. It is certain that Olivarez* also was dazzled by the abilities of his enemy, Richelieu ; but Richelieu lived to regret the increasing bad fortunes of Charles, and to see the catastrophe of Strafford f very much brought on by his intrigues with the Puritans in Scotland. Richelieu could never obtain forgiveness from Anne of Austria; and his vanity was wounded at the detestation of a young and handsome queen. His unceasing persecution of her was said to have pro- ceeded from a declaration of love which he once made her, which she resented. He intercepted her letters to Spain ; and when she retired to an apartment she had in the monastery of the Val dc Grace, he sent thither the chancellor and the archbishop, who broke open her oratory, seized * The Count-Duke Olivarez, prime minister of Spain to Philip IV. He died (as his historian relates) of the illness of which disgraced ministers die, at Toro, in the kingdom of Leon, in 1643. Richelieu, Buckingham, and Olivarez hated, and were alternately in league against each other. f Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, fell on the scaffold in May, 1641, the year previous to the death of Richelieu. He was tried by his peers, and his defence was worthy of his life. c2 28 CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. her papers, questioned the nuns, and banished the abbess. Richelieu spared her neither publicity nor ceremony. " What a way of being loved !" says Madame de Matteville, who tells the story. Yet the horror Anne of Austria had of being sent back to Spain was so great, that she cried out on this occasion, " Monsieur le Cardinal, how good you are !" Another victim of his power, Marie de Medicis, the widow of Henry IV. and the mother of Louis XIIL, poor and in exile, died accusing Richelieu. The Cardinal placed Cinq-Mars about the King, who rapidly increased in favour. Two fac- tions existed at court the Cardinalists and the Royalists, with Cinq-Mars at their head. But Richelieu was on the watch. The Count was then in the south of France, in a situation favourable for an intercourse with Spain ; and the Cardinal had the good fortune to surprise one of the emissaries of the Royalists, and to seize a treaty concluded between them and the enemies of France. He repaired to Louis, and forced from him an order for the arrest of the criminals ; and in consequence, Cinq-Mars and De Thou perished on the scaffold. CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. 29 But the Cardinal's end was approaching. He was carried from Lyons to Paris in a sort of room, by eighteen guards, who marched bareheaded. The gates of the cities through which he was to pass being too narrow to "admit this equipage, a breach was made in the walls for that purpose. Five months after the death of Cinq-Mars, Richelieu died. It was the end of 1642. No abatement of his pride marked his last moments. He recommended Mazarin to the King, and saw approaching death with the same calm he was accustomed to give to his ordinary occupations. He received the sacrament, saying, " Here is my God and my Lord ; I protest before him that, in all I have undertaken, I have always kept in view the good of religion and the good of the kingdom." When he was asked whether he for- gave his enemies, his answer was, " I have no enemies but those of the state." The princes and grandees crowded his apartment. Some were edified by his piety ; others were horrified, feeling that his security was full of fearful illusion. When Richelieu was dead, the poor weak King contented himself with saying, " Voila un grand politique mort." The funeral honours rendered 30 CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. to him were as magnificent as his life had been ; but the people lighted bonfires with joy. The King was amongst his legatees, and ac- cepted a million and a half in specie, and the Palais Cardinal and the furniture. Never had a minister created so many means of economy as Richelieu. He arranged his expenses every week with his maitre-d'hotel ; his table, his equipage, and every arrangement of his household, were on a more magnificent scale than the King's. But the cost of all this luxury did not fall entirely on the state, for the Cardinal was General of three of the richest of the monastic orders. Even when his health was bad, Richelieu was indefatigable at work. He used to go to bed at eleven, then awake in the middle of the night, and dictate or write. At six he slept again for an hour or two. Richelieu well knew the value of pleasing in manner and address; he could command his countenance to an astonishing degree, and when apparently sunk in pain, and half dead, he would in an instant afterwards rise from his arm-chair gay and amusing. Marie de Medicis used to say Richelieu had CARDINAL DE RICHELIEU. 31 tears at command. He received every one with studied politeness, holding out his hand affec- tionately to some who came to speak to him ; and, when he intended to gain them over, he spared neither praises nor flattery. He was anxious to be of use to those who shewed him attachment, and his word was inviolable. His servants looked on him as the best of masters, and he recompensed them liberally. Richelieu was said to have been the lover of the Duchess de Chevreuse, and of the famous Marion de I'Orme ; but the truth of these reports was never ascertained. To justify the " inconvenance" of his military exploits, he associated with himself several ecclesiastics ; and, at the siege of La Ro- chelle, bishops and abbes were seen in numbers directing the works. He made the Archbishop of Bourdeaux an admiral, and sent Pere Joseph to discuss the plan of the campaign with the Duke of Weimar. The memory of Richelieu protected the regency of Anne of Austria better than the Italian finesse of Mazarin, and opened the way to the glory of the reign of Louis XIV. 32 PERE JOSEPH. PERE JOSEPH. Born, 1577; died, 1638. THE terrible Pere Joseph, that most intriguing and audacious of monks, was the attendant spirit of the Cardinal de Richelieu. He was the son of Leclerc au Tremblay, of Anjou, and some years older than his patron. He was distinguished for his learning, had travelled in Germany and Italy ; made a campaign ; and had been at the siege of Amiens. All at once he quitted the army, be- came a capuchin, and entered into a controversy with the Calvinists. Seventeen years afterwards he was known in the world as the friend of Riche- lieu, and the abettor of his schemes. Pope Paul V. had a high opinion of the capacity of Pere Joseph. Richelieu made use of his in- triguing spirit on all occasions: he was by turn politician, missionary, and courtier. Pere Joseph appeared in the military operations of the siege of La Rochelle. When he returned to his cell, the monk was occupied in unison with Richelieu's ambitious projects. He was a kind of PERE JOSEPH. 33 familiar spirit, and served him equally in his virtues, his vices, and his passions. The principal persons of the kingdom saw them- selves obliged to please " 1'Eminence Grise," (as he was called,) if they did not choose to displease Richelieu. Brulart, who had him for a second in conducting the negotiation in 1630 with the Emperor at Ratisbon, said that he had nothing of his profession but the dress, and nothing of a Christian but the name. There is a story of him, that an officer whom he had sent on an expedition, moved by his conscience at the orders he had received, returned for further explanation, and found the capuchin saying mass. He approached, and whispered, " Mais, mon Pere, should these persons defend themselves ?" " Qu'on tue tout;" answered Pere Joseph, continuing his devotions. Pere Joseph knew so well the ideas and views of the Cardinal, that he had no occasion for orders how to act ; his object was to deceive the whole world besides, and his audacious genius often mastered the policy of Richelieu. Their friend- ship was sincere, and their interests brought them c3 34 BOIS-ROBERT. together; but their conversations were often bitter. Pere Joseph refused a bishopric, and died a dis- appointed man that the Pope had not made him a cardinal. When he was dying, Richelieu was occu- pied in care and attendance on his friend to the last moments of his life ; and after his death, fre- quently said that, in losing him, he had lost his right hand. The parliament of Paris, by Richelieu's orders, attended his magnificent funeral ; and he had two funeral orations preached in his praise. He was buried in the church of the capuchins, where, before the French Revolution, a long Latin epi- taph might be read on his tomb. BOIS-ROBERT. Born, 1592; died, 1662. BOIS-ROBERT, the most agreeable man of his day, and, as he said of himself, " Un grand dupeur d'oreilles," was a celebrated wit, and another dear friend of Richelieu. He was an excellent mimic, BOIS-ROBERT. 35 told the news of the day in the most entertaining manner ; made old stories young again ; and be- came so necessary to the Cardinal, that Citois, his physician, used to say : " Monseigneur, we will do all we can for your health ; but all our drugs are useless, if you do not add some Bois-Robert." Once, when Bois-Robert was in disgrace with Richelieu, the French Academy asked for his recal, which was managed by Monsieur Citois writing at the bottom of his prescription for Richelieu " Recipe Bois-Robert " which succeeded. Bois-Robert was all through his life much tormented by his family applying to him to ask for places and pensions; and he wrote some verses, which begin " Melchis^dech &oit un heureux homme, Etson bonheur est 1'objet de mes vceux, Car il n'avoit ni frferes ui neveux." These verses have since been made the foundation for an excellent comedy on the French stage. 36 CORNEILLE. CORNEILLE. Born, 1606; died, 1684. AN event that happened in society first pro- duced the dramatic talent of Le Grand Corneille. A young man went with a friend to visit a young lady with whom he was in love. The new-comer pleasing more than the lover, he established a passion on the ruins of that of his predecessor. Corneille founded his comedy of Melite upon this adventure, which was acted with success, and fol- lowed by many others. Still nothing announced the stupendous genius of Corneille, the great dramatic poet of France. These plays are but weak attempts of a talent which followed, instead of leading, the taste of the times. But to them are due the part so essential in comedy, of Soubrette, substituted for the first time for the part of Nurse, which had belonged to the old plays, and had hitherto been acted by men in women's clothes. The vanity of the Cardinal de Richelieu, who balanced the destinies of Europe, turned upon his literary pretensions. Corneille had a pension from CORNEILLE. 37 him, and offended him by changing the plan of a play written by the Cardinal. Corneille on this withdrew from his protection, and shut himself up with his studies, and with his own family. A fortunate accident now made Corneille ac- quainted with M. de Chalon, who had been a se- cretary of Marie de Medicis, and had retired in his old age to the town of Rouen. M. de Chalon said to him, " Your comedies are clever, but the style is unworthy of your talent ; if you will study the Spanish literature, you will there find subjects that will produce striking effects; if you will learn Spanish, I will teach you all I know of it. We will begin by translating some portions of Guillen de Castro." To such accidents are the destinies of men and things subject. Without this incident, which oc- curred in a provincial town, the great Corneille would have been known to posterity but as an in- different lawyer, and the author of some plays of no great value. The words of the old retired courtier produced " Le Cid," which created an enthusiasm worthy of it. Nothing had been written in France that ap- proached to it in grandeur and sublimity. Richelieu, 38 CORNEILLE. an enemy to all fame and success but his own, saw in his ancient protege a rebellious subject, who, in disgrace, had had the insolence and good-fortune to succeed. Corneille shewed much patience in supporting the storm of the Cardinal's ill-humour. " En vain centre Le Cid, un ministre se ligue, Tout Paris, pour Chimene, a les yeux de Rodrigue." The Cardinal commanded the French Academy to publish a critique of the Cid ; the academy con- sidered of it during five months, and got out of the scrape admirably, both as critics and as cour- tiers. At last the Cardinal and Corneille were re- conciled ; and he dedicated to him his " Horace." Corneille was an example often seen in literary life, of being totally unlike his writings. Sublime and magnificent in his conceptions, he looked like a shopkeeper ; he had no manner at all ; and his conversation was so dull, that he was a weight in society. He was aware of this himself, and avowed it with all the frankness and modesty of his nature; for in a note to Pellisson he says, " Et Ton pent rarement m'dcouter sans ennui, Que quand je me produis par la bouche d'autrui." PASCAL. 39 This is not astonishing ; as it does not follow that deep thought and a great mind should give grace and tact, or the happy talent of seizing the apropos of times and persons, all of which are necessary to succeed in the great world. Corneille had the manner of one of the lower classes of society, to which was added a brusquerie and a roughness which, at first acquaintance, gave an unfavourable impression of his disposition. These reproaches he bore in common with the great hero of France, Turenne; and the heart of Corneille (like that of Turenne) overflowed with humanity and kindness. Corneille was a good son, a good husband, and a good father. He had simple tastes and habits, and liked the quiet of domestic life. Montesquieu compares him to Michel Angelo, and Racine to Raffaelle, in their productions. PASCAL. Born, 1623 ; died, 1662. THE father of Pascal sold his employment at Clermont, and established himself at Paris, to give himself wholly to the education of his three chil- 40 PASCAL. dren. His ideas on education were in those times very peculiar. He himself was a man of great merit, and given up to the culture of letters and science ; and, from the age of three years, his son was the object of his dearest hopes; the great degree of intelligence which the child manifested excited all his solicitude. Pascal's father looked upon memory as the first qualification to cultivate, as necessary to precede judgment, which should be called into action later in life, after reason is formed ; he thought it neces- sary to cultivate the heart still more than the head, and not to neglect the feeling and imagina- tion which belong to youth, and from which source, in the end, proceed both taste and moral character. He began the education of his son by teaching him languages, at the same time taking care to give him just and true ideas on every subject. The sagacity of the child, the justness of his remarks, and his eager curiosity to gain knowledge, made him find great pleasure in his father's conversa- tion, and it was seen that he never rested till he had found out the reasons for everything connected with his studies. The elder Pascal, having gone against the PASCAL. 41 opinion of government in a law proceeding, was ordered to the Bastille by the Cardinal de Riche- lieu, but he escaped by a timely flight. At this time the Duchess d'Aiguillon wanted to get up a piece of Scudery's, called "L'Amour Tyrannique," to amuse the Cardinal ; and she wished to have Jacqueline Pascal, the youngest daughter, to play one of the parts. Gilberte, the eldest, opposed her acting, from dislike of the Cardinal's conduct to her father ; but, with the hope that it might be of use eventually, she yielded, and the young Jac- queline acquitted herself so well in the part, that Richelieu accorded the little girl her father's pardon, which she asked for in verse. The father was recalled, the minister saw him, and liked him, and soon after made him the In- tendant of Rouen, which place he filled during seven years ; during which time all the accounts were given over to the younger Pascal, who at this time invented the famous " Machine Arith- metique." The astonishing combinations of this machine, and the way in which the calculations are executed, occasioned such fatigue of body and mind to the inventor, and that at so very early an age, that his constitution was ruined by it. 42 PASCAL. Pascal's profound learning, and his astronomical and philosophical pursuits, are not the object of the present notice. He was endowed with great sense, astonishing sagacity, excellent taste in seiz- ing the just and the true in everything ; but his purest title to glory, a glory immortal and without a cloud, is in the book called " Les Pensees de Pascal," a series of detached papers composed at different times, but all marked with genius, and written during cruel sufferings of body, which shortened his life. In these " Thoughts " are found the most magnificent views of Christianity, considered as revelation, as history, and as proofs of divinity. It is from Pascal that some of the greatest orators have taken their ideas. There are examples in Bossuet, who evidently made him his model. Pascal was equally great as an author, a savant, and a philosopher. He used to say that it was better to make men feel the beauties and majesty of religion than to prove to them drily its truths. He said that it was rare that "les grands geo- metres soient fins, et que les gens fins soient geometres." Pascal has been accused of not liking poetry ; PASCAL. 43 and it has been asserted that he said that poetry has no settled object. It is difficult to believe that one who has been the occasion of so much poetry in others should have had no feeling for it him- self. Pope borrowed from him many of his ideas for his Essay on Man ; and the " Thought," which d'Alembert particularly singles out for admiration, is full of poetical magnificence. " Dieu est comme un cercle, dont le centre est partout, et la circon- ference nulle part." One of the great French writers defines genius as patience, " La patience cherche, et le genie trouve." To the co-operation of these two powers the world owes everything. " Patience must first explore the depths where the pearl lies hid, before genius boldly dives and brings it up full into light." This sentence will perhaps illustrate the genius of Pascal as much as pages of elaborate description could do. From eighteen years old Pascal never passed a day without suffering; and in 1647 he had a pa- ralytic attack, which deprived him of the use of his limbs. He lost his father four years after ; and his sister, whose distinguished talents called her to 44 PASCAL. play a part in the great world, touched by his excellence, retired from society to lead a religious life at Port Royal. Much attached to his family, but now left to himself, Pascal's constant application destroyed the little remains of his health ; and an accident which happened to him in his helpless and infirm state so impressed on his imagination the small dependence we can place on life, that he gave up all the comforts of existence for works of charity ; and to mortify his senses in all ways, he wore a belt of pointed iron. In this state he completed the solution of the problems of the Cycloide in eight days. Pascal died at the age of thirty-nine, a saint in goodness ; and had he been gifted with health and long life, there is no knowing what such an un- derstanding might not have accomplished. The French behold in him the rival of Galileo, the forerunner of Moliere and Boileau, the equal of Bossuet in eloquence, and the greatest of philo- sophers in placing truth as the basis of philosophy, and the knowledge of the duties and destiny of man. Pascal was a witness to all the troubles of the Fronde, and nothing could detach him from the PASCAL. 45 King's cause : he detested civil war, and looked on its evils with the eye of Christian charity. Charity was one of his leading virtues ; he prac- tised it on all occasions ; he imposed on himself constant privations, to give to the poor. " I have remarked," h said, " that however poor one may be, there remains always something at one's death." Pascal bore patiently being told of his faults, the greatest of which was a disposition to impa- tience, which is common to persons of literary talent. When he had vexed any one with his vivacities he tried to make amends. Pascal wished to get rid of worldly cares, as un- worthy of fixing a soul destined for immortality. In the same way he tried on that principle to detach his friends from him, and he gave up his soul latterly to the love of God. When he was so ill that he could no longer work, he made up for his idleness by assisting at all the church sen-ices. The 118th Psalm he repeated often with admiration. After Pascal's death his " eloge" was for some time suppressed by the credit of the Jesuits. Vol- taire also perfidiously tried to lower his intellect 46 DUKE AND DUCHESS DE MONTMORENCY. in public estimation, in the edition of " Les Pensees de Pascal" that came out in 1778. In the library of St. Germains des Pres are preserved all the scattered papers on which were found written his reflections. HENRI DE MONTMORENCY, DUKE DE MONTMORENCY. Born, 1595; died, 1632. DUCHESS DE MONTMORENCY. Born, 1600; died, 1666. ONE of the most tragical and romantic stories in history is that of Henri de Montmorency, Duke and Mareschal of France in the reign of Louis XIH. ; it bears the same analogy to the history of Strafford that the death of Louis XVI. bears to that of Charles I. Montmorency had been the idol of the people, of the court, and of the army: he had the most brilliant name, the most valiant courage, and the most engaging disposition. A series of political intrigues, too long to detail, but to be found in the DUKE AND DUCHESS DE MONTMORENCY. 47 memoirs of the times, brought him to the scaffold ; he was condemned by the parliament of Toulouse, and beheaded on the 30th of Oct., 1632, at the age of thirty-eight. There was difficulty in proving before the judges that Montmorency had actually borne arms against the King. " The smoke and dirt," said St. Reuil, the witness, " rendered it impossible to recognise any combatant distinctly. But when I saw one advance alone, and cut his way through five ranks of gensdarmes, I knew that it must be Mont- morency." It was said that his judges were so affected at the sight of him during his trial, that they covered their faces to hide their tears and distress ; but the great master of all, the Cardinal de Richelieu, had resolved on his death. Louis XIII. declared on his death-bed, to the Prince de Conde, his regret that he had not spared Montmorency's life. Dr. Johnson remarks, with his aristocratic feel" ings: "Had I been Richelieu, I would not have permitted the first Christian baron to have been sacrificed on the scaffold." How was it that it escaped his gigantic understanding that it was the 48 DUKE AND DUCHESS DE MOXTMORENCY. policy of Richelieu that he should die, precisely because he was the first person in France, in family and in reputation ? The sister of Montmorency was the Princess de Conde, for whom Henry IV. had a romantic passton during his latter years. She was the mother of the great Conde and of the Duchess de Longueville. The wife of Montmorency was Marie, Princess of Orsini, a relation of Marie de Medicis. She loved her husband with that violence of passion with which Italian women love. Before his death she told him that she could not see him engaged in the league with Gaston d' Orleans without dying of grief. Gaston made her a visit, thinking that she had been a party concerned in it ; but he came away " le cceur frappe," finding how entirely she disapproved of it. After the execution of her husband, the Duchess de Montmorency was confined to the Chateau de Moulins. At the end of a year, the government allowed of her leaving it, and she profited by the permission to buy a house in the most retired part of the town of Moulins, where she constantly in- habited a room hung with black, and lighted with DUKE AND DUCHESS DE MONTMORENCY. 49 a few tapers. Afterwards she retired into the Convent of the Visitation. Ten years after the execution of Montmorency, Louis XIII. being related to the Duchess, and passing through the town of Moulins, sent one of his suite to her, with the compliments customary in those days. She received the attendant, her face covered with a veil, and still given up to grief. " Thank the King," she said, " for the honour he does to a miserable woman, and do not forget to report to him all you see here." Soon after, a page arrived with the like message from Richelieu : when the Duchess said, " Tell the Cardinal that, during ten years, my tears have not ceased to flow." After having had a superb mausoleum erected to the memory of a husband so long and so bitterly deplored, she had his body removed from Toulouse in 1652. Five years afterwards she took the veil in a convent at Moulins, that she might be near his remains ; and there she lived a long life in the practice of every Christian virtue. Henrietta-Maria, on her arrival in France, went to the Duchess to weep with her over the tragical VOL. i. D 50 DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. end of Charles I. Louis XIV. and Anne of Austria visited her several times, and even Chris- tine, Queen of Sweden, wished to see this illus- trious lady. In the retirement of a convent and in her friendship, the Duchess de Longueville, her niece, and the Duchess de Chatillon, found occasionally a calm, not to be met with in the agitation of the times, and the intrigues of a court. THE DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. Born, 1600; died, 1679. THE celebrated Duchess de Chevreuse was known as a wit and a beauty in many of the courts of Europe during the reign of Louis XIII. and the regency of Anne of Austria, and became distinguished in French history from the share she had in public events, her spirit of intrigue, and her love of adventures. She was the daughter of the Duke de Montbazon by his first wife, Made- leine de Lenoncourt. The Duke de Luynes, prime minister and favourite of Louis XIIL, and predecessor of Riche- DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. 51 lieu in office, married this lady for love, and Marie de Rohan brought him in dowry all that ambition could desire the support and connexion of a great and powerful family, her father's expe- rience and assistance in warlike and political affairs; and beauty and wit, which she soon turned to her own and her husband's account, in the total government of both the King and Queen. Anne of Austria passed her days in schemes of amuse- ment, Louis in the pleasures of the chase, and the Duke de Luynes and this young beauty of seven- teen ruled France.* The Duke de Luynes died three years after his marriage; and two years afterwards, the Duchess married the Duke de Chevreuse, the brother of the Duke de Guise. Soon after, the marriage of Henrietta-Maria with Charles I. was settled. This royal marriage was * Whoever has had the good fortune to see Madame Leon- tine Volnys perform the part of the Duchess de Chevreuse in a play called " Un Duel sous Richelieu," will understand what beauty, grace, and passion may accomplish. It is possible that the court beauty and heroine of the Fronde might have been as graceful and fascinating as her representative of 1838 ; more so she could not have been. D2 52 DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. not only an affair of state, but an affair of pleasures and intrigues without number. The Duke of Buckingham, the favourite of Charles, came to France to espouse Henrietta- Maria in the name of his master. He was liberal and magnificent, and he brought in hi3 train a number of handsome and gay young cavaliers. Loves and friendships were consequently formed, which the great Cardinal did not see without un- easiness. The air and manner of the presumptu- ous Buckingham gave him offence, and the passion which he audaciously proclaimed for Anne of Austria indisposed against him all the reasonable persons of the court. Not only did Buckingham present himself to the Queen as one determined to please, but he accompanied all his actions with the imprudences of a violent passion. The King and every one saw it, and Richelieu, both to satisfy his own aver- sion and to please the King, mortified Bucking- ham by every means in his power. Buckingham, on his part, raised a cry at court against the Cardinal, amongst those who did not like the interference of a minister in their pleasures and amusements. DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. 53 In the history of the public buildings of Paris it is mentioned that the Duke de Chevreuse* bought the Hotel de Luynes, that the Duchess might not have the trouble of changing her home on her marriage. Houses have their stories as well as persons. That house became celebrated in the wars of the Fronde, as the Hotel de Chevreuse, and still more celebrated, when they were over, as the Hotel de Longueville. In a curious old book, Sir John Finett's Ob- servations touching Foreign Ambassadors, the Duchess's beauty is adverted to : he says, that the Duke and Duchess de Chevreuse accompanied Henrietta-Maria to England, on her marriage. It was the 13th of May, 1625, that that unlucky marriage for England took place ; another instance to add to the list supposed to accompany the un- lucky number, thirteen. King Charles went to receive the Queen in the Castle of Dover, where the Duke received his audience as ambassador extraordinary. In the quaint language of the day, Sir John Finett says, " The King honoured him with his " * Claude de Lorraine, Duke de Chevreuse, Knight of the Garter, &c., died 1657. 54 DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. company to his Majesty's own presence chamber, for a sight and welcome of the fair Duchess de Chevreuse." When they got to London the Duke and Duchess were lodged at Somerset House, and the next day received a visit from the Earl of Arundel,* on the part of his Majesty. The Earl conducted them to the public audience chamber. The plague was then beginning to shew itself in London, and the Duke and Duchess de Chev- reuse were lodged in the King's house at Rich- mond. This caused a jealousy amongst the am- bassadors ; but the following answer from Charles, given by Sir John Finett, to their complaints, shews the wish of the King to please the French attendants of Henrietta-Maria : " That the Queen having been desirous, for the long acquaintance that had passed between her and the Duchess de Chevreuse, to have her near at the time of her (the Duchess's) delivery and lying-in (then towards), would have her lodged in the King's house at Richmond, and that she having * Thomas Howard, Earl of Arnndel and Surrey, who was Earl Marshal of England, and Lord High Steward at the trial of the Earl of Slrafford : he died at Padua in 1646. DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. 55 her lodging there, it was fit the Duke, her hus- band, should have his there also." The ensuing year, after the Duchess's re- turn to France, the tragical history of Chalais occurred. The Duchess was superintendent of the house- hold to Anne of Austria. The history of the un- fortunate C orate de Chalais is more like fiction invented for the stage than a story belonging to history and to political life. He was of the ancient family of Talleyrand- Perigord, the grandson of the Mareschal de Montluc, in great favour with the King, enjoying places at court. He was very handsome, in the flower of youth ; but an ardent friend and a passionate lover was not a character to prosper in the times of the weak Louis and the politic Richelieu. The intrigue that conducted Chalais to the scaf- fold became, from a matter of little importance, a great state affair, and he fell the only victim, whilst others, more unworthy in every way, went unpun- ished. The intrigue began by one, on the part of Anne of Austria and of the Duchess de Chevreuse, which had for its object to keep th.e King's brother unmarried. The great Cardinal often relaxed from 56 DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. his labours in the society of the young men and women of the court ; and his assiduities in this society, so little of a piece with the gravity of his character, caused it to be given out that he was attracted there by the charms of the Duchess de Chevreuse. She was flattered by his preference for her society, while in private she abused and reviled him ; and the Cardinal had warning of the numerous sobriquets by which she called him. A number of young men of the court of Louis XIII. formed a plot to assassinate the Cardinal in his country-house of Limours, near Fontainbleau. It was arranged that Chalais was to strike the first blow, and fly to Holland until his pardon was ob- tained. This young man, oppressed by the feel- ings of his conscience at the crime he was medi- tating, imparted the secret to the Commander de Valance, who induced him to repent of it, and communicated the secret to Richelieu, as if desired to do so from Chalais. He told Richelieu that on pretext of dining at Limours, the Duke of Orleans would send some officers of his household thither; that when Gaston arrived a quarrel would be fomented, and the assassination was then to be perpetratedt DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. 57 Richelieu did not at first give credit to this story, but when he saw the officers arrive next day, he did believe in the truth of it. The Cardinal got into his carriage, went to Fontainbleau, where Gaston was, presented himself to him, told him that he should have been flattered to have done the honours of the entertainment that his roval / highness meant to have taken under his roof, but that as the Duke wished to be at liberty, he had left him the house at his disposal. The Cardinal, not waiting for an answer, then retired, leaving all the conspirators in great confusion. Richelieu tried to get at the origin of the con- spiracy ; he questioned the members of the family of Chalais with whom he was on terms of intimacy, and from them got more excuses than avowals. From Chalais himself he received assurances of repentance, and heard enough from him to predict to him his end. But this was a vain menace to an enthusiastic and enterprising young man, madly in love with the Duchess de Chevreuse, who shewed him interest enough to engage him in her dislikes, and in the hatred which Anne of Austria had vowed towards Richelieu. A violent friendship with the Prior and the Duke de Vendome also D3 08 DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. led him on to destruction. But of all these per- sons Chalais alone was arrested. The weak and miserable King changed from the greatest friendship to the most violent dislike of Chalais, which he was often wont to do with his favourites. He was persuaded that Chalais hated him; and as Chalais was proved to have turned the monarch's failings into ridicule in his letters to Madame de Chevreuse, it was not diffi- cult to settle the King in that belief. The marriage of Gaston, and the consequent fetes and rejoicings in France, went along with the law process against Chalais in the court of judicature. In vain did the Duke ask for the pardon of his friend : he entreated, prayed, and threatened, but the Cardinal was inexorable, and the trial was preceded by a singular step on the part of Richelieu, who went himself into the prison to question Chalais. No one ever knew what passed between them. The unfortunate Chalais heard of the marriage of his friend by the noise of the cannon fired from his prison. There are no details extant of the law process. Chalais was executed at Nantes the day that he received the sentence. All the accom- DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. 59 plices left the court of Louis. The Comte de Soissons had leave to travel; Madame de Che- vreuse was ordered to her estate of Dampiere, in Lorraine; and it was said that in the award of the sentence the Cardinal had shewn his indul- gence to the woman he admired. Thus ended the tragical history of coquetry. But Madame de Chevreuse was not of a character to profit even by her own experience. In Lorraine she received the agents of Buckingham ; and the Lord Abbot Montague, his friend, was there with her. The jealousy of Louis XIII. had closed France against the redoubtable Buckingham, who swore in his anger to revisit France and Anne of Austria. After the Duchess had instructed his agents, they joined the party against the Cardinal ; but the storm broke over all their heads : they all dispersed to different countries, and Madame de Chevreuse escaped to England, and in fear of being arrested, it was said she swam across the Saone to reach Calais. Some years after the Queen interceded for Ma- dame de Chevreuse, who was allowed to return to court, and her adventures with Buckingham and 60 DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. the Abbot, Walter Montague, were seemingly for- gotten. Richelieu had a long illness, during which time he took care to be informed of the proceedings of the Queen's society. It had been remarked that the Duchess had been but slightly punished, com- pared with the severity with which the Cardinal generally treated those who counteracted his plans and projects. But the recovery of Richelieu was like the rousing of the lion. The Duchess, in league with Anne of Austria and La Rochefou- cauld, was accused of keeping up a treasonable correspondence with the Marquis de Mirabella in Spain. Afraid of being arrested, she left the Hotel de Chevreuse by a back entrance, disguised in man's clothes, and reaching Tours, rode off into Spain. Chateauneuf was banished to his estates, and the seals given to Seguier. But the martyr of this in- trigue was the young Chevalier de Jars, of the family of Rochechouart, " 1'homme aimable" of the Queen's society. He was arrested, and confined in the dungeons of the Bastille, and from thence conveyed to Troyes. Nothing was ever proved DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. 61 against him, but he was ordered to suffer death on the scaffold in the Grande Place, at Troyes. The executioner having bandaged his eyes and confined his hands, La Feymas, a man who from his character was called Richelieu's execu- tioner, said to him, "You are forgiven; now confess what you know of the intrigues of Cha- teauneuf." " What you could not obtain from me by vio- lence, you shall not get by kindness," was the an- swer of De Jars ; " you shall not make me speak against my friends." He was then conducted back to his prison, but, some years afterwards, got leave to go into foreign countries. This was one of the many abuses of public authority resorted to by Richelieu, and one of the actions dignified by him under the name of state expediency. Madame de Chevreuse now wandered about Europe for several years. She was in England in 1638, and was present at the installation of the Knights of the Garter at Windsor. Rich, Earl of Holland, was one of her lovers. In whatever country she was, wherever she travelled, she ob- 62 tained an ascendency over the princes and leading persons of the state. The Cardinal de Retz, in describing the Duchess, says that her beauty was gone when he first saw her ; but that her wit stood her in lieu of judgment, and her sayings were like those of the cleverest men. She was led by her passions en- tirely, and, says De Retz, "Elle aimait unique- ment et fidelement. Elle nous a avoue, a Madame de Rhodes et a moi, que par un caprice, disait-elle, de la fortune, elle n'avait jamais aime le mieux ce qu'elle avait estime le plus; a la reserve toutefois, ajouta-t-elle, du pauvre Bucking- ham." Louis XIII. on his death-bed exempted Ma- dame de Chevreuse from the general pardon. She had so much incurred his displeasure, that he named her as a dangerous person to the state, and one whose return to France should never be per- mitted. But the will of Louis was but little re- spected, and the Duchess, then an "errant lady" in the Low Countries, and Chateauneuf in banish- ment, were permitted to return to court. Meanwhile the men feared the capacity of Cha- DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. 63 teauneuf, the women dreaded the influence of the Duchess, and both joined to decry these two per- sons. Chateauneuf found an enemy in the Princess de Conde, who could never pardon him the share he had in the death of her brother, Montmorency. It was represented to Anne of Austria, that she imagined that Chateauneuf and the Duchess had been martyrs to their attachment to her, but that Louis XIII. had banished them for a love intrigue. However, the Duchess was received publicly by the Queen as her friend. In private the Queen gave her advice to abstain from court intrigue, but the Duchess got the better of the Queen's intentions with regard to her, and Mazarin now acted, it was supposed, in a pre-con- certed plan with the Queen. Mazarin went to visit the .Duchess, and after paying her all the com- pliments likely to gain over a woman of her pre- tensions to beauty and wit, he offered her the use of his credit and his purse, under the pretext that a long absence from France might make both desirable. She thanked him, but received the offer as a person much piqued ; his purse she re- fused, and his credit she laughed at, as well as the 64 DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. supposition that she could want influence with the Queen ; however, she promised herself the pleasure of putting Mazarin's offers to the proof, who after- wards said that he found her insatiable in demands. The Duchess de Chevreuse now became the organ at the court of France of " La Cabale des Importants, " by whom the Queen was surrounded ; a name given to the enemies of the late govern- ment of the Cardinal de Richelieu. They were called by this name because, proud of the Queen's confidence, they gave themselves airs of protection and importance. The Princess de Conde, in op- position, protected the Richelieu party ; and a pri- vate pique against the Duke de Beaufort, who was at the head of the Cabale des Importants, deter- mined this political opposition. The Duke had asked Mademoiselle de Bourbon, her daughter, in marriage, but changed his mind, and would not fulfil his engagement Her son, the young Duke d'Enghien, the hero of the age, had just returned from the army, hav- ing, at the age of two-and-twenty, gained the battle of Rocroi. Fond of dissipation and pleasure, he attached himself to the gay circle of the DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. 65 Duchesses of Chevreuse and Montbazon. This last lady was younger by many years than her daughter-in-law, the Duchess de Chevreuse, and was the greatest beauty of France at that moment. An imprudent piece of malice of the Duchess de Montbazon drew away the hero of Rocroi from the Cabale des Importants. Some love-letters, found and recognised by Madame de Montbazon as the writing of the young Duchess de Longue- ville, the sister of the Duke, were read and com- mented upon in this society. The Princess de Conde, indignant at the im- putation, and still more so at the publicity given to the letters, asked the Queen for justice, as an affront to the royal family. This " tracasserie" became a serious affair. The Duke de Beaufort declared himself the champion of Madame de Montbazon, for whom he affected great admira- tion ; the Duke d'Enghien defied his sister's de- tractors ; and the courtiers, according to their interest or their inclination, offered their swords to the rival dukes. The Queen at last assumed the tone of au- thority, and commanded Madame de Montbazon to make a reparation. Mazarin prescribed the 66 DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. words, the ceremonial and the place. So many difficulties arose that it became as weighty an affair as the most complicated treaty between two mighty empires. At the execution of the treaty, the Princess de Conde convoked in her own house a great assembly; the Duchess de Montbazon came, and read aloud, in a tone of irony, some lines of excuse and compliment that had been pre- concerted. The Princess de Conde answered quietly, but in a bitter tone, and they all separated, hating each other more than ever. This meeting was called "L'amende honorable de Madame de Montbazon." In the dread of new scenes occurring, the Queen commanded Madame de Montbazon not to make her appearance where the Princess de Conde was likely to be ; and this order, which placed victory on the side of the Condes, upheld by Mazarin, should have intimated to the IMPORTANTS what position they held in the Queen's favour. But the story was not yet come to an end. Anne of Austria was a kind mistress to those of her household who followed her wishes, but she hated contradiction ; and the pains that the Duchess de Chevreuse took to tell her reports con- DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. 67 cerning herself and Mazarin displeased her. The Duchess de Chevreuse was to give a fete-cham- petre to the Queen, and the Duchess de Mont- bazon came there, she said, to assist her daughter- in-law in doing the honours. The Princess de Conde, in attendance on the Queen, offered to stay away, not to disturb the pleasures of the fete ; but the Queen would not hear of it, and sent to Madame de Montbazon to make a pretext for absenting herself. She refused to obey, and Anne of Austria would not go to the fete. Next day, the Queen exiled Madame de Mont- bazon, and desired Madame de Chevreuse to go into the country ; but some days after, remember- ing her as the friend of her early youth, she sent for her, spoke to her as a friend, and advised her living in France without having to do with in- trigues of any sort. Madame de Motteville says in her Memoirs, that the Queen said to her : "I promise you my friendship on these terms ; but if you disturb the court, I must oblige you to go, and I can only promise you the favour of being sent away the last." The Duke de Beaufort took Madame de Mont- bazon's absence "en hero de roman," shewing him- 68 DUCHESS DE CHEVREU8E. self everywhere with an air of disdain and bad humour, and ready to break a lance against all who did not declare for "la dame de ses pensees." He affronted some, braved others, was rude to Mazarin, turned his back on the Queen when she spoke to him, and when he spoke to her did it in the most ill-bred and ironical terms. The Queen hearing from Mazarin of secret assemblies of armed men, who were in wait to assassinate or carry him off, took fright, arrested the Duke de Beaufort, shut him up at Vincennes, and the Duchess de Chevreuse, Chateauneuf, and others, had orders to leave the court. Thus ended the Cabale des Important^. Much concerning the wars of the Fronde, and the arrest of the Princes, will be found in the chapters concerning Gaston, Duke of Orleans, the Cardinal de Retz, and the Duchess de Longueville. During the thirteen months of the imprisonment of the Prince de Conde, the Prince de Conti, his brother, and the Duke de Longueville, the Fron- deurs made conditions with the Condes. After their liberation, the triumph of the Condes was complete. The guarantee of the confederation was a proposed marriage between the Prince de DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. 69 Conti and Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, the daugh- ter and heiress of the Duchess. At that time first appeared in the salons of Anne of Austria, a class of persons who have exercised so important an influence upon society during the two hundred years that have elapsed since their first appearance, that they cannot be passed over without notice. They were the favourites and companions of the Prince de Conde, who accompanied him to court when he came to pay his respects to the Queen, and were known by the name of " les petits- maitres," because they followed the fortunes of the Prince, who was master of all These ettgans, named in many of the memoirs of the day, are represented as being distinguished for their valour and courage. They had participated in the vic- tories and glories of the Prince, their idol, and had followed him to battle. They were known by a certain "air avantageux, un ton leste, avec des manieres etourdies." Since those days the fashion of their morals, manners, tone, and conversation, have varied with the same rapidity as the fashion of their dress. Sometimes they have formed themselves on the 70 DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. model of some hero, of whom they took the pro- minent foibles or follies, being in that manner the excrescence or disease of the oak, not the oak itself; sometimes they have been blustering heroes, loud and boisterous; sometimes they affected great effeminacy, as they did in England a century ago, when a petit-maitre wore a muff, was carried in a sedan chair, had a little dog, and a smelling bottle. But the class have, with great ability and under different names, continued to exercise their power on the times they lived in ; and as fast as they went out of fashion under one denomination, they would, as if touched by harlequin's wand, re-appear in some new character in another part of the stage of life. Along with the petit-maitre appeared the reflection of the same character in the lady, whose pretensions as a petite -maitresse have, along with the term, survived so many fanciful denominations during two centuries. But La Rochefoucauld, dreading the influence of De Gondy over the Prince de Conde, raised a strong party against the marriage, amongst whom was the Duchess de Longueville, sister of the two princes ; and La Rochefoucauld persuaded the Queen to send away Chateauneuf (who was ob- DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. 71 noxious to the Condes) from her counsels, and to require from them that the marriage should be broken off. The Prince de Conde asked from his brother the sacrifice of his passion for Mademoiselle de Chevreuse. He laid before him the suspected intrigues of this young girl, and that of all the ladies who interfered in politics, and in whose houses the rendezvous for political purposes were held at night. The assiduities of De Gondy at the Hotel de Chevreuse were set forth ; and the con- sequence of all these representations was, that the Prince de Conde broke off his marriage, without the management due on these occasions, and still more due in a family connexion. This eclat was followed up by the triumph of the Conde party. Mazarin fled from France to his retreat at Cologne ; the Queen called Chavigni to her councils, sent away Chateauneuf, and gave the seals to Mole. When Gaston, lieutenant-general of the king- dom, wished to complain of these things being done without his knowledge, " You have made changes often without asking me," answered Anne of Austria, proudly. 72 DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. After these events, a curious scene took place at Gaston's palace of the Luxembourg. The Duke of Orleans had convoked a meeting to deliberate as to what was to be done in wresting the seals from the Chancellor Mole. That ladies attended these political meetings is evident from the account given of the meeting held that day. Those persons named as present are the Prince de Conde, the Prince de Conti, the Duke de Beaufort, De Gondy, and La Rochefoucauld. De Gondy gave as his opinion that the Duke d'Orleans should send an armed force to carry off the seals. " This advice," said La Rochefoucauld, "looks like an exhortation to carnage." Conde added, that he was a coward on all occasions of po- pular commotion and sedition, and had no liking for a war of stones and pebbles. The Prince de Conde and his brother, with the Duke de Beaufort, being then determined to take no share in the con- ference, withdrew into the adjoining room. De Gondy saw that these speeches were meant for him, and persisted the more in his advice. Madame (the wife of Gaston) cried, and Gaston was shaken in his opinion, as he usually was by the last person who had spoken. " But," said the Duke d'Or- DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. 73 leans, turning the subject in his mind, " if we should arrive at taking this resolution, we must first arrest those here, along with my nephew de Beaufort." " Say one word only," said Made- moiselle de Chevreuse, who had her own parti- cular injury to revenge ; " a turn of a key will do it, and allow a young girl to arrest the gainer of battles." Upon this she flew towards the door of the room where the princes were, and the Duke of Orleans after her to stop her purpose. The three princes left the Luxembourg, quite unconscious of all that had taken place concerning their liberty. Mademoiselle de Chevreuse was born at Rich- mond, at the time of the Duke de Chevreiise's embassy to London. The Cardinal de Retz, in his old age of truth and reflexion, writes thus of her : " Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, qui avait plus de beaute que d'agrement, etait sotte jusqu'au ridicule par son naturel." He adds, " and of beauty, when unaccompanied by sense, one is soon tired. The only sense she had was for the object of her passion; and as her passions did VOL. I. E 74 DUCHESS DE CHEVREUSE. not last long, neither did her sense. She fell into the same fits of rage with her lovers that she would do with her dress. Other women grow tired of their gowns and head-dresses, but she burnt all she did not fancy, and her women had the greatest difficulty in saving a petticoat, point lace, gloves, or any part of her dress that displeased her. As long as she fancied these things she took them with her to her bed, and two hours afterwards burnt them from pure aversion." The Cardinal de Retz adds, " I believe if she could have put her lovers into the fire when she grew tired of them she would have liked it, and have done it with all her heart." Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, shortly after her projected marriage had been broken off by the family of the Prince de Conti, died of the small- pox, and the Duchy of Chevreuse descended to the children of the Duchess de Chevreuse by her first husband, the Duke de Luynes. The Duchess de Chevreuse lived to the age of seventy-nine. When Cardinal Mazarin was negotiating the peace of the Pyrenees with Spain, in 1660, he CARDINAL MAZARIN. 75 said to Don Louis de Haro, naming the Duchess de Chevreuse, " We have three women amongst us in France who throw us into more confusion than ever was known in Babylon." THE CARDINAL MAZARIN. Born, 1602; died, 1661. ONE of Lord Clarendon's letters concludes, " I am glad the French ambassador hath disgusted the King (Charles I.), if he be enough disgusted. The truth is, the cheats and the villany of that nation (the French) are so gross, that I cannot think of it with patience ; neither can the King ever prosper till he abhors them perfectly, and trusts none who trust them." " The Cardinal Ma- zarin," says Clarendon, further, " was a man rather of different than contrary parts from his predeces- sor, and more fitted to build upon the foundations he had laid, than to have laid those foundations, and to cultivate by artifice, dexterity, and dissi- mulation, in which his nature and parts excelled, what the other had begun with great resolution E2 76 CARDINAL MAZARIN. and vigour, and even gone through with invincible constancy and courage." After shewing the fearful consequences brought on by French intrigues in England, towards the end of the tragedy of the reign of Charles L, D'Israeli says, " Such is the nature of ministerial offices and Machiavelian politics ! But this sys- tem, however reprobated by Clarendon, has not been peculiar to the French cabinet ; the English have had their share in this short-sighted policy. Nations, or rather ministers, have sought in the domestic feuds of a neighbouring nation a false and hollow prosperity for themselves: unable to build up their own strength by their own wisdom, they often deceive themselves by imagining they acquire stability in proportion to the weakness of their neighbours." The President Hainault's portrait of Mazarin was said to be nattered. " Cardinal Mazarin was as gentle as the Cardinal de Richelieu was violent. His greatest talent was knowing men's characters, and his forte lay in finesse and prudence more than in force. He thought that force should never be used but when other means failed, and CARDINAL MAZARIN. 77 his good sense always suggested the means. Bold at Casal, tranquil in his retirement at Cologne, courageous in arresting the princes, but insensible to the intrigues, the libels, and the songs of the Fronde, disdaining the bravadoes of de Retz, and hearing the multitude with the same unconcern with which he would have listened to the waves of the ocean on the shore, there was in Richelieu something grand and noble ; but in Mazarin more address, more mesure, and fewer faults. One was hated, the other was ridiculed, but both were masters of the state." Bussy gives a curious picture of Mazarin, more in his private life than as minister : " No man was so fortunate. He was born a Roman gen- tleman ; and having studied at Salamanca, he had his horoscope taken one day, and they assured him he should be Pope. He had the most beau- tiful countenance in the world, the finest eyes, and a large forehead. He was very amusing, very in- sinuating, and made himself liked whenever he chose." Madame de Motteville says, that he had a talent for all jeux d'esprit and games of chance. Like most Italians, he was passionately fond of play, 78 CARDINAL MAZARIN. and introduced it at court ; and he was accused of not playing fair. He was insensible to blame ; and when told of the libels against him, he said, in his bad French, and with his Italian accent, " Lais- sons parler et faisons ;" and of the songs against him, " Qu'il cantent, ces Fra^ais, qu'il cantent pourvu qu'il payent." The only burlesques he minded were Scarron's, and he took from him his pension in consequence. The Cardinal was of a noble Sicilian family. He was born and educated at Rome, and was sent along with one of the Colonnas to finish his stu- dies in Spain, at Alcala and Salamanca. When he returned to Rome, the Jesuits were about to cele- brate the canonization of their founder ; a tragedy was about to be performed on the occasion, and Mazarin was selected to play the part of Loyola, in which he acquitted himself perfectly to their satis- faction. He went into the army, and being with the papal troops in the Vateline, he there shewed his first talents for diplomacy, in the disputes con- cerning Mantua ; and although under the age of thirty, he was employed to treat with the leading powers. CARDINAL MAZARIN. 79 It was in 1630 that Mazarin first saw Louis XIII. and the Cardinal de Richelieu at Lyons ; and he served them in different ways so essentially, bring- ing on himself the hatred of the Spaniards, that Richelieu wrote to the Pope to wish him joy of the talents of his negotiator. In a court composed of ecclesiastics, the military profession could have no success, so Mazarin left it for various benefices ; and Richelieu got him ap- pointed as the Pope's nuncio to the French court. After a series of intrigues concerning Spanish affairs, he returned to Rome in 1636, where he was to procure a Cardinal's hat for Pere Joseph ; but he dying, Richelieu wished to attach Mazarin to himself, and, accordingly, Louis XIII. asked for the Cardinal's hat for Mazarin, which was given him in 1641. Richelieu, on his death-bed, recommended Mazarin to Louis, and he had the honour of being god-father to Louis XIV. After the death of Louis XIII. the court was divided into two parties. Mazarin took the Queen's side, and gradually he got round every one, Gaston d'Orleans, Conde, and the Queen herself, and gained the victory over the Cabale 80 CARDINAL MAZARIN. des Importants. The cabal, so called, is thus de- scribed by De Retz : " This party was composed of five or six melan- choly personages, who had the pretension of being very profound thinkers, and who all died mad, and even in those days did not seem very wise. After these persons were arrested and exiled, Ma- zarin followed all Richelieu's plans of government, except that his politics led him to make himself beloved instead of hated. For this purpose he gave away with a profusion hitherto unexampled ; abundance reigned, and the courtiers said that the French language comprised all in this one phrase, * La reine est si bonne.' " "Afterwards, the fashion of revolutions began in Europe. In France came the Fronde ; in England, the civil war ; at Naples, the revolt of Massaniello. In 1647 appeared on the scene of action, in the seditions of the Fronde, De Gondy, the Coadjuteur de Paris, better known afterwards as the Cardinal de Retz. In 1651, the Prince de Conde having gone over to the opposition, his party got the better, and Mazarin was obliged to leave France; but CARDINAL MAZARIN. 81 from his retreat in the Elector of Cologne's do- minions he still governed Anne of Austria, and returned triumphant the following year. The great exploit of Mazarin was the peace of the Pyrenees. The interviews with Don Louis de Ilaro,* on the limits of France and Spain, lasted during three months, and ended with the marriage of Louis XIV. to the Infanta of Spain, in 1660. Mazarin and Don Louis de Haro there displayed all their political talents : those of the Cardinal were finesse, those of Don Louis, caution ; the last gave but few words, Mazarin equivocal expres- sions. The intention of the Italian was to take by surprise, that of the Spaniard never to be over- reached. Don Louis de Haro said of the Cardinal's diplomacy, " He has a great fault, he always tries to deceive in his politics." The Spanish minister * * Don Louis de Haro, nephew to Olivarez, succeeded him in Spain as minister. He died two years after the peace of the Pyrenees, in 1661, universally regretted by both king and people, as a wise and great minister in the affairs of peace and war. The titles of the families of Del Carpio and Olivarez, and their enormous fortunes, all centred in the person of his great- grandchild, married to Ferdinand, Duke of Alba, which family became extinct at the death of the last Duke of Alba, in 1799. E 3 82 CARDINAL MAZARIN. insisted on the pardon of the Prince de Conde ; his speech was truly Spanish. " Instead of making so many difficulties, France should thank Spain for keeping and returning to her so great a hero." After the peace, and the marriage, and the re- joicings, Mazarin's health declined rapidly, and Louis XIV. attended the council in Mazarin's own room. He died little regretted (few ministers are) at Vincennes, where the court were at the time. The King wore mourning for him, an honour never conferred on a subject, except in the instance of Henry IV. and Gabrielle d'Estrees. It was but a few days before Mazarin's death that he gave audience, rouged and dressed. The Comte de Fuensaldagne, who was present, said to the Prince de Conde, " That figure resembles the late Cardinal Mazarin." A picture has lately been painted at Paris of Mazarin's death-bed, from historical tradition, by Delaroche ; which represents the scene admirably. The Cardinal lies in a fine bed, with his head re- clining on his pillow. It is evening, and the rooms are lighted up, and a gay company of cour- tiers and ladies are dispersed about a richly fur- nished apartment ; a card table is drawn near CARDINAL MAZARIN. 83 the bed of the dying minister, and one of his nieces, a beautiful woman, rises from the card- table to shew her hand to Mazarin. This picture represents a painful scene to look upon, splen- dour, dissipation, and death, allied. Mazarin amassed an immense fortune; and when he was dying, Colbert and his confessor in- duced him to leave it to the King, who returned it ; but Mazarin left enormous presents to the royal family, to Conde, Turenne, and to Don Louis de Haro. His library went to the College Mazarin, which he had founded.* * Mazarin gave the first impulse to the fine arts in France, which had slumbered since the days of Francis I. He invited architects, sculptors, painters, actors, and singers, from Italy. He asked Bernini to come to Paris ; but Bernini only yielded in his old age to the entreaties of Colbert to make a visit to Louis XIV. Two of the sovereigns of Europe had, however, a purer taste in the fine arts than Louis ever possessed in his maturity of judgment; Charles I., King of England, and Philip IV. of Spain. Charles's friendship with Rubens, who was both diplo- mate and painter, led to his acquaintance with the fine arts, and painting was a youthful passion with him, which his journey to Spain probably matured. Philip IV., King of Spain, during seventeen years, went every day without any form or etiquette to visit Velasquez in his painting-room ; and in the culture of literature and the fine 84 DUKE OF ORLEANS. GASTON, DUKE OF ORLEANS. Born, 1608; died, 1660. THE education of Gaston, brother of Louis XIII. and of Henrietta-Maria, Queen of England, was confided to the Sieur de Breves, a man in whom knowledge of the world was joined to a rare pro- bity, a great deal of information which he had acquired in his embassies, and a taste for the arts and sciences. arts, and in the friendship of Calderon and Velasquez, he tried to forget his reverses in arms, and the loss of Portugal, Cata- logna, and Roussillon. At the peace of the Pyrenees, when Philip carried his daughter, the Infanta Maria Teresa, to the frontiers, to unite her with Louis XIV., it was Velasquez who prepared the pavil- lion where the kings met, in the Isle des Faisans. Velasquez had several places about court, and the order of St. Jago ; and being in possession of the office of" Aposentador Mayor," he went to Irun, on the frontiers of France, in March, 1660, to make arrangements for the meeting of the sovereigns. The fatigues of the journey, and the business he had to superintend, affected his health so much, that on his return to Madrid, in August, 1660, he fell ill, and died. DUKE OF ORLEANS. 85 In the memoirs of those days it is mentioned that de Breves had a rod tied to the sash of the child, but that he used it but seldom. One day the Prince made use of some low or passionate expression to one of the gentlemen who served him, upon which the governor sent for the servants out of the kitchen to attend him, instead of the gentlemen. De Breves was succeeding so well in the educa- tion of the Prince that it caused a jealousy at court. Louis XIII., who was a prey to that de- vouring passion, sent away the governor loaded with presents, and substituted in his stead other instructors not so worthy. Gaston grew up with an uncertain, unstable character : he was fond of play, of magnificence ; and the talents which had been cultivated gave him a taste for collections, for antiquities, and for pictures ; but he could not fix his mind long upon friend or pursuit. Louis shewed all through his life the most un- worthy envy of his brother's talents; and as the King had no heir for a great number of years after his marriage, Gaston was looked on as heir- 86 DUKE OF ORLEANS. apparent to the throne, and all his accomplishments were commented on and lauded to the skies.* Ornano was his first and earliest friend : he died a prisoner in the Chateau of Vincennes. Chalais was his next : he fell on the scaffold. The brave Montmorency was also sacrificed. Puylaureus, and Cinq-Mars, and De Thou, all perished ; and they were all leagued, publicly and privately, with the Duke of Orleans. Gaston was as volatile in love as in friendship : neither man nor woman could depend upon him. A powerful intrigue, led by the Duchess de Chevreuse, preceded the marriage of Gaston, and occupied the court of the young Queen of Louis XIII. As yet Anne of Austria had had no child, and it was insinuated to her that it was her inte- rest to keep her brother-in-law unmarried, that in case the King should die she might marry him. The Queen received a reprimand in full council, * Gaston was the first person who had a botanical garden in France. His favourite pursuit was botany, and his collection of herbals was celebrated. In his garden at the Castle of Blois he had a collection of plants to be naturalized, to add to the science of medicine. He sent all over the world for these plants, and loved to arrange them in order himself. DUKE OF ORLEANS. 87 and was there reproached with having desired another husband. " I should not have gained much by the exchange," was her answer ; however, she wept bitterly, and never pardoned Richelieu for having subjected her to this disgraceful scene. At the imprisonment of Chalais, Gaston wished to leave the kingdom, but Le Coigneux, incited by Richelieu, detained him in France. Instead of punishment, he was offered a young and beautiful wife, with a yearly revenue of 300.000 crowns ; and all the honours due to his birth were to be accorded to him. Richelieu gave him advice, and Richelieu was eloquent. The young Prince went to solicit the pardon of his friends ; he prayed, entreated, threatened. " Mais avec trois conserves, et deux prunes de genes, je chassai toute I'amer- tume de son cceur," said Richelieu to the Pope's nuncio, Spada. The minister's discourse, backed with authority like his, proved enough for Gaston to abandon the cause of his friends ; and Ornano heard the rejoicings for his marriage from his prison at Vincennes, as Chalais did from his dungeon at Nantes. 88 DUKE OF ORLEANS. Mademoiselle de Montpensier brought the Prince as her dower the sovereignty of Dombes, the Duchies of Montpensier, Chatellerault, and Saint Fargeau ; and at his marriage he became Duke of Orleans and Chartres, and Comte de Blois. La grande Mademoiselle was born of this marriage, and some days after her birth the Du- chess of Orleans died. Gaston was continually leading others into re- bellion against the government, and never helping them out of the plots he let them into. Deeply concerned in the rebellion of the brave Mont- morency, he offered any submission to save his life. He wrote to Louis for his pardon thus: " Bathed in tears, on my knees, I implore, with all the submission due to my king, for his clemency, his pity, and his pardon." When Gaston failed to obtain pardon, never was anything like his sorrow or his resentment: he declared that nothing would have made him humble himself but the hope of saving Mont- morency ; and after the execution of his friend he left France, went to Brussels, and placed himself under the protection of Spain. When at Brussels, he charged D'Elbeuf to announce to Louis his DUKE OF ORLEANS. 89 second marriage, with Margaret, the daughter of the Duke of Lorraine. Gaston left France four several times, and re- entered the kingdom bearing arms against his brother. His life was without success and without glory. He engaged in the conspiracy of Cinq- Mars and De Thou ; but lost them on their trial by his answers during the examination. He en- tered into everything ; never could resist any one who would draw him on ; but left them as quickly as he had joined them, because he had no courage for following up any affairs. Gaston, however, inherited some of the good points of his father, Henry IV. He had " 1'esprit vif," and like him a quick power of repartee. His daughter, Mademoiselle, had also this latter power. One day the Abbe de la Riviere said to her that Gaston was a wise and religious Prince, and that he was worth a great deal. " You ought to know how much," said Mademoiselle, " for you have sold him often." In 1642 the Cardinal de Richelieu died, and the same year Marie de Medicis, and the following year Louis XIII. The last act of Richelieu's ministry was to deprive the Duke of Orleans of the regency, 90 DUKE OF ORLEANS. but Louis XIII., on his death-bed, left him the charge of Lieutenant-General of the French Forces, and his marriage was for the first time legally acknowledged. The Fronde lasted four years, and every person changed sides in that political dance. The deri- vation of the word Fronde is curious. It had become the fashion at Paris to censure the govern- ment and find fault with the ministers. The court party called themselves Mazarins, the adverse party, Frondeurs. The name of Fronde originated in the plays of children, and it is a ridiculous de- rivation of the name of a war that had in it all the folly of children's plays. The children of Paris, dispersed at play, formed themselves into bands on the ramparts of the city ; and were in the habit of throwing stones at each other with a sling, called in French a fronde, an ancient manner of ha- rassing an enemy that modern inventions have superseded. The patrolle of Paris interfered, the children dispersed for an instant, and then returned ; sometimes they made head against the patrolle, and pelted them " a coup de fronde." These children, who came and went, sometimes resisting public authority, sometimes revenging DUKE OP ORLEANS. 91 themselves, furnished a member of the parliament of Paris with a simile ; he compared the opposition to these little Frondeurs. The word took, as an appropriate word always takes in France; dress, equipage, jewels, everything was a-la-fronde ; and to be well received in the opposition coteries, it was necessary to wear some token belonging to their party. The changes of party were as curious as the origin of the word. The grand Conde besieged Paris for the royal side, and then went over to the adverse party. His brother, the Prince de Conti, the violent enemy of Mazarin, ended in marrying one of his nieces. Turenne, who had first fought the battle of Saint Antoine against Conde, the next year, although bearing the title of Lieutenant- General of the King's Army, took up arms in favour of the liberty of the princes imprisoned by Mazarin, and fought against the royal cause. Gaston gave his consent to the arrest of the princes. As soon as the account of this event reached him, he exclaimed " There is a fine net- ful taken ; a lion, a monkey, and a fox ;" meaning Conde, Conti, and the Duke de Longueville. The next year Gaston assisted in the liberation of 92 DUKE OF ORLEANS. the princes, and brought them out of prison in triumph. In the chapters concerning the Duchess de Chevreuse and the Cardinal de Retz some scenes of the regency of Anne of Austria are described. The following is like the last act of a play, when all the actors and actresses appear at once on the stage. The Queen received a letter from Mazarin, then out of France, entreating of her to send for De Gondy. The hatred of Anne of Austria for the Prince de Conde was then in its full vigour. Mazarin wrote to the Queen that to yield to Conde's offers, or rather orders, would be nothing less than to take him to Rheims; (meaning to place the crown on his head) accordingly, the Queen sent for the Coadjuteur. She sent him a ticket of safety ; he kissed it, threw it into the fire, and went to the palace when it grew night. The Queen proposed to the Coadjuteur to reconcile himself to Mazarin, and she made use of, not only entreaty, but coquetry, to try to gain him over to her purpose ; powerful means with De Gondy from a Queen who was still handsome. De Gondy told her that a reconciliation between him and Mazarin was an impossibility that no one DUKE OF ORLEANS. 93 would believe in it that he should by that means lose all credit with the people and the parliament that it would only serve to strengthen the Conde interest, and that he must always appear equally against Mazarin and against his return to France. " How strange !" said the Queen " to serve me you must be the enemy of him who possesses my confidence . If you would if you would" she said affectionately to him. De Gondy then threw the blame of the impossi- bility upon Monsieur (Gaston), who, he said, in that case, would immediately go over to Conde. " Join me," said the Queen, " and I don't care for your Monsieur, who is the last of men." She then offered to make De Gondy a cardinal, to give him a place in council, and make him prime minister. This last he refused, feeling that it was merely offered to him to fill the niche in which the true saint was to be placed as soon as it could be done. " But," said the Queen, " je fais tout pour vous que ferez vous pour moi ?" " Votre Majeste, me permet-elle de lui dire une sottise, parce que ce sera manquer au respect que je dois au sang royal ?" " Dites, dites, n said the Queen, with energy. " Eh bien ! Madame, j'obligerai M. le Prince a sortir de 94 DUKE OF ORLEANS. Paris avant qu'il soil huit jours, etje lui enleverai Monsieur des demain." " Touchez-la," said the Queen, holding out her hand to De Gondy, " et vous etes apres cela cardinal, et de plus, le second de mes amis."* In the detail of the arrangements, the Queen employed the Princess Palatine, who had always declared that she would serve the Princes but to get them out of prison, and afterwards adhere to the Queen's party. De Gondy had in her entire confidence. The agreement between them was, that he was to reappear in parliament ; but he told the Queen that that could only be on the condition of Mazarin's absence. " Go," said the Queen, smiling, " Vous etes un vrai demon !" In consequence of this conversation, the Coad- juteur prepared the public for these changes by his writings ; and as soon as he had enlightened them sufficiently, he appeared again in parliament. Meantime the hawkers of books were crying about Paris, " L'Apologie de 1'ancienne et legi- time Fronde," " La Defense du Coadjuteur," * De Retz, torn. ii. page 242. DUKE OF ORLEANS. 95 " Le Solitaire," " Les Interets du Temps," " Le Vraisemblable," &c. ; and then the author came forth, and appeared at the palace with his fol- lowers. De Gondy communicated these matters to the Duke of Orleans, who was at that moment well pleased to get rid of " la morgue de Conde;" and Gaston said to his confidants, " There are M. le Prince and the Coadjuteur on bad terms, and I am going to amuse myself with their chamailleries," an expression that perfectly gave the character of that " etrange seigneur," by which name Anne of Austria called her brother-in-law. La Fronde usee, time quieted the animosities of all parties, and every one who had marched under its banners seemed to say, with the English diplomate, who, on being asked whether he was ambassador from Monk or Lambert, answered, " I am the humble servant of public events." An amnesty was now proclaimed. Conde threw himself into the arms of the Spaniards ; Gaston retired to Blois; Mademoiselle, after playing a great part, went to her estates, where she listened to romances and sonnets, and wrote her memoirs ; 96 COMTE DE BUSSY RABUTIN. the Cardinal de Retz was confined at Vincennes ; and this great political tempest was quelled. Gaston* died at Blois, in 1660, leaving three daughters by his second marriage : the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, the Duchess of Savoy, and the Duchess de Guise. COMTE DE BUSSY RABUTIN. Born, 1618 ; died, 1693. THE character of the Comte de Bussy Rabutin presents an exaggerated caricature of the faults of his nation, his class, and his times. He had the honour of being first cousin to Madame de Sevigne. He was made up of vanity and malig- nity well blended together, and his cousin bore with him because he was witty, and because the same blood ran in their veins. She forgave him all his falsehoods, his artifices, and his sarcasms ; and though she evinces, in her measured phrases, a certain awe of his bad faith and his littleness, not like the lightness of heart with which " elle fait * A whole-length portrait of Gaston, by Vandyke, is in the royal collection at Windsor. COMTE DE BUSSY RABUTIN. 97 trotter sa plume" when writing to Madame de Grignan, yet all through her life she kept up an intercourse of letters with Bussy, perhaps from pity for a banished man, on whom the sun could hardly be said to shine when out of the reach of the graces of his sovereign. Bussy was seventeen years in exile, under the displeasure of Louis XIV., whom he never ceased to persecute with his prayers, his entreaties, and his flatteries of the basest sort; and when the King, tired of his eternal representations, per- mitted him to return to court, he found himself of so little consequence that he wisely went back to his estates, where, to get rid of time, he in- dulged in every freak and fancy that idleness, revenge, and bad taste could bring together. The Chateau de Bussy now remains a monu- ment of Bussy's life and times. It is situated in a defile of the mountains on the banks of the Oise, in the South of France, surrounded by moats full of water. The body of the house was built in Bussy's time ; the wings, containing the library and chapel, are of the times of Henry II. He covered the walls of his castle with pictures and paintings which display his pride of ancestry, his VOL. L F 98 COMTE DE BUSSY RABUTIN. disappointed vanity, and the regret he felt in giving up his profession as a courtier. At the end of the library is a tower, the windows of which are ornamented with Cupids; each group suspended to a band filled with gallant inscriptions, very commonplace in sentiment, and of no poetical talent. The following is under the picture of Pygmalion : " Tuut le monde en amour est tous les jours dupe; Les femmes nous en font accroire : Si vous voulez aimer, et n'etre point trompe", Aimez uu femme d'ivoire." Round the apartment are eleven portraits of gallant ladies, with inscriptions by Bussy, and his own picture amongst them. In Bussy's own room are ranges of portraits of the house of Rabutin, the two last of which are of Madame de Grignan. Over the doors and windows of other rooms in the house his mistresses are painted as goddesses, with inscriptions of his own composition. There were also, formerly, portraits of the kings, of the states- men and men of letters of France, many of which were removed in the Revolution. All the inscriptions under the portraits are either bitter or flat, and do not partake of the wit COMTE DE LA RIVIERE. * 99 that might have been expected from his character and his times. The epigrams are numerous. Under the portrait of Madame de Montglas is written, " La plus belle femme de son temps, mais moins fameuse par sa beaute que par 1'usage qu'elle en fit." Under another portrait of his un- faithful mistress is inscribed, " Light as air." Bussy possessed pride of birth and individual vanity to a degree that reminded persons of the heroes of Moliere. He writes to Madame de Sevigne on the subject of the novel of the Prin- cesse de Cleves : " We think alike, and I feel honoured in so doing; our criticism of the Prin- cesse de Cleves is that of persons of quality ;" a phrase which is worthy of the Marquis de Masca- rille in Les Precieuses Ridicules. COMTE DE LA RIVIERE. Died, 1724. BUSSY'S scandalous law-suit with his son-in-law, the Comte de la Riviere, occupied a part of his life. F2 100 COMTE DE LA RIVIERE. M. de la Riviere was of inferior birth to the proud and tenacious Bussy. He had distinguished himself in military life, and retired to an estate he had that joined that of Bussy, who was living there with his daughter, Madame de Coligny, a widow. She fell in love with M. de la Riviere, and married him without her father's knowledge. His vanity was hurt by the connexion, and he invented a law-suit to break the marriage, which occasioned a great scandal in the family histories of France. Bussy forged letters, which were ac- knowledged as forged on the trial. His son-in- law describes him as interesting himself, with ill- natured views, in every one's affairs ; with the love of intrigue ; a tyrant in his family, and a coward out of it. " No one will believe," says M. de la Riviere, " that I married the daughter of M. de Bussy to procure influence at court, friends in this world, or credit in the next world. He is a man who was born to six thousand livres a year ; has increased his fortune to four times what his grandfather pos- sessed ; but there is no proportion in the increase of his revenue and the increase of his pride." La Riviere had all the public on his side, and COMTE DE LA RIVIERE. 101 the verdict was given in his favour ; but his wife would not live with him, which was extraordi- nary, as she appeared to have been passionately attached to him. La Riviere produced on the trial a letter from her, promising to marry him, signed with her blood. Madame de Coligny was said to have much beauty, grace and wit. Mademoiselle de Scudery said to her father, "Your daughter has as much cleverness as if she saw you all day long, and as much good conduct as if she never saw you at all." Her conduct to her husband is only to be explained by the influence her father had over her. La Riviere died in 1734, at the age of ninety- four. He was on terms of friendship with all the most distinguished persons of his time. He wrote the following verses at the age of ninety-three, addressed to the Princesse de Ligne. They are wonderfully well written for the verses of a man of such advanced years. " Faire des vers a quatre-vingt-treize ans, Est un espece de folie ; Le talent de la poesie N'appartient qu'a de jeunes gens. Le feu qui fait rimer n'est que pour la jeunesse; Et ce feu dcnne aux vers qu'inspire la tendresse, 102 CARDINAL DE RETZ. Et leur force et leurs agreraents. Ces vers galants, que Ton fait quand on aime, Pour moi ne sont plus de saison : II ne m'est plus permis d'aimer que la raison ; Mais la raison, Princesse, c'est vous-mfeme. PAUL DE GONDY, CARDINAL DE RETZ. Born, 1614; died, 1679. "!F it had not been for the Queen, Catha- rine de Medicis, you would have been a gen- tleman like any other at Florence." " Pardon me, sir, I should have been as much above you as my ancestors were above yours four hundred years ago." It will be with difficulty believed that this reply was really made by the Cardinal de Retz to the Cardinal de Medicis. So much for the ancestry of Paul de Gondy. He was born in 1614, and had as his preceptor the man who has shewn the most earthly virtue, and the saint who has received the most honour from men Saint Vincent de Paule. It would be difficult to find a more decided " mesalliance" than between the master and pupil ; and when one CARDINAL DE RETZ. 103 considers the difference that separated the saint who was not a cardinal, and the cardinal who was not a saint, it must be owned that this was an edu- cation that entirely failed. Paul de Gondy was the younger brother of the Duke de"Retz, and was destined early to high eccle- siastical preferment His first exploit was a duel with Bassompiere. Hardly past boyhood, he tried to carry off his cousin, Mademoiselle de Retz ; and hoped, in the eclat of his gallantries and his duel, to put an end to the projects -of his family as to his profession. But his father was not to be moved and he determined to make an ecclesiastic of his son, whose vocation was the least calculated for the church of any one in France. Disappointed in his hopes, De Gondy resolved to make himself a name at the Sorbonne ; for at the Sorbonne had commenced the reputation of the Cardinal de Richelieu. There did his studies exercise a powerful influence on the stormy part of his life. Rome as an ancient republic, with its factions its tribunes, and its conspiracies, spoke more to his uncontrollable spirit than the mild truths of the gospel. At eighteen, Paul de Gondy wrote the Conjura- 104 CARDINAL DE RETZ. tion de Fiesque. Richelieu read the book, and exclaimed, " Here is a dangerous spirit !" The young abbe excused himself from being presented to the prime minister ; he even dared to dispute a point with one of Richelieu's proteges at the Sorbonne, and carried it against him ; and he added to the clat by having crossed the affections of the Cardinal in his attachment to the Mareschal de la Meilleraie. Thus three times he came across Richelieu ; and when the minister died, Paul de Gondy was but six and twenty. He went off to Venice and to Rome, and returning to France, took to his stu- dies with ardour. A friendship with the Comte de Soissons brought him on the side of the malecontents ; and, not without some scruples, he allowed himself to be drawn into the conspiracy against the life of Riche- lieu. But he saw glory in thus changing the des- tinies of Europe, even by assassination ! Ancient Rome, he thought, would have admired him ; and he adds, " I am persuaded that it requires greater qualities to be a popular leader than to be emperor of the world." Luckily, opportunity was wanting to the assassins. CARDINAL DE RETZ. 105 For 'some time De Gondy led a quiet life ; and Louis XIII. was so struck with his abilities in con- verting a person from Protestantism that he made him Coadjuteur de Paris. When Anne of Austria became regent, she wished Philippe de Gondy, Paul's father, to be minister. He refused; and Mazarin stood in his place. The ascendancy that the Coadjuteur had ac- quired over the populace gave great umbrage to Mazarin. He was reproached with his profusion, in giving and spending; and his answer was, " Caesar owed six times as much at my age !" The Fronde began ; and the practical possibility of the great scenes being acted, the theory of which had delighted him in his youth, gave him great plea- sure. He accordingly dedicated three or four months to gaining popular favour, and attaching to himself the people of Paris. Although an ecclesiastic, Paul de Gondy 's whole youth had passed in conspiracies, in duels, and in love adventures. In 1643 the Coadjuteur became archbishop of Paris, at the death of his uncle. A retirement to Saint Lazare gave him time to study his part ; there he settled the programme of his life, and he came forth from this religious a 106 CARDINAL DE RETZ. retreat with the edifying resolution of overturning the state for his private amusement. What the war of the Fronde was for, it is difficult to say, further than it was in the factious spirit of the times. Richelieu was dead, and a weak re- gency stood instead of his strong government, to keep in check such persons as Gaston, Conde, the Duke and Duchess de Longueville, Beaufort, Turenne, La Rochefoucauld, the Duchess de Chevreuse, de Retz, the Princess Palatine, Made- moiselle, Madame de Montbazon, &c. The nature of these materials was too volcanic not to cause an explosion, which accordingly broke forth. After the battle of Sens the position of the court became terrible. On the 26th of August, 1648, the emeute began, on the arrest of Broussel by the court; and cries from the multitude of " Broussel! Broussel!" surrounded the Palais Royal. Women, children, old men, artizans, and citizens, cried out " Broussel ! Broussel !" and De Retz, the great man of the day, appeared amongst the populace. The sedition at length becoming alarm- ing, he and the Mareschal de la Meilleraie went to Anne of Austria. The Coadjuteur describes his reception at court thus : CARDINAL DE RETZ. 107 " Nous trouvames la Reine dans le grand ca- binet, accompagnee de Monsieur, du Cardinal Mazarin, de M. de Longueville, du Mareschal de Villeroi, de 1'Abbe de la Riviere, de Batru, de Guitaut, capitaine des gardes, et de Nogent. Elle ne me reut ni bien ni mal: elle etait trop fiere et trop aigrie .... Le Cardinal me fit un espece de galimatias . . . . Je feignis de prendre pour bon tout ce qu'il lui plut de me dire, et je lui repondis simplement que j'etais venu la pour rece- voir les commandemens de la Reine, &c. La Reine me fit une petite signe de la tete, comme pour me remercier .... " Le Mareschal de la Meilleraie, qui vit que La Riviere, Batru, et Nogent traitaient Pemotion de bagatelle, et qu'ils la tournaient en ridicule, s'em- porta beaucoup . . . . Je confirmai ce qu'il avait- dit et predit du mouvement. Le Cardinal sourit malignement, et la Reine se mit en colere, pro- ferant de son ton de fausset, aigre et eleve, ces pro- pres mots : * II y a de la revoke a imaginer que Ton puisse se revolter : voila les contes ridicules de ceux qui la veulent ; Pautorite du Roi y don- nera bon ordre.' Le Cardinal, qui s'apercut que j'etais un peu emu de ce discours, prit la parole, 108 CARDINAL DE RETZ. et, avec un ton doux, repondit a la Reine : ' Plut a Dieu, madame, que tout le monde parlat avec aatant de sincefite que parle M. le Coadjuteur ! II craint pour son troupeau, il craint pour la ville, il craint pour 1'autorite de votre majeste. Je suis persuade que le peril n'est pas au point qu'il se 1'imagine ; mais le scrupule sur cette matiere est en lui une religion louable.' La Reine, qui en- tendit le jargon du Cardinal, se remit tout d'un coup; elle me fit des honnetetes, et je repondis par un profond respect et par une mine si niaise, que La Riviere dit a 1'oreille a Batru, de qui je le sus quatre jours apres : * Voyez ce que c'est que de n'etre pas jour et nuit en ce pays-ci ! Le Coad- juteur est homme du monde, il prend pour bon ce que la Reine vient de lui dire.* " La verite est, que tout ce qui etait dans ce cabinet jouait la comedie. Je faisais 1'innocent, et je ne I'etais pas, au moins en ce fait. Le Cardinal faisait 1'assure, et il ne 1'etait pas autant qu'il le paraissait. II y eut quelques momens ou la Reine contrefit la douce, et elle ne fut jamais plus aigre. M. de Longueville temoignait de la tristesse, et il etait dans une joie sensible, parce que c'etait 1'homme du monde qui aimait le plus le com- CARDINAL DE RETZ. 109 mencement de toutes les affaires. M. d'Orleans faisait 1'empresse et le passionne en parlant a la Reine : je ne 1'ai jamais vu siffler avec plus d'in- dolence qu'il siffla pendant une demi-heure apres en entretenant Guerchi dans la petite chambre grise. Le Marechal de Villeroi faisait le gai, pour faire sa cour au ministre, et il m'avouait en particulier, les larmes aux yeux, que 1'etat etait sur le bord d'un precipice. Batru et Nogent bouffonnaient, et representaient, pour plaire a la Reine, la nour- rice du vieux Broussel (remarquez, je vous prie, qu'il avait quatre-vingts ans), qui animait le peuple a ia sedition, quoiqu'ils connussent tres bien 1'un et 1'autre que la tragedie ne serait peut-etre pas fort eloignee de la farce. Le seul et unique Abbe de la Riviere etait convaincu que 1'emotion du peuple n'etait qu'une fumee ; il le soutenait a la Reine, qui 1'eut voulu croire, quand meme elle aurait ete persuadee du contraire ; et je remarquai dans un meme instant, et par la disposition de la Reine, qui etait la personne du monde la plus bardie, et par celle de La Riviere, qui etait le poltron le plus signale de son siecle, que Faveugle temerite et la peur outree produisent les memes lorsque le peril n'est pas connu. 110 CARDINAL DE RETZ. " Le Chancelier (Seguier) entra dans le cabinet en ce moment. II etait si faible de son naturel, qu'il n'y avait jamais dit, jusqu'a cette occasion, aucune parole de verite ; mais en celle-la, la com- plaisance ceda a la peur ; il parla, et il parla selon ce que lui dictait ce qu'il avait vu dans les rues. J'observai que le Cardinal parut fort touche de la liberte d'un homme en qui il n'en avait jamais vu "Le Lieutenant Civil entra en ce moment dans le cabinet avec un paleur mortelle sur le visage : je n'ai jamais vu a la comedie Italienne de peur si na'ivement et si ridiculement represenfee que celle qu'il fit voir a la Reine, en lui racontant des aven- tures de rien qui lui etaient arrivees depuis son logis jusqu'au Palais-Royal. Admirez, je vous prie, la sympathie des ames timides : le Cardinal Mazarin n'avait ete jusque-la que mediocrement touche de ce que M. de la Meilleraie et moi lui avions dit avec assez de vigueur, et la Reine n'en avait pas seulement ete emue. La frayeur du lieu- tenant se glissa, je crois, par contagion, dans leur imagination, dans leur esprit et dans leur cosur ; ils me parurent tout-a-coup metamorphoses; ils ne me traiterent plus de ridicule; ils avouerent CARDINAL DE RETZ. Ill que 1'affaire meritait de la reflexion. Us consul- terent, et souffrirent que Monsieur, M. de Longue- ville, le Chancelier, le Mareschal de Villeroi, celui De la Meilleraie, et le Coadjuteur, prouvassent, par de bonnes raisons, qu'il faillait rendre Broussel, avant que les peuples, qui mena9aient de prendre les armes, les eussent prises effectiveraent. Nous eprouvames en cette rencontre qu'il est lien plus naturel a la peur de consulter que de decider. " Je sortis ainsi du Palais-Royal, et, quoique je fusse ce que 1'onappelle enrage, je ne dis pas un mot, de la jusqu'a mon logis, qui put aigrir le peuple. J'en trouvai une foule innombrable qui m'attendait, et qui me fo^a de monter sur 1'imperiale de mon carrosse, pour lui rendre compte de ce que j'avais fait au Palais-Royal J'ajoutai tout ce que je crus pouvoir adoucir . . . . et je n'y eus pas beau- coup de peine, parce que 1'heure du souper s'ap- prochait Cette circonstance vous paraitra ridicule, mais elle est fondee ; et j'ai observe qu'a Paris, dans les emotions populaires, les plus echauffes ne veulent pas ce qu'ils appellent se des- heurer."* * * # * # * See Memoirs de Retz, vol. i. p. 131142. 112 CARDINAL DE RETZ. It is only civil war that can produce such scenes and such a knowledge of persons and passions. It is remarkable that the Fronde should have formed both De Retz and La Rochefoucauld. The last resolved all passions into that of self-love; and De Retz found the key of all politics in cowardice. The succeeding days of political movement to this scene are equally curious. The court took fright, and went off to the Castle of Ruelle, the Coadjuteur remaining in full activity at Paris. He had been long master of the people. The revolt was now general, but the episcopal mitre could not head an emeute. He says, " I wanted a figure to place before me; that figure, luckily, was the grandson of Henry the Great, the Due de Beaufort. He spoke the language of the lowest of the populace. He had a quantity of fine hair ; it is impossible to say the effect that these fair and flowing locks, and this phantom, had on the people." After these commotions, Mazarin was declared the enemy of the state ; and it was not forgotten that the tragical end of Charles I. had commenced by the attainder of Strafford. It was soon after that De Retz preached a ser- CARDINAL DE RETZ. 113 mon on the forgiveness of injuries, at which all the women cried, and were furious at the perse- cution of their Archbishop by the court party. Paris was threatened with a general massacre. One day, during the procession to parliament, De Beaufort discovered something making its way from beneath the folds of the dress of De Retz, which caused him to exclaim, " Voila le breviaire de M. le Coadjuteur !" It was a poniard, which he was in the habit of carrying. This event fol- lowed the sermon on the forgiveness of injuries. Some good points honoured this part of the life of De Retz. One was, his protecting the Che- valier de la Valette, who had orders to assassinate him ; another, his protecting the library and the effects of his enemy Mazarin ; a third was, his obtaining from the parliament of Paris money for Henrietta-Maria, the widow of Charles L, for- gotten by the court, and who was at Paris in the greatest state of destitution. The history of this extraordinary man's power as an individual, and as the confident and ally of half the powers in Europe, cannot be paralleled in history, nor his life in romance. Cromwell said, " There is but one man in Europe who despises 114 CARDINAL DE RETZ. me, and that man is De Retz." Cromwell's envoy found him inaccessible to either entreaties or bribes. One day La Rochefoucauld had been near assassinating the Coadjuteur in a dispute, so pow- erful is civil war in drawing out fiery passions and creating crime. Gaston assuaged the quarrel ; immediately after which Conde and La Rochefou- cauld met him, not in his usual attire of the sur- plice, as they were accustomed to see him, but in his pontifical habit as Archbishop of Paris, heading a procession of relics, and followed by an immense mob. Conde and La Rochefoucauld got out of their carriage, and knelt in the dust to receive the blessing of their Archbishop. When he arrived before his two mortal enemies he blessed them, and then took off his cap to Conde, the prince of the blood. These two extraordinary scenes took place on the same morning. The Coadjuteur now made a display of being in love with Anne of Austria ; the only results of which were, that the Queen remarked that this rival of " pauvre Monsieur le Cardinal" had very fine teeth. His character of the Queen is short, and given CARDINAL DE RETZ. 115 with his usual sagacity. He says, "Anne of Austria had more than any one that sort of sense that was necessary to save her from appearing a fool to those who did not know her intimately" Pope Innocent X. did not love Mazarin. He looked on the Coadjuteur as superior in politics, and made him a Cardinal, hoping to see him in Mazarin's place as prime minister of France. The tragi-comedy of the Fronde ended ; Mazarin got the better, and the Coadjuteur became Cardinal de Retz. " In reading the letters of the Cardinal de Mazarin, and the memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz, it is easy to see that De Retz was the supe- rior genius. Nevertheless Mazarin triumphed, and De Retz was oppressed. So true is it, that to make a powerful minister it merely requires ordi- nary abilities, good sense, and good fortune ; but to govern a kingdom well, it is necessary to have as a leading principle the public good in view. The great statesman is he who leaves to his country useful institutions, public benefits, and great mo- numents."* * Voltaire, Sifecle de Louis XIV. 116 CARDINAL DE RETZ. It was in 1652, while De Retz was in nego- tiation with Mazarin, that he was arrested at the Louvre. On this occasion the populace, tired of civil war, shewed no great interest about the matter. According to his prophetic speech to Gaston d'Orleans, De Retz was sent to the Chateau de Vincennes, and he only obtained permission to be transferred to Nantes, on a promise of relin- quishing his archbishopric. History cannot offer another instance of so bold a step as the Cardinal now took. He got out of his prison at Nantes, in the very sight of his guards. Fortune favoured him, as, while he was descending the prison wall, a poor man was drowning himself in the river, and all eyes were intent on the sight. De Retz's intention was to go to Paris, and con- cert measures with Conde ; but a fall from his horse obliged him to take refuge in Spain, and, passing through that country, he soon afterwards found himself in the conclave at Rome, where he was treated with all possible honour and respect. He then led a wandering life in the Low Coun- tries, and in Holland ; and, as Bossuet said of him, though at a distance, " threatening Mazarin with his terrible and gloomy looks." CARDINAL DE RETZ. 117 Lord Clarendon speaks of his attachment to the cause of the Stuarts. De Retz gave Charles II. good advice, telling him that he never would be restored in England if he changed his religion ; and he prevailed on Charles when in exile to accept a sum of money. The Marquis of Montrose,* so celebrated for his devotion to the Stuarts, was a great friend of De Retz, who described him as a man whose character did not belong to the age he lived in, and could only be found in Plutarch. The Cardinal entered into a negotiation with Louis XIV., and in exchange for his archbishopric Louis gave him the Abbey of St. Denis, and some other privileges; and as it became necessary to have a Pope in the interests of France, Louis sent him ambassador to Rome. The election of Clement IX. was the last political act of De Retz's life. It is surprising that he never thought of becoming Pope himself; but the retirement and years of seclusion that ter- * James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, who died the death of a true hero at the age of thirty-eight, in 1650. 118 CARDINAL DE RETZ. minated the private life of the Cardinal de Retz, was the most striking and singular feature of his career. He sold his two principalities, keeping enough to live upon ; and giving up his fortune to his creditors, he fixed his residence at St. Michel, in Lorraine,* where, at the desire of his friends, he wrote his memoirs. He afterwards retired to Commeres.f Madame de Sevigne saw him more than any one in his latter years, at Paris. She writes continu- ally to her daughter of her dear Cardinal ; of his disinterestedness ; of his benevolence ; of the charms of his conversation ; and of his gentleness and kind temper. On his intention of retiring from the world, she writes : " That day will in- deed be a sad one . . . It is true that his mind is of so superior an order, that no common ending in life is to be expected from him . . . When it is a rule to do all that is greatest and most heroic, a retirement from the world should * A town in the duchy de Bar. -j- A little town in France, in the duchy of Bar, having the title of principality, and a magnificent chateau that the Car- dinal de Retz built during his residence. CARDINAL DE RETZ. 119 find its place between worldly existence and death ; but in this action, he must make all who love him. unhappy." Madame de Sevigne's partiality to " our Cardi- nal" was great, and went so far, that when she called Turenne " le heros de 1'epee," she termed Ue Retz " le heros du breviaire." This partiality was not entered into by Madame de Grignan, who could not endure the Cardinal. She writes to her daughter, " The dear Cardinal has nearly put you out of my head." In another letter she says, " I must see our Cardinal to-night. I must pass an hour or two with him before he goes to bed." Madame de Sevigne shewed De Retz the cha- racter written of him by La Rochefoucauld. She said, " One is so weary of praises to one's face, that it was a pleasure to him to see how he was spoken of by one who did not like him, and who never knew that he should see this piece of writing." The character written of him by La Rochefou- cauld is not very favourable ; he says, " That he appears ambitious without being really so that vanity makes him undertake great things op- posed to his profession that he had brought the greatest disorders on the state, but without 120 CARDINAL DE RETZ. design of making use of them for himself, that he had borne his imprisonment with firm- ness, and owed his liberty to his boldness. He had been in several conclaves, where his conduct always raised his reputation. His natural bent is indolence. In pressing affairs he works with activity, and rests himself indolently as soon as they are terminated. But what most contributes to his reputation, is a talent he has of making his faults appear in a good point of view. Incapable of envy or of avarice, he has borrowed from his friends more than any individual could ever ex- pect to repay. His vanity was gratified in the credit they gave him, and that same vanity was gratified by his undertaking to acquit himself of so enormous a sum." Twice over did the Cardinal apply to the Pope for leave to divest himself of his ecclesiastical rank ; but the Pope forbid his applying further, and he was, as Madame de Sevigne says, " recar- dinalise ;" and, moreover, the Pope ordered him to leave his retirement, and go to St. Denis. At the time he was at Saint Michel she writes of him, 15th Oct. 1677: "1 am alarmed about the Cardinal. }We must hope that God will preserve him to CARDINAL DE RETZ. 121 us. He is killing himself, wearing himself out. He has always a low fever. I don't think others v are as anxious as I am, but except the quarter of an hour that he passes in giving bread to his trout, he spends all his time with Don Robert in the subtleties and distinctions of metaphysics, that will be his death. They answer me, why should he kill himself? and what on earth would you have him do ? He gives a considerable time to the offices of the church, and yet there remains still too much !" Madame de Sevigne did not know that at that time the Cardinal was writing his memoirs. When he came to Paris, his humility made as much sensation as his pride had formerly done. He died in 1679, at the age of sixty-six, much regretted by his friends and dependents. Lord Chesterfield says, that De Retz's Reflec- tions are those of a great genius, formed on a life of experience in great affairs. They are just con elusions drawn from great events, and not specu- lative maxims composed in retirement. The President Henault says of the Cardinal de Retz, "It is difficult to understand how a man VOL. i. G 122 CARDINAL DE RETZ. who passed his life in caballing never had an ob- ject in doing so. He loved intrigue for the plea- sure of intriguing. His genius was bold, vast, and romantic ; and knowing how to make use of the authority his profession gave him over the people, he made use of his religion to serve his politics, making to himself a merit of what was but a chance, and settling means to events. " In war, the part of rebel to the royal authority was what he liked the best. Magnificent ; a bel esprit ; turbulent ; having more flighty ideas than settled views, and more chimerical notions than foresight ; neither fit for a monarchy nor a repub- lic, because he was neither a faithful subject nor a good citizen ; he was as vain, more bold, and had less principle, than Cicero. He had more clever- ness than Catiline, but possessed less grandeur of character than that conspirator." It was many years after the death of the Cardi- nal de Retz that Bossuet, in his funeral oration upon the death of the Chancellor le Tellier,* gave his character in that magnificent discourse. * Le Tellier, Chancellor of France, died in 1685, aged eighty-three. He was the father of the minister Louvois. QUEEN OF POLAND. 123 " A man so faithful to individuals, so terrible to the state ; of so lofty a character that it was impos- sible to esteem, to fear, to love, or to hate him in moderation. Firm in himself, he shook the uni- verse, and obtained a dignity which he afterwards wished to resign, as unworthy of what it had cost him, and as an object beneath his mighty mind. In the end, he was sensible of his errors, and of the vanity of human greatness ; but while he was in search of what he was destined afterwards to despise, he shook everything by his secret and powerful means. Even in the universal overthrow of all around him, he still seemed to suffice for his own support ; and at a distance he threatened the victorious favourite with his gloomy and intrepid demeanour." MARIE LOUISE DE GONZAGUE, QUEEN OF POLAND. Bom, 1612 ; died, 1667. THE influence of woman, both on society and on politics, has always been greater in France than irx any other country, except during the government o2 124 QUEEN OF POLAND. of Napoleon, when his strong hand kept under the most rebellious spirits; and he took care to have the generation growing up under his dynasty taught to occupy themselves with trifles. The ladies of the court all took lessons in dancing and music ; and the study and science of dress were made of so much importance, that they filled the heads of the women, morning, noon and night, and prevented their engaging in any deeper study or business. Never had there been a court in France at which women exercised so little influ- ence as at the court of Napoleon. From time immemorial, women's influence in France had been immense. In 1588, Sir Edward Stafford, the English ambassador at the court of Henry IV., writes to Queen Elizabeth, "That there are four ladies who have all the news and secretest devices of the court ; for they have all an honourer, a lover, or a private friend, of the secretest council of the court, that will hide nothing from them." But there were two ladies of the house of Gon- zague who had greater influence in the affairs of Europe than any others, and who played great parts in the closing years of the reign of Richelieu, and in the events of the regency of Anne of Austria. QUEEN OF POLAND. 125 These were Marie-Louise de Gonzague, and Anne de Gonzague, daughters of the Duke of Mantua. The history of Marie-Louise de Gonzague is a perfect romance. Both these sisters were brought up in religious strictness in the convent of Fare- Montier. The youngest was intended for a nun, to aggrandise the fortunes of the eldest sister. But Anne was not so easily persuaded to a life of reli- gious seclusion ; and the Duke of Mantua dying, and the Duke de Nevers inheriting the duchy of Mantua, they left their convent in all the brilliancy of beauty and youth, to appear at the court of France. Gaston, the Duke of Orleans, had lost his first wife, and all interested themselves in proposing a princess to replace her. Gaston took a violent passion for Marie-Louise ; and the Queen-mother, instead of employing gentle means with her son's inclinations, used violence, as she was wont to do, to break up the intercourse between the lovers. The women and the young courtiers united in inventing occasions for Gaston and Marie-Louise to meet. Public fetes were given; hunting parties were arranged ; rendezvous, which were supposed 126 QUEEN OF POLAND. to be accidental visits ; and even meetings in the churches under pretext of devotion. The Queen-mother, at length, thought herself set at defiance ; her violent passions were roused ; and in a fit of anger she gave orders to arrest the Princess. Marie-Louise had been sent for by her father, and Gaston had intended to run away with her on the road, and with her to leave France. On the first day of her journey, at the beginning of a dark night, this young person was surrounded by an escort of soldiers, separated from her women, and conducted, with one attendant, to the Chateau de Vincennes. There had been no time for prepara- tion, and she found neither a bed to lie on, fire, nor food. Everything, at first sight, presented the prospect of a horrible imprisonment. Some time after, Gaston, wandering about France, went to visit the Duke of Lorraine. At his court a new object attracted his volatile nature, and Marguerite de Lorraine soon put aside all recollection of Marie-Louise de Gonzague. Cinq- Mars was in love with her ; he was much attached to the Princess, and dared aspire to her hand. It QUEEN OF POLAND. 127 appears that she was in correspondence with him at the time of his ambitious views of overthrowing the power of Richelieu, for she writes to him, " Your affairs are as publicly known at Paris as that the Seine runs under the Pont Neuf." Gaston and Cinq-Mars had sent off a gentleman to Madrid, who concluded a treaty in their name. It consisted of twenty articles, all directed against Richelieu. De Thou, his friend, had no know- ledge of this treaty, but Cinq-Mars communicated it to him. He disapproved of it, and exhorted his friend not to continue a criminal intelligence with the enemies of France ; but Cinq-Mars was given up to pleasure, and did not mind his friend's re- primands or advice, and they both fell victims to their ambitious views, and to the vengeance of Richelieu. It was said that Gaston contributed to their fatal ending by his answers on their trial, and they suffered on the scaffold. Marie-Louise then left France to be placed on the throne of Poland. The stories of the Duke of Orleans and of Cinq-Mars prejudiced Ladislas against his Queen, but she was beginning to gain his confidence and liking when he died ; and the only thing that was wanting to make the circum- 128 PRINCESS PALATINE. stances of her life more extraordinary now oc- curred. After being the widow of one King, she became the wife of his brother and successor John Casimir, King of Poland. As the Queen of this monarch, she was destined to strange reverses of fortune ; was in many straits and difficulties, and forced to take refuge in Silicia, where she was in want of the common necessaries of life. Bossuet alludes to the privations and dis- tresses that befel the Queen of Poland, in his sermon preached at her sister's death. She became a very religious person in her latter years, and was a benefactress of Port Royal des Champs. ANNE DE GONZAGUE, PRINCESS PALATINE. Born, 1616; died, 1684. ANNE DE GONZAGUE was passionately in love with Henri de Guise, and he with her. Henri de Guise was then named for the archbishopric of Rheims, but had not as yet taken orders, and he made her a promise of marriage, which, to her PRINCESS PALATINE. 129 grief, he never fulfilled. Some years afterwards, she married the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the son of the Duke of Bavaria ; and under the name of the Princess Palatine, she became well known throughout Europe. Her appearance is described as being both graceful and majestic, and her manner and address those of a queen. She had no equal in those days as to political cleverness ; she was a diplomate in resources, and her genius lay in negotiation in the acuteness with which she would discuss affairs of importance ; and her fertile imagination found expedients for obviating difficulties that stood in the way of what she wished to achieve. She early displayed in all the business of society in France her tact in conversation, and her talent in fetes and amusements. Madame de M otteville describes her as " having address and capacity for conducting any political intrigue, and great facility at finding expedients to arrive at her ends." The Princess, also, was a woman of taste and refinement, and wrote well. There is a little essay of hers on Hope, published amongst the letters of Madame de Sevigne, which displays a cultivated G 3 130 PRINCESS PALATINE. and refined taste and turn of mind. The Cardi- nal de Retz says of her, " Madame la Palatine was as fond of gallantry as she was of solid busi- ness. I do not think that Queen Elizabeth of England had more capacity for conducting affairs of state than she had. I have seen her in times of faction, I have seen her in the cabinet, and everywhere she was to be depended upon for sincerity." During the Fronde, the Princess Palatine con- ducted herself with consummate political skill, while all others, during that period, seemed to have behaved like madmen or children. The Princess was faithful to the state, and to Anne of Austria, to whom she rendered some important services, as well as to Mazarin, who was not over grateful in return. At the time that Mazarin imprisoned the princes of the blood, the Princess contrived the escape of her friend, the Duchess de Longueville ; and then joining the Coadjuteur De Retz, she deter- termined on procuring the release of the princes. With all her cleverness in the difficult art of uniting contrary opinions, and opposite parties with whom she had interest, she would never commit herself; PRINCESS PALATINE. 131 and by a straightforwardness, as rare as it was sin- cere, she got the confidence of all parties, which she achieved very much from her powers of pleas- ing, and a gift of language before which every- thing gave way. At the peace of the Pyrenees, the Princess Pala- tine held the place of superintendent of the house- hold of the young Queen of France ; but Mazarin, who even in death was ambitious and grasping at honours for his family, asked Louis to prevail on the Princess to relinquish her situation in favour of his niece, the Countess de Soissons. Anne retired to her estate, and returned no more to court until the marriage of her daughter to the eldest son of the Grand Conde, when she resumed all her former habits, which were those of dissipa- tion and business allied. A moment, however, was marked in the Prin- cess's life that was to effect an entire change in her character and existence. Her state as regards a future world seemed desperate, for her mind was made up to the most complete and entire scepti- cism. But the example of the Duchess de Lon- gueville, whose errors and life had been much 132 PRINCESS PALATINE. what hers had been, and who was now expiating her sins in austerities, led her to think of religion in another light. This woman, gifted with so strong a mind, and with such a masculine understanding, and whose religious opinions were marked with incredulity, nevertheless believed in dreams. A dream came to her, which Bossuet characterises as one of those dreams which God sends from heaven to make an impression. This dream is of the most foolish and trifling nature, and would never have been men- tioned but from its results ; but those results cause a great many and various reflections, and lead us to think with wonder of times that have produced such circumstances. In the first place, this dream caused the Princess to renounce the world, its vanities and illusions; and Mr. Wordsworth's philosophic remark was fulfilled in her, " Miracles believed, are miracles achieved." Of her character there can be no doubt, as both Bossuet and the Cardinal de Retz speak of her powerful mind. But what is much more wonderful is, that Bossuet and the Abbe de la Trappe gave credit to this dream talked of it wrote of it preached of it PRINCESS PALATINE. 133 and that it much occupied the wisest and cleverest men in France. There is a passage of such force and power on this subject, and on the superstitious belief in omens, from the pen of the author of Salmonia, that imposes a check on all incredulity of this nature, silences wonder, and restrains ridicule : "In my opinion, profound minds are the most likely to think lightly of the resources of human reason ; it is the most superficial thinker who is generally strongest in every kind of unbe- lief. The deep philosopher sees chains of causes and effects so wonderfully and strangely linked together, that he is usually the last person to decide upon the impossibility of any two series of events being independent of each other." Was Bossuet that deep philosopher ? or did he think " Dreams are toys : Yet for this once, yea, superstitiously, I will be squared by this" ? Before the Princess renounced the world, she appeared at court in all the simplicity and modesty of a changed character. She not only reformed her own life, but that of her family and attendants ; 134 PRINCESS PALATINE. and she retired from the world to give herself up to prayer, penitence, and good works. Having passed several years in great austerities, the Princess died at the age of sixty-eight, and desired to be buried at Val de Grace, where her sister was abbess. Bossuet preached her funeral sermon, in consequence of her connexion with the Conde family, to whom he could refuse no- thing. There are parts of this discourse very remarkable. He says, " the Princess had all the qualities admired by the world, and all the qua- lities which make persons admire themselves. Unchangeable in friendship, not wanting in worldly duties, she had all the virtues with which hell is filled. .... Of what use were her rare talents? She had the confidence of the court ; she twice over protected the prime minister (Mazarin) from his enemies, from his bad fortune, from his fears, and from his irresolute and unfaithful friends. And what did she reap ? An experience of the weakness of political promises, their varying will, their deceiving words, an experience of the changes that years bring with them of the illusions of worldly friendships, which pass from us DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. 135 along with years and worldly interests, and of the darkness of the heart of man, who never knows himself, and does not less deceive himself than others." After a picture of a life at court, its dissipations and its disappointments, Bossuet ends " O Eternal Lord of times past and to come, these are the scenes, this is the existence, that those en- dowed with what the world calls powerful minds are taken with, and seduced by." ANNE DE BOURBON, DUCHESSE DE LONGUEVILLE. , Born, 1619; died, 1679. MADAME DE SEVIGNE, in her account of the Duchess de Longueville, inspires a strong inte- rest for her. She represents her cruel state of despair at the death of her dearly beloved son at the battle of the Rhine ; she writes of her peni- tence, and devotion, and charity ; she describes the evening when she received, as was the custom then, the public condolence of the crowd ; and, 136 DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. last of all, she writes of her death and of the funeral sermon preached in the presence of the Conde family. The Duchess de Longueville's history is the most romantic and extraordinary of the ladies of those days. She was a great sinner and a great saint; she was a princess of the blood and an aventuriere. She had been all grace, and beauty, and activity, in a youth that was anything but respectable ; she was all respectability at an age that seemed not to have belonged to the beginning of her life. She died a very Christian death ; and she placed on the monument of her son, erected by her at Port Royal, " Dieu 1'avait re- serve a une si grande piete." Both Madame de Sevigne and Madame de Maintenon write of the austerities and mortifi- cations that the Duchess imposed on herself; and the first calls her " cette chere et penitente prin- cesse." But in those days, in France, the greater had been the sinner the greater became the saint. Together with Madame de Chevreuse and the Princess Palatine, the Duchess had played a great part during the minority of Louis XIV. Love, faction, and intrigue occupied the time of these DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. 137 beauties. The poet Volture represents the Du- chess as serious and political when she was very young, and that she presided at the Congress of Munster when her husband was ambassador from France. She was the daughter of the first prince of the blood, the Prince de Conde, who was pri- soner at Vincennes ; she was sister to the Grand Conde, and she was born in a prison. When she appeared at court, and in the society of the Hotel de Rambouillet, she captivated all who saw her, not merely by her beauty (which alone would have done so) but by the grace with which she said and did everything. What made her still more remarkable in the world, she was betrothed to the Prince de Joinville ; but he died ; and the Duke de Beaufort, who had sought her hand, seeming to renounce it, she married a widower of forty-seven the Duke de Longueville. Hardly was the treaty of Munster concluded, which suspended foreign hostilities, when inward divisions began to foment ; and the hatred which the parliament bore to Mazarin gave birth to the Fronde. Then the Duchess shewed her abilities, the boldness of her plans, and the steadiness and calmness with which she executed them. The 138 DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. Cardinal de Retz writes of her, " She would have had but few faults, if gallantry had not given her many ; for her passion made her place politics as a secondary consideration, and from the heroine of a party she became the aventuriere." The day of the Barricades, Anne of Austria carried the young King to St. Germains. The greatest confusion reigned at Paris, and the Duchess de Longueville had acquired in the conferences at Munster a taste for politics and negotiation. She opposed the court and the minister, having on her side De Retz, La Roche- foucauld, and her youngest brother, the Prince de Conti. The Prince de Conde remained with the court, though afterwards she drew him into civil war, and finally, was the means of his going off to the Spaniards. In order the better to gain the confidence of the parliament, at the time that Paris was in a state of siege from the royal troops, the Duchesses de Longueville and de Bouillon were conducted by De Retz to the Hotel de Ville. Each of these heroines of the Fronde carried in her arms a child as lovely as its mother. The Duchess de Longue- DUCHESS DE LONGDEVILLE. 139 viile established herself in the Hotel de Wle, which served as military quarters, and palace to her court; and the following January, she there gave birth to that son whose death, twenty-three years after, she deplored so bitterly. The council of state assembled in the Duchess's own room, and there was arranged the movement of armies, and the business of parliament. The trophies of victory were deposited at the feet of these two beauties; and in the midst of state affairs, love broke and made cabals and conspi- racies, and balls and battles alternately filled the heads of the leading persons of the day. De Retz says, " It was more like an old romance than real life." Two of the Duchess's lovers were killed in duels, the Duke de Nemours, and the Comte de Coligny, who fought in her quarrel and by her wish. La Rochefoucauld was another of her lovers. During eight months of the blockade of Paris, Madame de Longueville exercised the greatest interest in all decisions against the court, and in her rooms were signed the articles of peace in 1649. Peace being concluded between the Fron- deurs and the Royalists, she went to the Queen ; 140 DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. but the coldness of her reception from Anne of Austria and Mazarin made her hate them still more than she had done, and her reception dis- pleased the Grand Conde ; and thus she gained over to her side and to her politics this hero, who had always had an affection for his sister. The spirit of vengeance animating the court party, they arrested the princes of the blood, Conde, Conti, and the Duke de Longueville, at the Palais Royal, whither they had been enticed. The Princess Palatine had given Madame de Longueville notice in time, and she made her escape to Normandy, where her husband had been governor, and where she expected to cause a rising in favour of the princes; but Mazarin's influence had been there before her, and she was not received as she expected. Afraid of falling into the hands of Mazarin's emissaries, and seeing all her hopes destroyed, she went to a little sea- port, and, notwithstanding bad weather, she em- barked, and was nearly lost. Obliged to conceal herself under various disguises, she put in practice all the courage and decision of her nature, and having gained an English captain at Havre, he conveyed her to Rotterdam. DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. 141 The Prince of Orange came to visit her on her arrival, and invited her to remain at the Hague, but she preferred going to Turenne's head-quarters at Stenay. He gave the sister of Conde a good reception, and, with her beauty and her cleverness, she seduced " le sage Turenne" over to the Fronde side. It was stipulated that the two armies should join, and war should be declared under the support of Spain, until the princes should be liberated. This plan was adopted with regret by Turenne, whom the King had just before raised to the rank of field- marshal. It was said that Turenne was not quite so well treated by Madame de Longueville when he pleaded his love, as when he treated of political interests. At Stenay, a manifesto was published, in which the Duchess accused Mazarin of having sworn the destruction of all the Condes. La Rochefoucauld, at that time the Duchess's lover, sent her very useful advice from his government in Poitou, as to the way she should conduct herself. At last, by the help of those who advocated her cause, after three months of detention, the princes were set at 142 DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. liberty, had fetes given to them, and were received everywhere in triumph. The Duchess, meanwhile, remained at Stenay till the negotiations were concluded, and on her road to Paris she was met by every sort of honour. This time she was well received by Anne of Austria and the young King; but her hotel at Paris became the rendezvous of the disaffected and discontented, and of foreign ministers, and all sorts of persons who were mixed up in public affairs. This gave great offence at court. The Duchess also protected persons of letters, and she embarked in the literary quarrels of Voi'ture and Benserade. Strange times of civil war, when ladies and sonneteers played such conspicuous parts ! New disputes occupied the COUTI and the Conde party. De Retz calls all that passed at Bordeaux "un galimatias inexplicable." The Duchess de Longueville went to Bordeaux, where the Prince de Conde held his court, and where anarchy divided all parties. This helped Mazarin's views ; and he ended by getting the ascendency. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld had quarrelled DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. 143 with the Duchess, and not contented with having left her, he never rested till he caused her to lose the confidence of the Prince de Conde. At length, whether from disgust or vexation no one knew, she asked permission to visit her aunt, the widow of the Duke de Montmorency, who had been beheaded under the government of Richelieu. Madame de Montmorency, Superior of the Convent of the Visitation, at Moulins, was the model of every virtue ; and her niece beheld in her the consequences of the religious feelings which had occupied her youth, and which became to her a consolation for her great and uncommon misfor- tunes. When the Duke de Longueville, having negotiated with success for his wife, came to take her away to his government in Normandy, the Duchess won every heart, and the poor as well as the rich idolized her. All feelings against her were quelled, and Anne of Austria began to shew herself more favourably inclined towards her. But Conde was engaged in a war against France which lasted to the peace of the Pyrenees, when Don Louis de Haro shewed such an interest in this prince of the blood, and spoke in so deter- mined a manner for him in the name of the King 144 DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. of Spain, that Mazarin could not oppose him. Mazarin spoke to him of the Duchess's character, and how much Conde was influenced by her. " You Spaniards are very happy," said Mazarin ; " your women do nothing but occupy themselves with making love. It is not so in France, where we have three women capable of overturning three kingdoms, the Duchesse de Longueville, the Duchesse de Chevreuse, and the Princess Palatine." At last, on the marriage of Louis XIV., and on the peace, the Conde party .were restored to favour. Society in France became the luxury of life, and the great days of French literature began to dawn. Madame de Longueville, at the age of forty, had still charms enough to appear with eclat at the French court, when her enemy Mazarin was no longer in existence ; but she was sick of politics, and was content to watch the interests of her own family. There seems to have been in France at that time a universal pardon, forgiveness, and forgetfulness amongst all parties. It was long after, that the Duchess went one day to pay her respects to the King at St. Germains. After some conversation, Louis DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. 145 made her remain to dine with him ; and this little event gave much thought to those about the court, who had not forgotten the time when the Duchess defied the royal authority. She herself felt inti- midated when with the King; and perhaps, in consequence of the violent feelings which had that day passed through her mind, she fell asleep in the chapel of the chateau where Bourdaloue was to preach. As soon as her brother, the Prince de Conde, saw Bourdaloue appear in the pulpit, he called her, saying, " Awaken, Madam, here is the enemy !'** For years religion had by fits and starts come over the Duchess de Longueville, and it ended in calming her. She obtained the favour from Bossuet of his giving some religious conferences at her house. One of her biographers says, that " now there remained nothing for her but devotion ; but that as it was necessary for her, even in de- votion, to have a party to act for, and a part to play, she made herself the protectress of the Jan- senists, and a mediatrix for them with the Pope. It was the Duchess de Longueville who, in 1668, conducted that theological transaction at the court of Rome, called ' The peace of Clement the VOL. I. H 146 DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. Ninth.' Extraordinary woman! who had the talent of making a sensation in political life ! in making her peace with God ! of saving herself on the same plank from hell and ennui !" The Cardinal de Retz says, at the conclusion of the portrait he drew of her character, " La grace a retabli ce que le monde ne lui pouvait rendre." The Duke de Longueville died in 1663, and the Duchess then retired from the world to the auste- rities of devotional life, unless when called upon on occasions when her rank obliged her to appear. She now gave a great attention to the education of her two sons. For that purpose she bought the hotel* in the Rue St. Thomas du Louvre, which had formerly been the residence of the prime minister, De Luynes, and was afterwards known as the Hotel de Chevreuse. There are destinies in houses as well as in per- sons; and the Hotel de Longueville could have told a strange history of grandeurs, of intrigues, and of wretchedness without end ; of the beau- tiful Duchess de Chevreuse, and her hair-breadth * The Hotel de Longueville, where the families of De Luynes, Chevreuse, Epernon, and Longueville had succeeded each other in influence and power over the destinies of France, was pulled down in the reign of Napoleon. DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. 147 escapes ; of the Cardinal de Richelieu, and the Duke of Buckingham, and the unfortunate Cha- lais, and Chateauneuf, and many others. Before the doors of that hotel had been the limits of the neutral ground during the Fronde. When the Coadjuteur, De Retz, came of an evening " pour faire sa cour" to Mademoiselle de Chevreuse, he had his guards and advanced sentinels posted at twenty paces from the royal guards. Curious times, when an ecclesiastic came " en visite de galantrie," attended by his guards and advanced sentinels ! But the Duchess de Longueville was doomed in that house to expiate her sins by a degree of misery she had never known before. Her eldest son was of weak understanding ; he became an ecclesiastic at Rome, and a renunciation of about three hundred thousand francs in rent was obtained from him in favour of his brother. He died shortly after. The young Duke de Longueville was very handsome, very promising, and had distinguished himself much with the army. He was killed at the battle of the Rhine, in 1672, before the eyes of his uncle, the Grand Conde, and his impetuous valour occasioned the death of many others. He H2 148 DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. was three and twenty, and was named as likely to become shortly King of Poland. Madame de Sevigne's account of this event is as follows : " I have just heard a terrible piece of news, of which I cannot yet give you the de- tails ; but I know that in the passage of the Rhine, in the army under the Prince de Conde, M. de Longueville is killed. I was at Madame de la Fayette's when they came to tell this to M. de la Rochefoucauld, and also the death of the Chevalier de Marsillac (his grandson), and that M. de Marsillac (his son) is wounded. This storm fell on him in my presence. He was very much affected, tears fell down his face, but his strength of mind prevented his crying out. " After this intelligence I asked not a question, but flew to Madame de Pomponne, who reminded me that my son is in the King's army, which has no share in this expedition, which was reserved to the Prince de Conde. They say that the Prince is wounded, but that he has passed the river. . . . They say that Nogent is drowned, that Guitry is . killed, that M. de la Feuillade and M. de Roque- laure are wounded, and that a great number of persons are lost in this cruel business DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. 149 Adieu, my dear child. My head is confused ; for although my son is with the king's troops, yet there will be so many actions that it makes one tremble." In the next letter, Madame de Sevigne writes " You have never seen Paris as it is now ; every one is in tears, or afraid of being so. Poor Ma- dame de Nogent is gone out of her mind; Madame de Longueville breaks one's heart to think of. I have not seen her, but this much I know, that Mademoiselle de Vertus has returned to Port-Royal, where she is generally. They went to fetch her and M. Arnauld to announce this terrible news. Mademoiselle de Vertus had only to shew herself; such a sudden return foretold some dreadful event. The Duchess immediately asked how her brother was ; her thoughts refused to go further. ' Madam, his wound is doing well.' * And my son ?' to which they made no answer. ' Oh,' she cried, * my son, my dear son ! An- swer me, did he die on the spot ? had he not one single moment ? Oh, my God, what a sacrifice !' and she fell on her bed, and there came upon her all that violent sorrow brings in convulsions, and faintings, and stupor, and groans, 150 DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. and bitter tears She has felt all that can be felt. At present she sees a few friends, takes some food, but she gets no rest ; and her health, already very bad, is visibly worse. For my part, I wish for death for her, not understanding how life is to be borne after such a loss. There is one man in the world who is not less affected ; and I cannot help thinking that were these two to meet, without any persons present, all other feelings would give way to cries and tears from both of them." According to the usages then in France, Ma- dame de Longueville, ten days after the news of the death of her only son, received the condolence of the public on her bed. Madame de Sevigne writes " Chance placed me near her bed, and she made me come nearer, and spoke to me first, for I found no words for such an occasion. She said that she did not doubt my compassion for her, that nothing was wanting to her misery. She spoke to me of Madame de la Fayette, and of M. d'Hacqueville, as of those who would feel for her the most ; she spoke of my son, and of the friendship her son had for him. The crowd obliged me to go away. The circumstance of DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. 151 peace being proclaimed adds to her sorrow, and I feel for her when I put myself in her place. For myself, I thank God for peace, as it preserves to me my poor Sevigne and my friends. It is quite true that M. de Longue- ville had been to confess before he went to the army; but as he never made a parade of any- thing, he had not paid court to his mother, by telling her of it. It was a confession con- ducted by our friends at Port-Royal, the abso- lution of which was deferred during two months. This is so true, that Madame de Longueville can- not doubt it ; and you may suppose what a conso- lation it is to her. He was very liberal of his money, and gave a great deal in charity ; and these charities were made on condition that they should not be talked of. Never had any man so many solid good qualities. He wanted a few faults, such as a little pride and hauteur of character, and a little vanity ; but never was a disposition nearer perfection. Provided he was contented with himself, he cared not for the ap- probation of others." The young Duke de Longueville was buried in the Orleans' chapel of the Celestines, at Paris ; 152 DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. but his heart was carried to Port-Royal des Champs, where his mother erected a sumptuous monument to his memory. The long epitaph placed upon it began by stating his numerous titles, his excellent character, and his military bravery, and that he was on the point of being raised to the throne of Poland by the choice of that nation ; " but as he was thinking seriously of still greater things, (that is, of eternity and the kingdom of God,) and that he bitterly lamented the errors of his past life, God, touched with the dangers to which his age and his future dignity exposed him, delivered him from difficult affairs in calling him to Himself on the 12th of June, 1671." .... The end of the epitaph states that his mother, " que Dieu avoit reservee a une si grande piete," raised this monument as a mark of her grief and of her hopes. After this event, the Duchess de Longueville lived mostly in an apartment she had in the court of the Carmelite convent at Paris. Later in life she retired to Port-Royal des Champs. At Port- Royal she built a corps de logis. The Arnaulds, and some other religious friends, formed her so- ciety. She practised the most extreme austerities. DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. 153 During the disputes between the Jesuits and Jan- senists, she made use of all her influence in favour of the latter. For a long time Arnauld was con- cealed in her house, and she carried him his food herself. Louis XIV., out of regard to the Duchess, as long as she lived, would not give any severe orders against the nuns of Port-Royal. For some years the Duchess had been a changed character. She was no longer that haughty prin- cess whose wit and beauty had been made subser- vient to the most boundless ambition that person who, to gratify her pride, had plunged her country into civil war. The restless and perturbed spirit was now calm and peaceful. The Duchess had taken with her to Port-Royal the Prince and Princess de Conti, her brother and sister-in-law ; and the same change was soon per- ceptible in them. They all deplored, in penitence, the widely-extended evils that then: ambition had occasioned. Their immense revenues were now devoted to charity ; and with ample munificence they gave to those provinces that had suffered by the civil war. They did not refuse to make the most humiliating and public acknowledgments of H3 154 DUCHESS DE LONGUEVILLE. repentance; nor did they, until a lapse of years, spend more on themselves than was absolutely ne- cessary. Madame de Sevigne, in speaking of the senti- ments of a true penitent, says, " Such was Ma- dame de Longueville, that penitent and saint-like princess. She did not forget her state (of sin), nor the abyss from which God had called her; she kept the recollection of it in her mind, to esta- blish her repentance, and her lively gratitude to God." Elsewhere Madame de Sevigne calls her *' cette mere de 1'eglise, cette penitente et chere prin- cesse." Speaking of her funeral sermon, she says, " Une penitence de vingt-sept ans est un beau champ pour conduire une si belle ame au ciel !" The Duchess de Longueville died at the age of fifty- nine. She was buried at the Carmelites, where was preached a sermon, at which the Prince de Conde and the family assisted. The prelate who officiated fulfilled his task very skilfully, pass- ing by the awkward parts of the Duchess's career, saying what was best to say, and withholding what it was best to be silent on. But the government opposed the publication of the sermon. DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. 155 DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. Born, 1613; died, 1680. FRANCOIS, Prince de Marsillac, and Duke de la Rochefoucauld, was author of the celebrated " Maxims."* His education was neglected, but his natural talent supplied the place of education. He had, according to Madame de Maintenon, " une physionomie heureuse, Pair grand, beaucoup d'es- prit, et peu de savoir." At the time that the Duke de la Rochefoucauld became known in the world, there was a crisis in the national manners and feelings in France. The nobles, kept under by the strong administration of Richelieu, were rising into faction, and a spirit of intrigue took hold of every one : not like the in- trigues of modern days, but shewing a disposition *The family of La Rochefoucauld were the most illustrious in France. At Verteuil, a chateau near Angouleme, built in the thirteenth century, was a series of family portraits from the tenth century, which were all in good preservation before the French Revolution of 1790. It was at Verteuil that the Comtesse de la Rochefoucauld entertained the Emperor Charles V., who declared, " Qu'il n'avoit jamais entre en maison qui sentit mieux sa grande vertu, honnetete, et seigneurie que celle-la." 156 DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. in all to make themselves either terrible and dreaded, or necessary and employed. Dominion and power were the objects, and women were the principal agents of attaining those ends. The mi- nority of Louis XIV., and the regency of Anne of Austria, seemed to the nobles a good opportunity of getting an influence in public affairs ; for where nothing is settled, everything may be aimed at. Gifted with great powers of observation, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld was called upon to ex- ercise this power during the civil war. All pas- sions were at this time called into play ; ah 1 vices and virtues shewed themselves. Plunged, from his infancy, into political intrigue, the Duke took an active share in affairs. The Cardinal de Richelieu, who had the gift of foreseeing the future, sent the Duke away from court ; but at the death of Richelieu he re-appeared there, with all the good looks and vivacity of youth. The field, however, was a narrow one for so many rivals. The parliament of Paris, whose pretensions be- came greater as its rights seemed more uncertain, opposed the new edicts. This was the origin of the civil war in France, as it was afterwards of that DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. 157 n England ; and so, likewise, did the Revolution of 1789 begin. This war of the Fronde would have been merely ridiculous had not the names of Conde and Turenne appeared in it. Love formed cabals ; the song-writers were often gene- rals of the armies ; and a lost skirmish was re- venged by an epigram. All passions were brought out ; all characters shewed themselves. A town opened its gates to " la beUe des belles."* The men changed politics as often as the women changed lovers ; and this war, as the Grand Conde said of it, should have had its history written in burlesque verses. All was arranged by the wits and beauties of the day. La Rochefoucauld was just the man to play a part in such times. He was then the lover of the Duchess de Longueville. At the combat of St. Antoine he received a blow from a musquet, which for some time deprived him of his sight. The fol- lowing well-known lines he had applied to his situation in times still chivalric, and they had become the device of his banner : " Pour me"riter son coeur, pour plaire a ses beaux yeux, J'ai fait la guerre aux rois ; je 1'aurais faite aux dieux." * The Duchess de Montbazon. 158 DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. After he had quarrelled with Madame de Lon- gueville, he parodied the lines thus : " Pour ce coeur inconstant, qu'enfin je connois mieux, J'ai fait la guerre aux rois; j'en ai perdu les yeux." The Fronde had made faction ridiculous the only way of quieting public affairs in France ; and the monarchy became settled under Louis XIV. The Duke de la Rochefoucauld now retired into private life. The first half of his life was passed in war, intrigue, and love adventures; the other half in the quiet society of his friends and family. The long friendship of De la Rochefoucauld for Madame de la Fayette is become as celebrated as his passion for the Duchess de Longueville. Ma- dame de la Fayette said of him, " II m'a donne de 1'esprit, mais j'ai reforme son coeur." His house became the rendezvous of all the most distin- guished persons for wit and talent; and at this time he composed his memoirs and his book of maxims. But the comfort of his life was destroyed by miserable sufferings from attacks of gout Ma- dame de Sevigne writes to Madame de Grignan, " I was yesterday with M. de la Rochefoucauld. His Chateau en Espagne is, to be well enough to DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. 159 be carried to his friends' houses, or into his car- riage to take the air." Another day she writes to her daughter, " I found him crying out with pain, his agony was so great ; he was in his chair, in a fever of agitation that gave me great pain to see. I had never before seen him in that state. He begged that I would tell you that those racked on the wheel only suffer one moment what he goes through half his life, and that he looks for death as his coup de grace." To these bodily sufferings, which he commonly bore with patience, others of a different nature came, which triumphed over all his firmness of mind. At the passage of the Rhine his son was killed, and his grandson wounded. Madame de Sevigne says, " Cette grele est tombee sur lui en ma presence , il a ete tres vivement afflige, ses larmes ont coule du fond du cceur, et sa fermete Fa empeche d'eclater." Again she says, " " Je vous conseille d'ecrire a M. de la Rochefoucauld sur la mort du Chevalier, et sur la blessure de M. de Marsillac. J'ai vu son cceur a decouvert dans cette cruelle aventure ; il est au premier rang de ce que je connais de cou- 160 DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. rage, de merite, de tendresse, et de raison. Je compte pour rien son esprit et ses agremens." These losses, joined to repeated attacks of gout, hastened his end, which was that of a Christian and of a philosopher. Madame de Sevigne says, " His state of mind is worthy of admiration his conscience quiet and settled. Believe me, it is not uselessly that his whole life has been a life of reflection ; for he has thus so anticipated his last moments that they have nothing new or strange for him." He died in 1680, leaving his friends and family inconsolable at his loss. This account of M. de la Rochefoucauld may be concluded with the por- trait that was drawn of him by the Cardinal de Retz a portrait which it was thought De Retz had drawn in anger at the one which Madame de Sevigne had shewn him of himself by M. de la Rochefoucauld. But this is not likely, as the strict truth with which the Cardinal wrote his Memoirs, and in which he never spared his own character, prevents his being suspected of this littleness. In fact, all the characters written by De Retz are looked upon as true. In speaking of his shy and bashful air, however, DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. 161 he might be supposed to be untrue, as no one contests the spirit and vivacity of La Rochefou- cauld's appearance; yet it is probably just, for Huet, in his memoirs, says that La Rochefoucauld always refused to take his place at the French Academy, because he was shy, and afraid of speaking in public. The following is the Cardinal's portrait of the Duke de la Rochefoucauld : " There is a je ne sais quoi in everything about M. de la Rochefoucauld. He has meddled in intrigues since his childhood, in times when he did not comprehend the value of little interests, and when he knew nothing of great interests. He never was equal to great af- fairs, and I cannot say why he was not ; for he had qualities which could have supplied the absence of those he did not possess. His views were not comprehensive ; and he did not see the tout en- semble of what was before him ; but his cleverness, admirable in theory, joined to his gentleness and powers of persuasion, and to the ease-of his man- ners, which are perfect, ought to have made up more than they have done for his want of penetra- tion. He always had an uncertain and irresolute disposition, for which I cannot find a cause, as it 162 DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. did not come from his imagination, which is not lively. I cannot accuse him of want of judgment; for though he wants action, he has a great deal of reason. We see the effects of irresolution in cha- racter, and we know not the cause. He never was a warrior, though he is a good soldier. He never made a good courtier, though always with the wish of being one. He never was a good party man, though all through his life he belonged to one side. The look of shyness and timidity, which he had about all affairs in common life, seemed in public life to ask for forgiveness. His manner and his book of maxims shew no great faith in virtue ; and his wish of getting out of affairs as fast as he got into them, makes me think that he would have done better in knowing himself, and in keep- ing to be what he really is, the most polished man of the world, and with regard to common life, the best sort of man that has appeared in his times." The Memoires de la Rochefoucauld are little read, but his maxims every one knows by heart. La Bruyere says that, in his line of literature, he looked on him as a rival. La Rochefoucauld could penetrate with uncommon quickness into the recesses of the human heart, and seize on the secret DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. 163 feeling that directed it. A great part of his life had been agitated by strong passions, and occupied successively by love and ambition, war and poli- tical intrigue. He had lived both in camps and courts, and civil war had brought him in contact with all kinds of persons ; and when all this was over, when years had cooled his ardour, and old age brought its calm to his impetuosity; when beauty had lost its charm for him ; he looked back and brought to his recollection the events he had been a spectator of, the parts that each person had played, and looking for the secret motives that had actuated those characters which birth, chance, or necessity had placed in relation with him, he dis- covered, or thought he had discovered, that the first principle, the strongest motive in all our ac- tions, is SELF-LOVE. La Rochefoucauld explains by self-love, the mysteries of the mind ; he thinks as a philosopher that the passions and affections of mankind are precipitated, as it were, by an unknown power towards the centre. This principle once acknowledged, he deduced from it every possible consequence. Friendship became merely an ex- change of good offices, a reciprocal management of 164 DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD. faults and virtues ; a commerce, in which self-love finds something to gain. Goodness was only a means of acquiring popularity. Justice was the fear of getting injustice from others; and, in short,* all our good and bad qualities become fluctuating and depending on circumstances. It could only be one whose character stood as high as the Duke de la Rochefoucauld's did, who could dare thus to lower the principle of all human actions ; and as half his life gave the example of every virtue, it might be allowable in him to write these maxims. Had many others written such a book, it would but have appeared like their own story. La Rochefoucauld is reproached with having given to the world a system that weakens all virtu^ and discourages all belief in it. But the times he lived in were extraordinary times; in civil war, men and women are not seen en beau ; and all who have written on revolutions, or during revolutions, have not judged them better. Rous- seau is one of those who has most condemned the maxims of La Rochefoucauld, and this is well ex- plained by Rousseau's own character. He was LA BRUYERE. 165 himself governed by self-love ; and he was angry that the great secret of all his discontent was re- vealed to the world. LA BRUYERE. Born, 1644 ; died, 1696. THE talent of observation, which consists in a philosophical spirit, cultivated to the last degree, made La Bruyere study the writings of the an- cients. He translated the Characters of Theo- phrastus, and resolved on drawing the portraits of the persons of his own day, as the Greek philoso- pher has painted his. When La Bruyere had finished his book, he shewed it to M. de Male- zieux, who said to him, " This book will bring you as many enemies as readers." The book came out in 1687, and was read with avidity ; not wholly on account of its merit, but because the author was supposed to have had malicious intentions in writing it, which never existed. The principal persons about court, how- ever, were to be found in the most satirical sketches ; and La Bruyere retired from that world 166 LA BRUYERE. which he had too strongly pictured. He was shielded only by the excellence of his own cha- racter, which was as much esteemed as the book was admired. He himself is to be found in the portrait of the true sage : " Go into the apartment of the philosopher ; you find him poring over the works of Plato that treat of the soul's spirituality ; or calculating the distances of the planets of Saturn and Jupiter ; in putting it in his power to oblige you, you bring him something more pre- cious than gold or silver ; the man of business or money-lender is a bear not to be tamed, or to be dealt with difficulty or distrust, but the man of letters does not play the part of the great man, but is accessible to all." La Bruyere has made an ingenious satire of the vices and follies of his times ; but he cannot be placed amongst those rigid moralists who make human nature hated and despised. Follow him into the world, which he has painted with strong colours, you see a man who goes into society without prejudices and without distrust; sees it without evil passions, and quits the world without ill-humour. He makes his way through the crowd without being carried away by prevailing opinions, LA BRUYERE. 167 and passes by received prejudices without either shocking or humouring them. But to the weak- nesses of the human race he accords everything that reason or virtue will allow of. It was in the most polished circles of Europe that La Bruyere studied mankind. There he formed his code of morals, and there he found his models. He is superior to his Greek predecessor, because the days of the reign of Louis XIV. were the most polished that France had ever known. Each of his pictures is the most finished perform- ance, and yet it appears the most careless sketch. His art lies in surprising his reader, and at the same time interesting him in getting at the truth. La Bruyere's book represents the world as it is, and as it always will be ; it is like society itself where the scene changes every moment, where all seems chance and hazard, and where each day brings a new subject of wonder, of observation, and of interest. Boileau wrote four lines under the portrait of La Bruyere : " Tout esprit orgueilleux qui s'aime, Par ses lepons se voit guri, Et dans son livre si cheri Apprend a se hair lui-meme." 168 LA MARQUISE DE GANGES. THE MARCHIONESS DE GANGES. Born, 1636; died, THERE are three stories of the reign of Louis XIV. that belong neither to history, to literature, or to society ; but that may be classed in the romantic annals of the times of Madame de Sevigne. The tragical story of Madame de Ganges; the life of the Abbe de Ranee ; and the mysterious history of the man known by the name of the Iron Mask. It was early in the reign of Louis that Madame de Castillane appeared at the court of France. She was born at Avignon, in 1636. Her name was Anne Elizabeth de Rossan, and she married, at the age of thirteen, the Marquis de Castellane, grandson of the Duke de Villars. When she first appeared at Versailles, Louis XIV., then very young, admired her much amongst the crowd of oeauties who ornamented his court. The beauty of Madame de Castellane, her birth, the large for- tune she brought her husband, and the species of favour she was honoured with by the king, all LA MARQUISE DE GANGES. 169 made her the fashion at Paris, where she was known as La belle Proven9ale. M. de Castellane, who was an officer in the navy, was shipwrecked, and perished on the shores of Sicily ; and Madame de Castellane remained a rich young widow, without children. Her hand was immediately sought by a crowd of admirers of the court of Louis ; and her unlucky destiny made her fix upon the young Lanede, Marquis de Ganges, whom she took to be her second husband in July, 1658. Two months afterwards, the Marquis de Ganges took his wife to Avignon, and the first years of their marriage passed happily enough. M. de Ganges had two brothers, the Abbe and the Che- valier de Ganges ; and both these persons fell in love with their sister-in-law. At the end of two or three years, some mis- understanding arose between the husband and wife. A taste for dissipation on one side, and a little coquetry on the other, caused some dissensions. The Abbe de Ganges, who was an intriguant, em- broiled and reconciled the married couple at his pleasure. Being the confidant of his sister-in-law, he trusted to time making her listen to his own VOL. I. I 170 LA MARQUISE DE GANGES. passion for her ; but when he made it known, his vows of love and constancy were rejected with disdain. The other brother, with the same pretensions, made the same trial, and was not better received. The two brothers, accordingly, joined together to revenge themselves, and tried, by administering poison, to get rid of their sister-in-law. Madame de Ganges swallowed the poison in chocolate ; but either it was not sufficiently strong, or it was weakened by the mixture, for she was only slightly ill. The crime, however, was publicly known at Avignon. Madame de Ganges agreed to accompany her husband to pass the autumn at his estate of Ganges. There are always some little circum- stances in all histories that are inexplicable. It seems that this unfortunate woman foresaw her end ; for in a letter written to her mother, dated from the Chateau de Ganges, she said she had passed through the gloomy avenues of that melan- choly abode with a feeling of horror. There is something in this story allied to that of Madonna Pia, in Dante ; so did Nello Delia Pietra carry his young and beautiful victim to the old, LA MARQUISE DE GANGES. 171 ruined chateau in the woods, where certain death awaited her; so had he silently and securely settled her death. Her husband left her in the chateau with his two brothers, and returned to Avignon. Some time before leaving that town, Madame de Ganges had inherited a considerable property ; and what proves that she did not think with confidence of her husband or of his relations was, that she had made a will at Avignon, in which, in case of her death, she gave the administration of her property to her mother, Madame de Rossan, until her children came of age. This will became a subject of persecution from her brothers-in-law, and she was weak enough to consent to revoke it. Hardly was the act of revo- cation signed than a new attempt at poisoning her was tried. It did not succeed, but the brothers had advanced too far in crime to recede. One day, Madame de Ganges, confined to her bed by illness, saw her two brothers enter the room ; the Abbe having a pistol and a cup of poison, the other holding a drawn sword. " You must die," said they ; " choose the manner of your death !" Madame de Ganges, almost out of her senses, i 2 172 LA MARQUISE DE GANGES. threw herself from her bed at the feet of the two wretches, and asked of what crime she was guilty. " Choose the manner of your death 1" was the only reply. Finding no help within reach, and all resistance useless, the unfortunate lady took the cup of poison and drank it, while the Abbe held a pistol to her throat This horrible scene over, the two brothers fastened their victim into her room, arid eparted, promising to send her a confessor. When left alone, her first thought was how to escape; her second, to try by every means to bring up the poison which she had swallowed. She succeeded in part by putting her long hair down her throat, and, getting to the window, she threw herself, half-naked, into the court, a distance of twenty-two feet from the ground. But how was she to escape from her murderers, who were the masters of the chateau ? The compassion of a servant caused him to open a door through the stables into the open country, and she took refuge in the farmer's house near. The Chevalier de Ganges, who had seemed less ferocious than his brother, followed her, and made the farmer believe her to be out of her mind. He LA MARQUISE DE GANGES. 173 followed her from chamber to chamber with his sword drawn, and, just as she was escaping from the house, gave her several wounds, the violence of which was so great that part of the sword remained in her shoulder. At her cries, the Abbe, who had remained at the door to prevent persons from entering, came in with the crowd, and, furious at seeing Madame de Ganges still alive, he fired a pistol that missed her. The wit- nesses, hitherto terrified, threw themselves upon the Abbe, who made his escape. Madame de Ganges lived nineteen days after this horrible scene, and before she expired im- plored the mercy of God on her assassins. Her body was opened, and her inside was found burnt, from the strength of the poison she had swallowed. Her husband, who it appears had absented him- self from his chateau during these last scenes, was with her at her death, and there was strong pre- sumptive evidence against him ; but his wife, even under the torture she was suffering, always com- passionate in disposition, did all in her power to - dissipate those suspicions. The Parliament of Toulouse, by an act passed in 1667, condemned the Abbe and the Chevalier '174 ABBE DE RANGE. de Ganges to be (according to the French law- term) " Rompus par contumace." The Marquis de Ganges had his estates confiscated ; he was de- graded from his rank, and condemned to a per- petual exile. The Chevalier escaped to Malta, and was killed in fighting against the Turks. The Abbe de Ganges fled into Holland, and there, under a feigned name, adventures happened to him that might form a romance. This history of Madame de Ganges has served for melo-dramas and novels without end. THE ABBE DE RANGE, ABBOT OF LA TRAPPE. Born, 1626; Died, 1700. ARM AND DE RANGE, the reformer of the Abbey of La Trappe, in Normandy, was born at Paris, in 1626. His family had filled great offices under the government, and he was a god-child of the Car- dinal de Richelieu. From his earliest youth, his countenance was very beautiful, his figure noble ; he was tall and of great strength ; his hair curled ABBE DE RANC. 175 in profusion over his shoulders, and his whole ap- pearance gave evidence of a powerful intellect, joined to great sensibility and to great personal beauty. M. de Ranee's paternal fortune was great, and his ecclesiastical benefices were still greater. He took his degree at the Sorbonne with distinction ; and when he came out into the world, he was one of the best-informed men of his day in all species of literature. His head was enlightened, but his heart was dead in sins and trespasses. His learning was the pride of the universities, and his fortune, his birth, beauty, and accomplishments made him uni- versally sought in society. M. de Ranee had been a Knight of Malta from his early youth ; and as he grew up, the Queen took a lively interest in his success in the world. Given up to every species of dissipation, the time that he passed in hunting, when in the depths of the forest, seems to have been the only period when any serious thoughts crossed his mind, as to the evil course of the life he was engaged in, and which continued for some years. Although De Ranee led a life of pleasure, and was spending his church revenues in gambling, 176 ABB DE RANCE. ambition was the leading passion in his character, and in some of his greatest projects he was disap- pointed. He preached well ; and it often happened to him that after hunting for some hours at early day, he would travel forty or fifty miles, and then go into the pulpit with as much tranquillity as if he had left his library but a moment before. lie refused the bishopric of Leon, because the ap- pointments were not good enough to satisfy his ambitious views; and he intended to succeed his uncle as Archbishop of Tours. A friendship with the Cardinal de Retz injured de Ranee with Mazarin ; and the misfortunes of De Retz and the death of his friend Gaston, Duke of Orleans, affected him so much that he quitted Paris in disgust, and went to his estates at Veret, thinking to dissipate his sorrows in hunting. De Ranee was accompanied by some of his gay companions, and they were in the habit of con- versing with great freedom and latitude on reli- gious subjects. One day, when they were shooting in the woods, and held some discourse doubting the existence of a Providence, a ball from some unseen hand struck part of the dress of the Abbe de Ranee, and fell harmless at his feet. The cir- ABBE DE RANGE. 177 cumstance made an impression on his mind, and caused him to reflect on his life of folly. He did not, however, make any change in his evil course, until repeated accidents, from which he escaped by what seemed a sort of miracle, made him feel that his life was not what it should be, and that God had been merciful to him in bearing with him so long. The Abbe de Ranee did not become a changed man till after the death of Madame de Montbazon, a celebrated beauty of those days.* He was her lover ; and the circumstances under which he be- came acquainted with her death were too horrible not to affect the imagination. Going to her house, immediately on his return from the country, he knocked at the door, and no one answering, he recollected another entrance, and found his way up stairs to the Duchess's own rooms. Knocking again, and hearing 1 no reply, he opened the door, and the first sight that struck his eyes was a leaden coffin, containing the corpse of his mistress. The head, severed from the body, lay in clotted blood at the foot of the coffin, half covered with a * Lord Orford was in possession, at Strawberry Hill, of a miniature of the Duchess de Montbazon. i3 178 ABBE DE RANGE. pall, which had been thrown negligently over it. The Duchess de Montbazon died of the small-pox in April, 1657. Those who had the charge of the funeral finding the coffin too short, had had re- course to this horrible expedient to hasten the completion of the ceremony. M. de Ranee's grief bordered on madness. For a short time he seemed frantic ; and one of his reflections was, in the agony of his grief, " She once sought God, and I misled her !" It was said that he wandered in the forest for a long while, calling on her name. To this frantic state suc- ceeded a melancholy which made him avoid his friends, and shut himself up entirely at Veret. Afterwards the death of his friend Gaston, the Duke of Orleans, deprived De Ranee of one who helped to realize his ambitious views, and his presence at the death-bed of that Prince gave the finishing stroke as to his feelings of the emptiness of worldly grandeur. He resolved to break entirely with the world ; and passing six weeks in the country to reflect what course he should pursue, he returned to Veret, whence he banished all amusement and all luxury, sold his service of plate and his fine furniture, and distributed the money ABBE DE RANGE. 179 to the poor, having his table served in the most frugal manner, and forbidding in his establishment the most innocent recreations, that his dependents might have the more time to give to prayer and religious study. Neither the jests of his friends nor the entrea- ties of his relations could prevail on him to turn from his new course of life. Looking on his for- tune as belonging to the poor, he made haste to distribute it. He got rid of his ecclesiastical pre- ferment, reserving the Abbey de La Trappe, which he obtained the King's permission to hold, and to that spot he retired in 1662. This was at the moment when France was at peace and at the height of its splendour, and presented, in its so- ciety and literature, everything to please one whose riches and friendships called him to enjoy the world. The Abbe de Ranee then entered upon that life of seclusion and penitence which has excited such admiration in Catholics; a life where self- denial is carried to a pitch beyond that practised by the monks and hermits of eastern deserts. He forbade the use of wine and meat ; he commanded perpetual silence and manual labour; he forbade 180 ABB& DE RANGE. the study of books ; and all hours were given to prayer, or to the cultivation of the ground. The austerities and penitence of the monks of La Trappe soon attracted the attention of the various governments of Europe. Thousands left their convents to take these more severe vows, until recourse was had to law to put a stop to the emigrations from other monasteries. The Abbey possessed but 10,000 livres of revenue; but on this sum the Abbe de Ranee found means of sup- porting the expenses of the convent, receiving strangers, relieving the poor, and often sending sums to distant charities. The Abbe de Ranee was concerned in many of the divisions in the Church. His health was bad, and he passed his leisure in composing several religious works. He was in correspondence with both Bossuet and Fenelon. Bossuet often retired to La Trappe. Voltaire says of De Ranee, that he had dispensed himself, as legislator, from the law which obliged those who resided in the " Tomb of La Trappe" to remain ignorant of what went on in the world. In truth, the name of the Abbe de Ranee is mixed up in every religious discussion of the times in THE IKON MASK. 181 which he lived. Having been in his youth de- voted to ambition, he could never entirely detach himself from those persons who were continually writing to consult him on religious subjects, and to ask his opinion and advice. He died on a bed of straw and ashes, at the age of seventy-five, in 1700, after passing thirty-seven years in a life of austerities. THE IRON MASK. Died, 1703. THE story of the " Masque de Fer" has excited the most intense curiosity ; and with reason, for it has all the mystery of romance. The curiosity respecting this history has never been fully gra- tified, and probably never will be. The prisoner was very tall, of a commanding and fine appear- ance. He was conducted with great precautions to the Chateau de Pignerol, of which Saint-Mars was governor, in the year 1662. He wore on the journey a mask of black velvet, and the order was 182 THE IRON MASK. to kill him, should he discover himself. He was brought by Saint-Mars, in 1686, to the Island of Ste. Marguerite, and the same mystery attended him as in the first instance. The Marquis de Louvois went to see the pri- soner, and spoke to him standing, with a consi- deration that marked respect. It was the go- vernor who always brought in and placed the dishes containing his food on the table, and then returned, locking the door after him, of which he kept the key. One day the prisoner wrote something with a knife on a silver plate, and threw the plate from the window, towards a boat that was fastened near the foot of the tower. A fisherman picked up the plate, and brought it to the governor. The go- vernor, astonished, asked the fisherman if he had read what was written on the plate, or if any one had seen it in his hands? The man answered that he did not know how to read ; that he had just found the plate, and that no one had seen it. He was kept in custody some days, when the governor said to him, " You may go, but you may think yourself lucky at not knowing how to read." THE IRON MASK. 183 There was another story told of the same nature so late as the year 1778, by an officer whose father had been the great friend of Saint-Mars. This officer, who was an old man of seventy-nine, told the Abbe Passon that a shirt, written all over from one end to the other, had been thrown from the prison, and was seen floating on the river by a friar, who, on carrying, it to the governor, ' was pressed by him urgently as to what he had read of the story. The friar denied having read anything ; but he was, two days afterwards, found dead in his bed.* M. de Saint-Mars having been named governor of the Bastille, in 1698, took with him there the * Cannes (on the road from Toulon to Nice) fronts the sea, of which it commands an extensive view, with the islands of Ste. Marguerite and St. Honorat, which seem placed as if to guard it. The island of Ste. Marguerite possesses a chapel, dedicated to the saint ; also the fort. The chamber where the Masque de Fer was confined has one window to the north, guarded by strong bars. The only inhabitants of the island are the persons belonging to the fort. In 1805, Ste. Marguerite had three state prisoners. One of them was allowed consi- derable liberty, and the society of his children and friends, and was allowed sometimes to entertain the inhabitants of Cannes. Anxious to leave behind him some memorial for those unhappy persons who might become inhabitants of the prison, he formed walks on the island, and tried all in the power of riches to embellish his sombre abode. 184 THE IRON MASK. masked prisoner. There was prepared in the Bastille for him a more convenient and better fur- nished apartment than that allotted to the other persons who inhabited that gloomy abode. He was not allowed to cross the court of the prison, or to take off his mask even in the presence of the physicians. The greatest respect was paid to his slightest wishes, and he was denied nothing he asked for. He had much recherche in his dress, and wore the finest lace and linen. He was ac- complished, and passed much of his time in read- ing, and playing on the guitar. The physician of the Bastille said of his patient, that he was a man of a fine figure and a fine complexion, though with a dark skin. His manner of speaking was very pleasing ; he never complained of his situ- ation, nor said anything that could lead to the discovery of who he might be. This unknown person died in the evening of the 19th November, 1703, after a short illness; he was buried the next day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, in the churchyard of St. Paul's. He was said to be sixty years old ; but in the entry of his death he is described, under the name of Mat- tioli, as but forty-five. THE IRON MASK. 185 There was an order, after his funeral, to burn everything in and about his rooms. The precau- tions even went so far as to have the walls newly whitewashed, and to open all the cushions, in the fear that some writing might be concealed in them. Voltaire says, that at the time when the pri- soner was shut up, no man of any distinction in Europe disappeared. Yet there is no doubt of his having been a distinguished person, if only from the circumstance of the respect paid him by Louvois, the prime minister of France. The conjectures are endless as to who this per- sonage was. La Borde, who was valet de chambre to Louis the Fifteenth, and who re- ceived many proofs of confidence from the King, asked his majesty, and was answered, " You cannot be told anything about it. I am sorry for him, but his imprisonment has done no harm but to him- self, and has saved much misery." Louis XV. was told the story of the Masque de Fer only on his attaining his majority, and he never made a con- fidence of it to any one. Picquet (the author of " Memoirs secrets pour servir a 1'Histoire de Perse,") is the first writer who notices this unknown prisoner. In his work, 186 THE IRON MASK. published in 1745, he says that it was the Comte de Vermandois, who was arrested for having struck the Dauphin ; but it is well known that the Comte de Vermandois died, in 1683, at the siege of Courtrai. La Grange Chancel tries to prove that the Masque de Fer was the Duke de Beaufort, who did not die, as was reported, at the siege of Candia. St. Foix, in 1768, tries to make him out to be the Duke of Monmouth, who was believed to have been beheaded in London, but who was secreted. The Pere GreiFet, who was confessor to the prison- ers in the Bastille, from 1745 to 1764, has ex- amined all the different opinions, and leans to his having been the Comte de Vermandois. Voltaire, in his Dictionnaire Philosophique, says that the unknown prisoner was none of these, but does not say who he was ; and he adds : " He who writes this article knows more, perhaps, than the Pere Greffet, and will not say more." Voltaire, without doubt, was not ignorant that there had been a report that the prisoner was a Comte Mat- tioli, the prime minister of the Duke of Mantua, who was carried off in 1679, and taken to Pignerol by order of the French cabinet, because it was THE IRON MASK. 187 thought his abilities would hurt the negotiations with Piedmont, and prevent their success. But this report seems to have been thought not even worth naming by Voltaire. There is another history given, with all its au- thorities, in Grimm's Correspondence. It is there stated that the Masque de Fer was a twin-brother of Louis XIV. ; that before the confinement of the queen, two shepherds came to announce to Louis XIII. that the queen would give birth to two dau- phins, who would occasion civil wars, and overturn the kingdom of France ; and that the king imme- diately resolved on shutting up the second of these princes. This opinion is held to by the Abbe Soulavie, who successfully refutes the opinion of this person being a son of Anne of Austria and Buckingham. A possible version of the story is this : that the prisoner was not the Comte Mattioli, who was car- ried off in 1679, and taken to Pignerol, where he died ; but Don John of Gonzague, a natural bro- ther of the Duke of Mantua, who, disguised, and with his face concealed in a velvet mask, accom- panied Mattioli in the character of his secretary. He was carried off at the same time as Mattioli, 188 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNE and concealed in France, because liberating him would have betrayed a violation of the rights of nations. MADAME DE SEVIGNfi. Born, 1627; died, 1696. MADAME DE GRIGNAN. Born, 1648; died, 1705. IT is now necessary to give some account of that queen of letter-writers, Madame de Sevigne, and her much idolized daughter, Madame de Grignan. Madame de Sevigne is not so properly an ex- traordinary woman as one who carried to the highest perfection all the ordinary talents proper to her sex ; her greatest charm is, being perfectly natural ; all her letters are written as much without affectation and without study, as without restraint. Sir James Mackintosh writes of her, " As she indulges every natural feeling just to the degree necessary to animate her character, and to vary her enjoyment, without approaching vicious ex- cess, she finds no inconsistency in rambling from AND DE GRIGNAN. 189 the vanities of Versailles, to admiration, at least, of the austerities of Port-Royal ; she is devout without foregoing the world, or blaming the ambitious. The great charm of her character seems to be a natural virtue. In what she does, as well as in what she says, she is unforced and unstudied ; nobody, I think, had so much morality without constraint, and played so much with amiable failings without faUing into vice. Her ingenuous, lively, social, disposition, gave the direction to her mental power. To find what seems so unlike author- craft in a book, raises the pleasing astonishment to its highest degree." Madame de Sevigne was born on Feb. 5, 1627. Her maiden name was Marie de Rabutin, and, at her marriage, she was styled, " Dame de Chantal et de Bourbilly." She was the daughter of the Baron de Chantal, and of Marie de Coulanges. Her father was killed in defence of the island of Rhe, and she was placed in the care of her uncle, Christopher de Coulanges, Abbe de Livry, who little thought that he should be known to posterity under the name of " Le bien bon." The early years of the life of Madame de Sevigne passed peaceably in the village of Sucy, 190 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNE near Paris, where the financier, Coulanges, had built himself a fine house. Menage and Chapelain gave her lessons in learning, and she did not re- ceive the convent education commonly given in those days. At seventeen, she married Henri de Sevigne, Marechal de Camp, belonging to an an- cient family in Brittany. The Marquis de Sevigne was brusque, inconsiderate, a lover of foolish expense and of gallant ladies; and while his wife was living in retirement at Les Rochers, he was killed in a duel at Paris. Six years after this event, Madame de Sevigne became known in the great world at Paris. The portraits of her represent her with a quantity of fair hair ; a fine complexion ; a countenance beam- ing with sense and vivacity ; a lively and laughing expression, but without regular beauty. M. de V possesses at Paris a picture of Madame de Sevigne, painted when she was no longer young, when her eyes had been dimmed by reading, years, and reflection. The hair in this picture is silver grey, but in luxuriant locks, and arranged with the care of one accustomed still to dress and to please. This portrait is a contrast to the one in the gallery at Versailles, which represents her in AND DE GRIGNAN. 191 the bloom of youth, and with the colouring of one of Rubens's fairest women. The biographical notices of Madame de Sevigne all state that she never had any idea of marrying a second time. The education of her son and daughter, together with the management of her property and affairs, which her husband left en- cumbered with debts, occupied her tune ; and her attachment to her daughter was a passion in her a passion filled with hopes and fears, jealousies and griefs. Madame de Sevigne was no cold cal- culating character, and as two passions cannot exist at once, her love of her daughter stood alone ; it filled her whole existence, and was the occasion of those letters which cannot be enough admired. Madame de Sevigne was twenty-six or twenty- seven years of age when she first appeared as a widow at the court of Louis XIV. Her good sense, her wit, and her personal charms, all united in making her, both there and at the Hotel de Rambouillet, a very distinguished woman ; and the affectation in manner and in literature of those days had no power over the truth and genius of her character. 192 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNfe Madame de Sevigne had many admirers, but they soon gave over all hopes of success with her as lovers, and remained her friends all through life. The sage Turenne, and the Prince de Conti, were among the number. The magnificent Fouquet was but her friend, notwithstanding Boileau's lines, " Jamais surintendant ne trouva de cruelles ;" and the audacious Bussy tried all his arts, but in vain, to ruin the reputation of his fab* cousin. Madame de Sevigne would neither seek nor ac- cept from the wealth of Fouquet, but she heard of his fall with a grief which she has shewn in the twelve letters written on this subject to M. de Pomponne ; and though she knew that her letters had been intercepted, and would be so again, yet she does not condescend to disguise the truth, and in her agony for his life calls the verdict admirable, which banished him to a prison for the remainder of his days. When Mademoiselle de Sevigne grew up, and appeared in those ballets at court in which Louis XIV. danced, the Comte de Treville, then AND DE GRIGNAN. 193 much the fashion, and a sort of oracle in the great world, from his phrases and the correctness of his language, said of her, " That beauty will set the world on fire." She became the third wife of the Comte de Grignan, who was neither young, hand- some, nor attractive. He was a lieutenant-general in the army, and shortly after his marriage the King made him Governor of Provence. He affected the " grand-seigneur" and the viceroy, and dissipated his fortune in the south of France, both from a spirit of ostentation, and to indulge his pumerous caprices and fancies. Madame de Grignan's biographers all agree that she was " tres sage." " Nothing can be more amia- ble, or so well suited to each other, as her sense and her appearance," is the account which Ma- dame de Maintenon gives of this much-adored daughter. Madame de la Fayette represents her as a person with too much sensibility. " Elle se passionnoit, s'inquietoit, se tourmentoit." That she was altogether an unhappy woman, from her temper and her disposition, seems certain, and that she had little of the cheerfulness of her mother about her. VOL. L K 194 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNE In the days of Madame de Sevigne, "1'esprit etoit une dignite." It is doubtful whether it has been so considered since the brilliant days of Louis XIV. Horace Walpole says, that the youth of his day had no respect for his wit ; and he was afraid of being laughed at for his dress, his man- ners, and his language, which were all out of fashion. There is a fashion of the day in manners and conversation, even a fashion in wit and judg- ment. At one time, conversation was made up " a 1'epigram ;" at another time, the great persons of the day gave out their sentences like words from oracles ; but the dress, the decoration, the furni- ture, the language, the sayings, the grace of tour- nure and expression and, above all, the letters of the time of Madame de Sevigne, create an admiration that has lasted a sufficient number of years to be certain of lasting many more. The letters of Madame de Sevigne present a thousand detached thoughts worthy of La Roche- foucauld or La Bruyere. " One loves so much to talk of oneself that one never tires of a tete-a-tete with a lover for years. That is the reason that a devote likes to be with AND DE GRIGNAN. 195 her confessor. It is for the pleasure of talking of oneself, even though speaking evil." " I think that the value of all pleasures or bless- ings depends upon the state of our minds when we receive them." Madame de Sevigne's reflections on Madame de Richelieu are excellent. Madame de Richelieu had been the person consulted, at the court of France, for all the minutiae of etiquette, and points of cere- mony : on those subjects her opinion was law. Early in life she totally lost her memory and her understanding, and she was continually making mistakes in persons and names in presentations at court. Madame de Sevigne says of her, "That the research after truth in philosophy does not more exhaust a poor brain, than all the compli- ments and nothings with which the head of this female courtier had been always filled." There was an epoch in France when bigotry became the fashion ; when the ladies of the court all took a religious director as their guide and con- fidant ; and when Madame de Maintenon and the Jesuits exercised an absolute power. Madame de Sevigne never changed her way of thinking or her conduct all through life ; and as she had had no K2 196 MESDA31ES DE SEVIGNE lover in her youth, she took no director in after years. Her character was no less extraordinary than her genius, and she was as full of tolerance as of imagination. But what is a rare quality in woman, she was generally just ; she throws no ridicule on the devotion of the truly religious, such as Madame de Longueville, M. de Saint- Aubin, M. de Treville; but with much gaiety she describes the fashion of becoming devote, that was gaining ground at court, about 1674. She amuses herself in describing Madame de Thianges to her daughter. But first it may be well to state who and what Madame de Thianges was. Madame de Thianges, the sister of Madame de Montespan, was the daughter of Gabriel de Rochechouart, Duke de Mortemart. She was mad on two subjects, that of her beauty and that of her birth. She had a sort of cleverness, much elo- quence of language (a gift which all the sisters possessed in common, and which was called " la langue des Mortemarts,") and not a bad heart. She often contemned the harshness and injustice of Madame de Montespan; but she was "deni- grante et moqueuse." There were a thousand stories told of her, on the two points of her mad- AND DE GRIGNAN. 197 ness. On the subject of birth, she would admit but of two families in France, her own and that of La Rochefoucauld; and she distinguished the La Rochefoucaulds, because of their frequent alliances with the family of De Rochechouart. If Madame de Thianges did not dispute with Louis XIV. his own greatness, she often disputed with him his ancient pedigree compared with her own. With regard to her person, Madame de Thi- anges thought herself the chef-d'oeuvre of nature, not only from her personal beauty but from the delicacy of her organs ; and to unite the two points of her folly into one, she insisted that all this per- fection arose from the difference of her birth and that of others. The delicacy of her conformation did not prevent her being very fond of the plea- sures of good living ; and it was she who first said, " Qu'on ne vieillit point a table." On the subject of this lady, and other courtly devotes, Madame de Sevigne says, " M. de Grig- nan is right in telling you that Madame de Thi- anges wears no rouge, and hides her person in- stead of displaying it. Under this disguise it is 198 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNE difficult to know her again. She is often now with Madame de Longueville, * dans le bel air de la devotion,' but she is still very good company, and not at all solitary. I was sitting next her the other day at dinner, when a servant brought her a glass of vin de liqueur. She turned to me and said, t This man don't know that I am devote.' This made us all laugh, and she spoke very natu- rally of her change, and of her good intentions for the future. She now minds what she says of her neighbour, and stops quite short in her recitals, with a scream at her bad habits. There are bets made that the Princess d'Harcourt, now Dame du Palais, will not be devote in a year, and that she will resume her rouge. This rouge is the law and the prophets ; on this rouge turns the whole of the Christian religion. As to the Duchess d'Aumont, her taste leads her to bury the dead. They say that on the frontiers the Duchess de Charost killed the people with her ill-prepared medicines, and that the other quickly came to bury them." This badinage admirably describes the ladies of the court of Versailles. Their beauty gone, their AND DE GR1GNAN. 199 ambition frustrated ; the whole is an epitome of the mixture of religion, gallantry, dignity, and weakness of the mind of Louis XIV. Madame de Sevigne, like most witty persons, much disliked crowded companies. The account of her visit to Rhennes, to the Duchess de Chaulnes, must be taken in her own words : " Diner, souper, en festin chez M. et Madame de Chaulnes; avoir fait milles visites de devoir, et de couvents ; aller, venir, complimenter, s'epuiser ; c'est ce que nous fimes hier. Je souhaite avec une grande passion d'etre hors d'ici, ou Ton m'honore trop ; je suis extremement affamee de jeune et de silence ; je n'ai pas beaucoup d'esprit, mais il me semble que je depense ici ce que j'en ai en pieces de quatre sous que je jette, et que je dissipe a tort et a travers ; et cela ne laisse pas de me miner." Madame de Sevigne had a rare and uncom- mon quality in a French woman of the court of Louis XIV. a love of the country, a love of na- ture and of simple pleasures. Nothing pleased her more than the sounds of the nightingale, the cuckoo, and the thrush, in the forest in the early spring; nothing delighted her so much as what she calls the triumph of the month of May. Her 200 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNE letters are full of her passion for the birds in her woods, and her love of her avenues at Les Rochers. At the close of the year she writes, " I am out all day, during these fine crystal days of autumn, that are no longer hot, and that are not yet cold." When she goes to the baths of Vichy, she gets out of the way of certain persons, a pretention, who came to Vichy to get rid of their ennui, where she came to get rid of her rheumatism. Charmed at their absenting themselves, she says, " At last I am going to be alone, and I am very much delighted at it .... Provided they don't carry the country off with them, the river, the hundreds of little woods and torrents, the fields, and the peasants that dance in the fields, I consent to bid adieu to all the rest. The country alone will cure me." One of Madame de Sevigne's most charming letters is written from Brittany, in the summer of 1671. It is addressed to M. de Coulanges, and as it is only to be Ibund in one edition of her letters, here is the whole of it : " Aux Rochers, le 22 Juillet, 1671." " Ce mot sur la semaine est par-dessus le marche de vous ecrire seulement tous les quinze jours, et AND DE GRIGNAN. 201 pour vous dormer avis, mon cher cousin, que vous aurez bientot Phonneur de voir Picard ; et comme il est frere du laquais de Madame de Coulanges, je suis bien aise de vous rendre compte de mon precede. Vous savez que Madame la Duchesse de Chaulnes est a Vitre ; elle y attend le Due, son mari, dans dix ou douze jours, avec les etats de Bretagne. Vous croyez que j'extravague ; elle attend done son mari avec tous les etats, et, en attendant, elle est a Vitre toute seule, mourant d'ennui. Vous ne comprenez pas que cela puisse jamais revenir a Picard. Elle meurt done d'ennui ; je suis sa seule consolation, et vous croyez bien que je Pemporte d'une grande hauteur sur Made- moiselle de Kerbone et de Kerqueoison. Voici un grand circuit, mais pourtant nous arriverons au but. Comme je suis done sa seule consolation, apres Pavoir ete voir, elle viendra ici, et je veux qu'elle trouve mon parterre net et mes allees nettes, ces grandes allees que vous aimez. Vous ne comprenez pas encore ou cela peut aller: voici une autre petite proposition incidente. Vous savez qu'on fait les foins ; je n'avois pas d'ouvriers ; j'envoie dans cette prairie, que les poetes ont cele- bree, prendre tous ceux qui travailloient, pour K3 202 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNE venir nettoyer ici. Vous n'y voyez encore goutte ; ct, en leur place, j'envoie tous mes gens faner. Savez-vous ce que c'est faner? II faut que je vous 1'explique : faner est la plus jolie chose du inonde ; c'est retourner du foin en batifolant dans une prairie ; des qu'on en sait tant, on sait faner. Tous mes gens y allerent gaiement ; le seul Picard me vint dire qu'il n'iroit pas, qu'il n'etoit pas en- tre a mon service pour cela, que ce n'etoit pas son metier, et qu'il aimoit mieux s'en aller a Paris. Ma foi ! la colere m'a monte a la tete ; je songeoi que c'etoit la centieme sottise qu'il m'avoit faite ; qu'il n'avoit ni coeur, ni affection ; en un mot, la mesure etoit comble. Je 1'ai pris au mot; et quoiqu'on m'ait pu dire pour lui, je suis demeu- ree ferme comme un rocher, et il est parti. C'est une justice dc traiter les gens selon leurs bons ou mauvais services. Si vous le revoyez, ne le re- cevez point, ne le protegez point, ne me blamez point, et songez que c'est le garon du monde qui aime le moins a faner, et qui est le plus indigne qu'on le traite bien. Voila 1'histoire en peu de mots; pour moi, j'aime les relations ou Ton ne dit que ce qui est necessaire, ou Ton ne s'ecarte point ni a droite, ni a gauche ; ou 1'on ne reprcnd AND DE GRIGNAN. 203 point les choses de si loin ; enfin jc crois que c'est ici, sans vanite, le modele des narrations agre- ables." Madame de Sevigne's son, M. de Sevigne, much distinguished himself with the army in early life. After leading a dissipated life in the society of actresses during some years, he *narried, and lived at Les Rochers, in Brittany. When in the country he occupied himself much with litera- ture ; and after the death of his mother he came to Paris, and he and his wife became so strict in their religious tenets that he bought a house in the Rue St. Jacques, to be near his religious coun- sellors. M. de Sevigne had the habit of his class, and of his times, of being always in debt. His mother saw with regret that he wasted all his for- tune without an object, and she says, " His hand is a crucible, in which money melts away." One of the leading characteristics of those days was the immense debts belonging to every family. It was a system encouraged by Louis XIV. on purpose to lower the power of the nobility, he himself setting an example of luxury and mag- nificence which he hoped that they would follow. The novel conduct of the Cardinal de Retz in 204 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNE paying his debts procured him the admiration and applause of every one ; and here is a part of the domestic concerns of M. and Madame de Grignan that will shew how those matters were managed then in France. Madame de Sevigne writes to her daughter, " Let us say a few words about Madame Renie vhat a fury of a woman ! . . . . Did you not think that she had died, and that it was her ghost that appeared to you? I should have been so terrified that I should have made the sign of the cross ; but I believe that something of a different nature is required to send her away .... Imagine making a journey of five hundred miles to ask for money from persons who send what they can, and are dying to send more ! No person's arrival at Grignan could more have as- tonished me. When I heard it I actually screamed. You are reasonable, and did well not to ill use her ; but how did you get out of her clutches, and of her inundation of words, in which one is drowned ?" The not using Madame Renie ill was considered great moderation on the part of M. and Madame de Grignan. She was a "marchande" at Paris, who was obliged to go to great expen.se to get her money from M. de Grignan, who hated the sight AND DE GRIGNAN. 205 of her. Persons of rank, in those times, often threatened to throw their creditors out of the win- dow, when they were importunate ; and had the unfortunate Madame Renie received such treat- ment, it would have been looked on as nothing more than she deserved, for daring to ask for what was due to her ! The next year, Madame Renie again made the little journey from Paris to the Chateau de Grig- nan ; upon which Madame de Sevigne says, " Poor woman ! Does she come to speak to you as if it were from the Rue St. Honore to the Hotel de Car- navalet ? I am no longer astonished that she is so ill, ' tout par tout,' as she says." Madame de Sevigne's own opinions on this sub- ject are sufficiently proved by the following. Writ- ing to Madame de Grignan, on the subject of her only son, who was then at Paris, she says, " M. le Chevalier (de Grignan) is of more use to this boy than you can imagine. He talks to him in the most sensible way on the great subjects of honour and reputation, and takes care of his affairs in a manner that you cannot enough thank him for. He enters into, and takes an interest in, all his concerns ; he wishes the Marquis to economize his own money ; 206 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNE that he should keep his accounts himself, and ex- pend nothing uselessly. He tries thus to inspire him with his own love of order, and to get rid of his grand-seigneur airs of not caring, of ignorance and of indifference, which lead to every sort of in- justice, and, in the end, to total ruin. See what an obligation you owe him, for bringing up your son in these principles. I am delighted at it, and see more true grandeur in this education than in any other I know of. " Madame de Sevigne was supposed to lean much to the opinions of Protestants, and to be anti- catholic in her religious opinions. She has also been reproached with being a fatalist. This last accusation one quotation from her letters will. de- stroy : " I follow the ordinary paths of human prudence, thinking that in so doing we are fulfilling the or- ders of Providence." Her ties of relationship with her husband's uncle, M. de Sevigne, a recluse at Port-Royal des Champs, her love and admiration of the writings that issued from Port-Royal, and her intimacy with the Arnauld family, made it supposed that she was a zealous Jansenist. But a passage on AND DE GRIGNAN. 207 free-will in one of her letters, too long to quote, disproves this. Madame de Sevigne gives her creed in saying, " Want of reason offends me ; want of faith hurts me." Madame de Sevigne's opinions on many sub- jects were erroneous, because the opinions of her times were erroneous ; but when the two celebrated societies of Jesuits and Jansenists disputed the em- pire of the consciences of mankind, and prepared their mutual ruin in their mutual condemnation, she had the wisdom to say, "I believe that the middle path between these two extremes is the best." Her good sense is the more striking, be- cause she was full of enthusiasm and illusion, par- ticularly as to the merits of those she was partial to ; witness her opinion of the Cardinal de Retz " our cardinal," as she calls him. When Turenne was killed, she said of De Retz, " He now stands alone in his greatness." Good sense, like Madame de Sevigne's, seldom accompanies that happy state of sunshine which, in her, lasted all through life a sunshine that shone on her friends, and often blinded her to their defects. In the present day, this bright and brilliant halo, that surrounds the objects of our 208 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNE love or of our admiration, generally disappears with youth, to make way for the soberer hues of reason, in all matters where passion is not concerned. Such was not the case with Madame de Sevigne ; the sunshine accompanied her to her great old age, and she expresses herself as warmly in her latter years as she would have done in her youth. Her feeling and imagination were equal to her good sense. She would have been an extraordi- nary woman in any times, but was more especially so in the times to which she belonged, which were full of prejudice. She writes to her daughter on the subject of Nicole's works : " I can comprehend the fear you have of losing your first president. Your imagi- nation runs quickly, for he is in no danger. My own plays me those tricks often. It seems to me that everything I love, everything I value, is escap- ing from me ; and this gives me sivh fits of me- lancholy that, if they were as frequent as they are violent, they would kill me. On this subject, one must be resigned to the will of God. Is not M. Nicole admirable on this point? It is true that the indifference he requires from us, for the esteem or disapprobation of the world, is a perfec- AND DE GRIGNAN. 209 tion rather above human nature, and I am less than any one capable of understanding it. But although one may be weak in the execution of his wishes, it is still a pleasure to follow his intentions, and make reflections on the folly of our joys and sor- rows, as to what is vanishing from us like smoke. I read Nicole with great delight, and am above all charmed with his third article, on living in peace with mankind. Read it, I beg of you, with care ; see how he understands the heart of man, and how every man may find his own character in this work philosophers, Jansenists, and Molinists in short, all the world. What is called looking into the heart with a lantern is what he does. He shews us what we feel every day of our lives what we have not the sense to discover, or the sin- cerity to own." Madame de Sevigne writes, at another time, " You know how much I am led away by my books. Those whom I see ought to take care that I read agreeable books. The one of which I am going to speak is the * Morale de Nicole.' It contains a treatise on the means of living in peace with men, that is astonishing. I have never read anything so useful, so clever, and so brilliant. If you have not 210 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNE read it, read it ; and if you have read it, pray read it again with attention." Madame de Sevigne was as faithful to her favourite authors, as to her daughter or to her friends. In another letter she writes, "Let us talk of M. Nicole ; it is a long while since we have said anything about him. He makes such a point of our living in love and charity with our neigh- bours, and advises our acquiring this virtue at the expense of so many others, that we cannot be indifferent as to his opinion. What he says of the pride and self-love that is mixed up in all disputes, and put forward by the fine phrase, * the love of truth,' pleases me greatly. This treatise is suited to every one ; but when I read it I imagine that I am the only person he had in view in writing it He says that the gift of eloquence, and a facility of speaking, give a certain eclat to thought. Don't you think that the word eclat is well placed ? We must read this book at Grignan over again. If I were your nurse during your confinement, it should be done." Madame de Sevigne's passions were all concen- trated on one object her daughter. The rest were tastes, not passions. All her letters were AND DE GRIGNAN. 211 variations from this one sentence, " To read your letters, and write to you, is the great affair of my life; everything makes way for this commerce; and loving you, as I love you, makes all other things trifling." In her latter years she writes to her daughter, " You ask me whether I am devote. Alas, no ! and I am very sorry .... I become less attached to what is called the world ; old age approaches, and sickness gives one time to make very serious re- flections ; but it seems to me that the love that I take from the public I give to you. Therefore, I do not advance in the business of detachment ; and you know that the first change should be to begin by getting rid of what the heart holds to." M. de Pomponne, in the language of Port-Royal, said to Madame de Sevigne, "You are a pretty heathen ; you have made your daughter that idol which your heart worships." In her middle age Madame de Sevigne paints time and its ravages thus : " For my part, I see the way time flies with horror, bringing in its train dreadful old age, infirmities, and last of all, death. Such must be the colour of the reflections of a per- son of my age. Pray to God, my daughter, that 212 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNE He may make me draw the conclusion that Chris- tianity inculcates to us all." In 1689, a few years before her death, she writes thus on old age : " You were struck, as I was, with Madame de la Fayette's expression, mixed up with so much kindness. (The expression was, * You are old now.') Though I do not forget this truth, I own that I was startled at it, not feeling any infirmity that reminds me of my age. Yet I often reflect that the conditions of life are hard enough. It seems that we are drawn on against our will to this fatal point, where old age must be borne with. I should wish, at least, not to go any further; not to advance in the high road of infir- mities, sorrows, loss of memory, and disfigurement, that must shortly overwhelm me. But I hear a voice say, ' You must go on, step by step ; or you must die,' an extremity at which nature recoils. Such is the lot of every one advanced in life ; but a return to the will of God, to that universal law to which we must all be subject, puts reason in its place, and gives us patience. Take patience then, also, my dear child ; and do not let your tender love for me cause you to shed tears that your rea- son must condemn." AND DE GRIGNAN. 213 Madame de Sevigne died of the malignant small- pox, at the Chateau de Grignan, in April, 1696. Various stories have been told of her tomb in the collegiate church at Grignan having been vio- lated at the French Revolution ; but they all rest on vague authority. It has been asserted that she was found dressed in the fashion in which persons were interred in the south of France ; a practice which she exclaims so strongly against, that it almost becomes a presentiment as to what might happen to herself. The Duke de Saint-Simon was a young man beginning the world when Madame de iSevigne was retiring from it. The following notice of her death is in his Memoirs : " Dans ce meme temps mourut Madame de Sevigne, si aimable, si excel- lente compagnie, a Grignan, chez sa fille, qui etoit son idole, et qui ne la meritoit que mediocrement. Cette dame, par son aisance, ses graces nature lies, la douceur de son esprit, en donnait par sa conver- sation, a qui n'en avait pas ; extremement bonne d'aillieurs, elle savait beaucoup sans le faire pa- raitre." Madame de Grignan outlived Madame de Sevigne but nine years, dying in 1705, broken- 214 RUE CULTURE hearted at the death of her only son, the Marquis de Sevigne. THE HOTEL DE CARNAVALET. Amongst the reminiscences connected with Madame de Sevigne, that of the hotel where she resided at Paris is the principal one remaining. The Hotel de Carnavalet is in Rue Culture Sainte Catherine, near the Place Royale. The house is of ancient origin, having been the property, in 1578, of Francoise de la Baume Carnavalet, whose name it has kept ; and it is " entre cour et jardin," as most of the fine old houses are at Paris. The architecture within the court is much ornamented. The porte-cochere to the street is embellished by Gougeon, in the best style ; and the house itself underwent changes in the hands of Mansard, in the seventeenth century. But it is to the name of Madame de Sevigne that this mansion owes its celebrity. She writes in 1677, " Je vous conjure seulement de mander a d'Hacqueville ce que vous avez resolu pour cet hiver, afin que nous prenions Thotel de Carnavalet, ou non." " Elle veut done (la Providence) que vous veniez cet hiver, et que nous soyons en meme SAINTE-CATHERINE. 215 maison. Je n'ai nul dessein d'en sonner la trom- pette : mais il a fallu le mander a d'Hacqueville pour nous arreter le Carnavalet. II me semble que c'est une bien grande commodite a toutes deux, et bien de la peine epargnee, de ne pas avoir a nous chercher ; il y a des heures du soir et du matin pour ceux qui logent ensemble, que Ton ne remplace pas quand on est pele-mele avec les visites." She writes in 1677 : " Dieu merci, nous avons 1'hotel de Carnavalet. C'est une affair admirable ; nous y tiendrons tous, et nous aurons le bel air. Comme on ne peut pas tout avoir, il faut se passer des parquets et des petites cheminees a la mode ; mais nous aurons une belle cour, un beau jardin, un beau quartier, et de bonnes petites filles bleues qui sont fort commodes."* " II faut que je vous parle un peu, ma fille, de notre hotel de Carnavalet Nous nous rangeons, nous nous etablissons, nous meublons votre chambre. N'apportez pas de tapisserie ; nous trouverons ici tout ce qu'il vous faut. Je me divertis extremement a vous donner le plaisir de n'avoir aucun souci, au moins en * The Convent of the Annunciados, in the same street. 216 RUE CULTURE arrivant. Je re9ois des visiles en 1'air dcs Roche- foucaulds, des Tarentes ; c'est quelquefois dans la cour de Carnavalet, sur le timon de mon carrosse. Je lie suis plus bergere ; me voici dans le raffinement de I'hotel de Carnavalet." In 1679, Madame de Sevigne took a long lease of this house, and here she passed twelve or four- teen years of her existence ; and of the time she passed there with Madame de Grignan, she after- wards says to her, " I never came home without a feeling of delight. I was avaricious of every moment of time." When Horace Walpole was at Paris, in 1765, he writes to Lady Hervey " Madame Chabot I called on last night. She was not at home, but the Hotel de Carnavalet was ; and I stopped on purpose to say an Ave-Maria before it. It is a very singular building, not at all in the French style, and looks like an ex-voto raised to her honour by some of her foreign votaries. I don't think" her honoured half enough in her own country." In the time of the Emperor Napoleon, the Hotel de Carnavalet became the residence of a man in office who gave balls. In his time there remained even the trelliage in the garden, and the SAINTE-CATHERINE. 217 low hedges that were there when the mother and daughter resided in it together, and even a swing, which was said to have been a favourite amuse- ment of Mademoiselle d'Alerac, second daughter of M. de Grignan, whom M. de Sevigne calls " ma princesse." At present, the Hotel de Carnavalet is a school ; and the little room where the Chevalier de Grig- nan lay ill of the gout, and that was occupied by " that noble blood that brings the gout and makes heroes," is now the dark closet for the naughty children ! It may hereafter become a theatre or a warehouse, but the Hotel de Carnavalet will ever be known as the house in which were written the most attractive letters that ever were penned, and that will always be read with eagerness, because in them are found the history of the human mind, as well as that of the most interesting times of France. REMINISCENCES OF MADAME DE SEVIGNE. The English authors who have professed the most ardent admiration of Madame de Sevigne, are Horace Walpole, and, in later times, Sir James Mackintosh. Walpole compares his idol with VOL. I. L 218 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNE Madame du Deffand, as Sir James Mackintosh compares her with Madame de Stael. Sir James Mackintosh's journal, kept in India, is full of Madame de Sevigne, whose letters he had been reading with all the energy of a person who is making his books his company. He says, " Everything about her is feminine she is a woman all over. A masculine character may be a defect in a female, but a masculine genius is still a praise to a writer, of whatever sex. The feminine graces of Madame de Sevigne's genius are exqui- sitely charming, but the philosophy and eloquence of Madame de Stael are above the distinctions of sex. I have something to say even on the character of the individuals. Madame de Sevigne was trained in an age and nation of quiet and secure establishment, of absolute authority in religion and government, where taste was most elegant and genius was active, but reason was submissive, and traditionary opinions were reverenced, not disputed. Madame de Stael lived in a period of inquiry, of paradox, of change, of novelty, of general fermentation; when every opinion was rejected, and, at last, every establishment trampled under foot ; and it can excite neither wonder nor AND DE GRIGNAN. 219 regret, that a woman of robust understanding, daring genius, and great sensibility, should, in such an age, think no subjects too sacred for in- quiry, or too high for her own powers." On a subject that particularly interested Sir James Mackintosh, the conduct of James II., he says, " Her testimony agrees with that of Madame de la Fayette, with respect to the poverty of spirit and understanding shewn by James II. on his arrival at Paris. They were both exquisite observers, and zealously devoted to the cause of James. There cannot be more weighty evidence against him. In the midst of all the rage felt against King William, Madame de Sevigne catches a glimpse of his real character through the mists of Rome and Versailles. ' Le Prince n'a pas songe a faire perir son beau-pere. II est dans Londres a la place du Roi, sans en prendre le nom, ne voulant que retablir une religion qu'il croit bonne, et maintenir les loix du pays sans qu'il en coute un goutte de sang. Voila Fenvers tout juste de ce que nous pensons de lui : ce sont des points de vue bien differens. Pour le Roi d'Angleterre il y paroit content, (at St. Germain) et c'est pour cela qu'il est la.' Observe the perfect good sense of the L 2 220 MESDA.MES DE SEV1GNE last remark, and the ease and liveliness with which it is made. Tacitus and Machiavel could have said nothing better, but a superficial reader will think no more of it than the writer herself seems to do. " * Us ont elu roi apres des grandes contestations cet enrage de Prince d'Orange, et 1'ont couronne. On croyoit le contraire il y a huit jours ; mais ce sont les Anglois.'" Sir James's journal says afterwards " I yester- day read the death of my dear Marie de Rabutin- ChantaL I cannot bear to read these Grignans and Simianes writing to each other after her death, as if she were forgotten, and as if the world could go on without her. She has so filled my heart with affectionate interest in her, as a living friend, that I can scarcely bring myself to think of her as being a writer, or as having a style ; but she has become a celebrated, probably an immortal, writer, without expecting it. She is the only classical writer who never conceived the possibility of acquiring fame. Without a great power of style, she could not have communicated these feelings to others. In what does that talent consist? It seems mainly to consist in the power of working bold metaphors and unexpected turns of expression out of the AND DE GRIGNAN. 221 most familiar part of conversational language. * * * I have just finished the whole Sevigne collection. The last part of it consists of Letters from Ma- dame de Simiane to a certain Intendant de Pro- vince. Into what a new world am I fallen ! Forty years after the disappearance of the goddess, the adorable Pauline became an old country gentle- woman, not so much more lively, as she ought to be, than the wife of any other of the Proven9al squires! An impudent country-house, called ' Belombre,' pretends to maintain the honours of Les Rochers. No Sevignes, no Rabutins, no Grignans, no Coulanges ! Almost all memory of the heroic age is lost. The publication of Ma- dame de Sevigne's letters, and a quotation of one of her sayings, shew how the world was before the fall. ' There may,' says my grandmother, ' be so great a weight of obligation, that there is no way of being delivered from it but ingratitude /" " To return to * La Mere Beaute' (for though I have not such a violent prejudice as the Abbe Vauxcelles against the Cartesianism of * la plus jolie fille de France,' yet I do own that her few letters, though very clever, are rather stiff.)" 222 MESDAMES DE SEVIGN6 Sir James then goes on to state at length what he considers as eloquence in conversation and letters. He finishes by saying, " I once thought of illustrating my notions by numerous examples from ' La Sevigne.' The style of Madame de Sevigne is evidently copied, not only by her wor- shipper, Walpole, but even by Gray ; notwith- standing the extraordinary merits of his matter, he has the double stiffness of an imitator and of a college recluse." There are no two men whose characters, lives, minds, and language, are in more direct contra- diction than Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford, and Sir James Mackintosh; and yet it is difficult to say which of the two had the greatest admiration for Madame de Sevigne. Horace Walpole, when a young man, set her up as a sort of idol. His vanity was concerned in the worship he paid to the goddess of letters ; and he early formed the plan of rescuing the English from the obloquy of not knowing how to write letters. As early as 1754 he writes, " My Lady Hervey has made me most happy, by bringing me from Paris an admirable copy of Madame de Sevigne, of the very portrait AND DE GRIGNAN. 223 that was Madame de Simiane's. I am going to build an altar for it, under the title of Notre Dame des Rochers." The house at Strawberry Hill possessed several pictures of Madame de Sevigne, and views of the Chateau de Grignan ; and when Walpole went to Paris he wrote the following letter to George Montagu : Part's, April 3, 1766. " One must be just to all the world. Madame Roland, I find, has been in the country, and at Versailles, and was so obliging as to call on me this morning, but I was so disobliging as not to be awake. I was dreaming dreams; in short, I had dined at Livry ; yes, yes, at Livry, with a Langlade and De la Rochefoucauld. The abbey is now possessed by an Abbe de Malherbe, with whom I am acquainted, and who had given me a general invitation. I put it off to the last moment, that the bois and allees might set off the scene a little, and contribute to the vision ; but it did not want it. Livry is situated in the Foret de Bondi, very agreeably on a flat, but with hills' near it and in prospect. There is a great air of sim- 224 MESDAMES DE SEVIGNE plicity and of the rural about it, more regular than our taste, but with an old-fashioned tranquillity, and nothing of colifichet. Not a tree exists that remembers the charming woman, because in this country an old tree is a traitor, and forfeits its head to the crown ; but the plantations are not young, and might very well be as they were in her time. The Abbe's house is decent and snug. A few paces from it is the sacred pavilion built for Madame de Sevigne by her uncle, and much as it was in her day ; a small saloon below for dinner, then an arcade, but the niches now closed and painted in fresco with medallions of her, the Grignan, the Fayette, and the Rochefoucauld. Above, a handsome large room, with a chimney- piece in the best taste of Louis the Fourteenth's time ; a Holy Family in good relief over it, and the cypher of her uncle Coulanges ; a neat little bed-chamber within, and two or three little cham- bers over them. On one side of the garden, lead- ing to the great road, is a little bridge of wood, on which the dear woman used to wait for the courier that brought her daughter's letters. Judge with what veneration and satisfaction I set my foot upon it ! If you will come to France with AND DE GRIGNAN. 225 me next year, we will go and sacrifice on that sacred spot together." There is at Strawberry Hill a round white snuff- box, having on the top a miniature of Madame de Sevigne, at bottom the cypher of Rabutin and Sevigne in marcassites. This box, with a letter in the inside, was sent to Horace Walpole by Ma- dame du Deffand, after his return from Paris, in 1766. It is written in the name of Madame de Sevigne, from the Elysian Fields. " Des Champs Elysces. (Point de succession de terns, point de date.) " Je connois votre folle passion pour moi, votre enthousiasme pour mes lettres, votre veneration pour les lieux que j'ai habites. J'ai appris le culte que vous m'y avez rendu ; j'en suis si pene- tree, que j'ai sollicite et obtenu la permission de mes Souverains, de vous venir trouver pour ne vous quitter jamais. J'abandonne sans regret ces lieux fortunes; je vous prefere a tous ses habitans; jouissez du plaisir de me voir ; ne vous plaignez point que ce ne soit qu'en peinture ; c'est la seule existance que puissent avoir les ombres. J'ai etc maitresse de choisir 1'age oft je voulois reparoitrc; L3 226 MADAME DE SEVIGNE j'ai pris celui de vingt-cinq ans, pour m'assurer d'etre toujours pour vous un objet agreable. Ne craignez aucun changement ; c'est un singulier avantage des ombres; quoique legeres, elles sont immuables. J'ai pris la plus petite figure qu'il m'a ete possible, pour n'etre jamais separee de vous. Je veux vous accompagner partout, sur terre, sur mer, a la ville, aux champs : mais ce que j'exige de vous, c'est de me mener incessamment en France, de me faire revoir ma patrie, la ville de Paris, et de choisir pour votre habitation le Faux- bourg de St. Germain ; c'etoit la qu'habitoient mes meilleures amies ; c'est le sejour des votres ; vous me ferez faire connoissance avec elles ; je serai- bien aise de juger si elles sont dignes de vous, et d'etre les rivales de " RABUTIN DE SEVIGNE." Horace Walpole says of this letter, " Madame du Deffand's letter is not written in imitation of that model of letter writers, but composed of more delicacy of thought and more elegance of expres- sion than perhaps Madame de Sevigne herself could have attained. The two ladies ought not to be compared : one was all natural ease and ten- MADAME DE LA FAYETTE. 227 derness ; the other charms by the graces of the most polished style, which, however, are less beautiful than the graces of the wit they clothe." MADAME DE LA FAYETTE. Born, 1632 ; died, 1693. THE Comtesse de la Fayette was the daughter of the Marechal de la Vergne. She was educated under the eye of her father. Menage and Pere Rapin took charge of the learned part of her stu- dies, and it was said that she gave the right sense of a passage in Latin which these two philosophers had long been quarrelling over. Mademoiselle de la Vergne married the Comte de la Fayette, a brother of Mademoiselle de la Fayette, celebrated for the attachment shewn to her by Louis XIII. Madame de la Fayette belonged to the society of the Hotel de Rambouillet early in life, and after- wards she assembled at her own house persons of learning and letters. La Fontaine passed much of his time there ; and Segrais having been ba- nished from the society of Mademoiselle, in conse- 228 MADAME DE LA FAYETTE. quence of his having blamed her marriage with Lauzun, took up his abode with Madame de la Fayette ; and her first novel of Zayde came out under his name. The learned Huet, Bishop of Avranches, composed the introduction, entitled " Traite de 1'Origine des Romans." The women of those days, both in France and England, were of more masculine, as well as more frivolous, natures than can be imagined in the 19th century. They were not brought up upon music and tea, painting and excitement. The best edu- cated among them knew a little Latin, had some knowledge of church divinity and the ancient authors, and, like the Italian ladies of the seven- teenth century, they knew something of jurispru- dence as well as theology. As Shakspeare's Portia was the beau-ideal of the Italian lady of the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries, so was Madame de Sevigne that of the court of Louis XIV. Madame de la Fayette was celebrated for her friendship for the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, whose state of health required the care of a devoted friend ; and her disinterested attachment for him became the occupation of her existence. This friendship lasted five-and-twenty years, and only MADAME DE LA FAYETTE. 229 ended with the death of the duke. They saw each other every day ; and Madame de la Fayette said of La Rochefoucauld, " II m'a donne son esprit, mais j'ai reforme son coeur." She never recovered his loss, and after his death gave herself up to devotion. Madame de Sevigne writes to her daughter, " Time, that is of use in other cases, augments and increases her grief; every one will be consoled, but she never will be so." She lived ten years after, and died in all the austerities of devotional life. Madame de la Fayette was more esteemed than loved; she was accused of having a dry manner. Segrais told her that her judgment was better than her imagination, and she felt flattered by this opinion. She was not witty, like Madame Cor- nuel, nor had she the vivacity of Madame de Cou- langes, nor the " abandon" of Madame de Sevigne ; but the latter says she was an amiable woman. Her language possessed a refined precision. Many sayings are recorded of her ; amongst others, " Ces sots traducteurs ressemblent a des laquais ignorans qui changent en sottises les complimens dont on les charge." M. de la Rochefoucauld used to sav that Ma- 230 MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDERY, dame de la Fayette was true ; and this word, new in its acceptation, gave her character exactly. Her novel of the Princesse de Cleves was much read and admired during the reign of Louis XIV., and she wrote the Memoirs of Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans. MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDERY. Born, 1607; died, 1701. PELLISSON. Born, 1624; died, 1693. MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDERY was early in life distinguished for the agremens of her conversation and the extent of her knowledge. Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet, became ac- quainted with her, and admitted her into the society of the Hotel de Rambouillet, then the most distinguished in France, and from whence all deci- sions on taste or literature issued, and were looked upon as final judgments. No salon or coterie ever exercised such authority over the world of Paris since, as did that of the Hotel de Rambouillet. Mademoiselle de Scudery then became the au- AND PELLISSON. 23 1 thor of various voluminous romances. In these books she makes the heroes of antiquity express themselves in the language she had heard spoken at the Hotel de Rambouillet ; a peculiar style of high-flown pedantic gallantry, in which the polite- ness of conversation then consisted. The heroes of the Roman republic pass their leisure moments in making enigmas, proposing gallant questions and answers, and tracing geographical plans of the tender passion. Mixed up with all this folly and absurdity was a great deal of knowledge, and some bright glimmerings of common sense ; and the whole formed books that, from their allusion to various loves and intrigues of those days, inter- ested readers in France at the brilliant dawn of the age of Louis XIV., and, a century after that time, in England. These romances were often written in ten or twelve volumes, and lasted our great-great-grand- mothers a year or two in reading. To begin Cyrus or Clelie was an undertaking in life. Lady Russell writes to her daughter, "There will be no talking to your sister when she has read Clelie, for the wise folks say it is the most im- proving book that can be read." These books 232 MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDERY, pleased, as Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison have pleased in later times, much owing to the quantity of petty detail contained in them. The heroes and heroines never entered a room without making an inventory of every thing in it, like a catalogue of the effects of an auction ; a contrast to the writing of the present day, when a clever sketch is all that is aimed at, from the fear of be- coming prosy and tiresome. Long stories and interminable books did not then frighten listeners or readers. The ladies did not sing, or play on instruments, or paint pictures, or make drawings ; but they often undertook to refurnish a house or chateau with the work of their own hands ; and when they passed their days at their tapestry- frames, a demoiselle de compagnie read aloud Cyrus ; Ibrahim, or 1'Illustre Bassa ; or Clelie. People had then the passion for what Madame de Genlis calls ingenious conversation, which occu- cupied the minds of both men and women. The society of the Hotel de Rambouillet was the same as that which Mademoiselle de Scudery collected in later times at her own house, except that the former was on a larger scale. Along with elegantes and learned ladies, were prelates, magistrates, and AND PELLISSON. 233 military men. It was given out that the liaisons of this society were entirely platonic; indeed the jargon spoken there would have put Cupid himself to flight Some of the phrases in use were, " une chaine spirituelle" a chaplet ; "1'humeur celeste" water ; " un bouillon d'orgueil" a smile of disdain; " les braves incommodes" thieves. The language of love was a. fade sort of gallantry ; condolence in sorrow was given in set and measured terms ; and the language of politeness was that of outrageous compliment Both men and women adopted a name : Made- moiselle de Rambouillet was "1'incomparable Arte- mise" to the end of her days, which name was not even forgotten in her funeral sermon by Flechier. Madame Arragonais was la Princesse Philoxene ; the Duke de Saint- Aigneau (whom Madame de Se- vigne called le Paladin par excellence), Artaban ; Madame d'Aligre, Celamine ; Courard, Theoda- mas ; Godeau, la Mage de Tendre ; Pellisson, Acante. The more the language was extravagant and high flown, the more use of " trope and figure" could the lady bring into her discourse, the higher she stood in the estimation of her companions. Affectation was the order of the day ; and the 234 MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDERY, women wishing to resemble the heroines of ro- mances, are represented as frozen in their manners to their insipid gallants ; and the husband or lover was treated with sovereign contempt who could not hold forth in the style of the Hotel de Ram- bouillet. Along with the soi-disant wits of France who frequented this society, like the Abbe Cotin, &c. were Menage, Boileau, Moliere, and Madame de Sevigne ; and Moliere and Boileau have trans- mitted all these ridicules to posterity. Affected expressions were in use amongst the women one to another, and " ma chere," " ma precieuse," stood instead of surnames or Christian names, which were banished from conversation. From these endearing terms, Moliere called his comedy " Les Precieuses Ridicules." Madame de Rambouillet often received her company in bed, probably to save herself from all the ceremonials of reception, and from the fatigue of reconducting her visitors to the ante-rooms, further or nearer, according to the rank of each person. It is always interesting to know how apartments were arranged where extraordinary scenes took place ; but there is nothing on record AND PELLI8SON. 235 as to this famous " chambre bleu," where reigned so much wit and absurdity, further than that it was hung with blue which colour seems always to have gone along with societies " a prevention." Madame de Rambouillet was the first inventor of windows down to the ground, 'so that probably the windows of this famous room were " a plein pied."* When the company had arranged themselves in the alcove where the bed was placed, then flowed that tide of conversation so well ridiculed by Moliere. These conversations were afterwards established, more or less purified from their spirit of affecta- tion, at the Duchess of Orleans'; at Mademoi- selle's ; at the Duchess de Longueville's ; at Ma- dame de Sevigne's ; Madame de la Fayette's ; Ma- dame de Coulanges' ; Madame de la Sabliere's ; at the Duke de la Rochefoucauld's ; and at court ; but at Mademoiselle de Scudery's they remained more in the taste of the Hotel de Rambouillet than elsewhere. * The Rue de Chartres and the Vaudeville Theatre, now occupy the site of the Hotel de Rambouillet and its gardens. 236 MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDERY, * La Rochefoucauld composed his book of maxiins about that time, and one maxim refers to this jargon of romance introduced into society. " II y a des folies qui se prennent comme les maladies contagieuses." Mademoiselle de Scudery was vain of her map of Le Pays de Tendre, that appeared in the romance of Clelie. This curious invention was an allegory depicted as a country through which the pilgrim lover travelled to the hamlet of " Billet-doux," and to the " Castle of Petits Soins." When Les Precieuses Ridicules reject with disdain the hus- bands that their fathers had provided for them, one of them says, " Je m'en vais gager qu'ils n'ont ja- mais vu la carte de Tendre, et que billets-doux, petits soins, billets-gal ants, et jolis-vers, sont des terres inconnues pour eux." The anger of these damsels was perfectly natural, at the vulgar pro- posals of men, " qui debutoit par le mariage !" Before the time of Les Precieuses Ridicules, the affectation and ridicule of the society of the Hotel de Rambouillet had only struck a few persons of innate good taste ; but many of the society were present at the first representation of the play at AND PELLI8SON. 237 the Hotel de Bourgogne, and they were obliged to swallow their vexation. The public saw with de- light a coterie, who had for motto, " Nul aura de 1'esprit, Hors nous et nos amis," exposed to public laughter, and their affected airs of super-excellence brought to the ground : " Sceptre and crown Were tumbled down." It was then that Menage said to Chapelain, as formerly Saint-Remi had said to Clovis, " We must burn what we have adored, and adore what we have burnt." Mademoiselle de Scudery, a poetess as well as a romance writer, was known by the name of the illustrious Sappho. She had not only letters but verses sent to her from all the learned of the day, paying her every sort of compliment ; and bishops and divines did not scruple to join in thanking her for the amusement she afforded and the good she did. A letter from Mascaron tells her that he passed his autumn in the country in reading her romances, and that he had found in them so much that would reform the world, that he had made 238 MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDERY, much use of them in his sermons, and that in future she should often have a place alongside of St. Augustine and St. Bernard. In another letter, Mascaron informs her that he is appointed to preach the funeral oration on Turenne, that he is much pressed for time, and that he wishes her to tell him what she would say, were she charged with such a discourse. Flechier also writes to Mademoiselle de Scudery, making her a thousand fine speeches, and ending with telling her, that her books would be of such use, that he sometimes thinks of distributing them in his diocese, "pour edifier les gens de bien." But the great reputation of Mademoiselle de Scudery was not confined to France ; Christine, the Queen of Sweden, the Duchess of Holstein, and her brother, the Duke of Brunswick, were all the admirers of the illustrious Sappho, and in cor- respondence with her. Her letters were not so affected as her writings. There is one of them written with the same ease and spirit that the ladies of that day were gifted with in their letters. It is addressed to the Bishop de Vence, on the subject of the imprisonment of the Grand Conde. AND PELLISSON. 239 " On peut dire, que M. le Prince tire de la gloire de tout ce qui lui arrive; car vous saurez que depuis qu'on 1'a mene a Marcoussis, le donjon de Vincennes est devenu 1'objet de la curiosite uni- verselle. En mon particulier, j'y vis hier plus de deux cents personnes de qualite, a qui on montra le lieu ou il dormait, celui ou il mangeait, 1'endroit ou il avoit plante des ceillets qu'il arrosait tous les jours, et un cabinet ou il revait quelquefois, et ou il lisait souvent. Enfin Monsieur, on va voir cela comme on va voir a Rome les endroits ou Cesar passa quelquefois en triomphe. Ce que j'y vis de plus surprenant est, durant que j'y etois, M. de Beaufort y vint avec Madame de Montbazon, a qui il faisoit voir toutes les incommodites de ce logement, triomphant lachement du malheur d'un prince qu'il n'oserait regarder qu'en tremblant s'il etoit en liberte. Pour moi, j'eus tant d'horreur de voir de quel air il fit la chose, que je n'y pus durer davantage." She adds in another letter, " Lorsque je fus au donjon, j'eus la hardiesse de faire quatre vers, et de les graver sur une pierre ou M. le Prince avoit fait planter des oeillets, qu'il arrosait quand il y etoit. Mais pour porter encore ma hardiesse plus loin, et 240 MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDERY pour faire voir que j'ai plus de zele que d'esprit, je m'en vais vous les ecrire " En voyant ces ceillets qu'un illustre guerrier Arrosa d'une main qui gagna des batailles, Souviens-toi qu'Apollon batissait des nuirailles ; Et ne t'&onne pas si Mars est jardinier." When Mademoiselle de Scudery was first known in life, her singular ugliness made as great a sensa- tion as the agremens of her conversation. Nan- teuil, the portrait-painter, painted her miniature, upon which, Mademoiselle de Scudery sent him some verses, and soon after, a purse full of Louis. The painter wrote her in answer, on this occasion, a very pretty letter. "Your generosity offends me, and does not add to your glory. A person like you, for whom I have such respect and regard, and for whom I ought to make all the efforts of my pro- fession, sending me money, like a princess, for a portrait due so long ago to her reputation ! You must take me for the most unfeeling of men. Permit me to give you a reprimand, and as you allow me to look with friendship on all that comes from you, I shall keep your purse, and return your money." Mademoiselle de Scudery had many attached AUD PELLI8SON. 241 friends. Good, kind, and generous in her nature, her friendship with Pellisson was constant and without scandal. It was said of this liaison, " Que chacun adoroit son semblable." Pellisson (of whom it was said, " Qu'il abusoit de la permission d'etre laid,") figured in Made- moiselle de Scudery's novels under the names of Acante and Hermenius. She felt very severely all the misfortunes that befel this attached friend of Fouquet. Pellisson was during five years shut up in the Bastille ; where he tamed a spider to the sound of music, and by every means kept up the interest of existence till his friends' influence pro- cured his release. Madame de Maintenon might have figured in Madame de Sevigne's proposed book on Ingrati- tudes, for she owed Pellisson many services of former years, but he contented himself with writing her a letter from the Bastille, ending, " Votre tres oublie serviteur." After his liberation, he every year, at the anni- versary of that event, set aside some money for the purpose of releasing poor prisoners confined for debt VOL. i. M 242 MADEMOISELLE DE 6CUDERY Boileau wrote " Jamais surintendant ne trouva de cruelle ; L'or mcme & Pellisson donne un teint de beaut6, Mais tout devient affreux avec la pauvret." Pellisson did not much like being thus made the type of ugliness, and remonstrated, but in vain Boileau would not alter his lines. The society of Mademoiselle de Scudery was not like any coterie of these days. In the Saturday- night meetings, called " Les petites Assemblies," the ladies worked at the dressing of two dolls, called "La grande et la petite Pandore," that served to shew the newest fashion in dress ; they held dissertations on love, in which metaphysics played a great part; and these discourses were like those between the Comte de Guiche and Madame de Brissac, which Madame de Sevigne says were so mystical that they required an inter- preter to understand each other. They admired a sonnet; they pored over a riddle of the Abbe Cotin ; one madrigal brought on another ; and on a certain Saturday evening Mademoiselle de Scudery having addressed a well-known declaration in verse to Pellisson, he answered by another in an equally AND PELLISSON. 243 tender style, and the applause and enthusiasm knew no bounds. But the most celebrated evening in the annals of the society was that of Dec. 20th, 1653. Con- rard had given Mademoiselle de Scudery a crystal seal, accompanied by a madrigal. The illustrious Sappho answered by these lines : " Pour meriter un cachet si joli, Si bien grave, si brillant, si poli, II faudrait avoir, ce me semble, Quelque joli secret ensemble ; Car enfin les jolis cachets, Demandent de jolis secrets, Ou du moins de jolis billets. Mais comme je n'en sais point faire, Que je n'ai rien qu'il faille taire, Ou qui mdrite aucun mystere, 11 faut vous dire seulement Que vous donnez si galamment Qu'on ne peut se defendre De vous donner son coeur, ou de le laisser prendre." This piece of poetry threw the assembly into such a state of ecstasy that Pellisson, Sarasin, Conrard,and Madame d'Aligre, all wrote madrigals, which were answered by other madrigals still more insipid and more gallant; and this famous evening took the name of " La journee des madrigaux." Should any one be curious to know the exact details of M2 244 MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDERY what passed, they may be found in a paper amongst the MSS. of the library of the Arsenal at Paris. Mademoiselle de Scudery lived to the age of ninety-four, sixty years of which she passed in writing. She was a most prosperous woman, hav- ing enjoyed a great reputation as an author during a great part of her life ; and when Boileau's satires became known, and that her literary reputation fell, she was honoured and considered for the good- ness of her heart. Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, was so fond of the company of Mademoiselle de Scudery, that she used to say to her, " In my man- ner of seeking you, I play the part of a lover to- wards you." Witness also the tone Madame de Sevigne takes about the illustrious Sappho, even in her great old age. Cardinal Mazarin had left Mademoiselle de Scudery a pension ; and twenty years before her death Louis XIV. gave her a pension of two thousand livres, the joyful intelligence of which was communicated to her by a note from Madame de Maintenon. She went to thank the King. Madame de Sevigne says, " Elle fut recue en toute perfection ; c'etoit une affaire que de recevoir cette AND PELLISSON. 245 merveilleuse muse ; ' tout le Parnasse est en emotion pour remercier et le heros et 1'heroine.' " When Mademoiselle de Scudery was at the age of ninety-two, she wrote some pretty verses to the King. One of her correspondents was the learned Madame Dacier, many of whose letters, written in 1685 from Castres, where she and M. Dacier had retired, are to be found in various collections. MADAME DE LA SABLIERE. Died, 1693. MADAME DE LA SABLIERE was a pretty woman, celebrated in early life for her learning, and who united a knowledge of Horace and Virgil to great agremens. Sauveur and Roberval had taught her mathematics and astronomy ; and at one time her house became a home for Bernier and La Fontaine in their distresses. Boileau made some blunders in his verses, not only violating the rules of poetry, but evincing an ignorance of what he was writing about. This pretty woman discovered his mistake, and her discovery made a greater sensation than she intended or desired ; for Boileau revenged 246 MADAME DE LA SABLIERE. himself by writing the character of a pedante, in which every one saw Madame de la Sabliere. Bayle said that Madame de la Sabliere was " un esprit extraordinaire ;" and Louis XIV., on whom cleverness was seldom lost, honoured her with his gifts. Madame de Sevigne said that she possessed that sort of amabilite so much appreciated in France "1'esprit de societe." Madame de la Sabliere was that "petite bour- geoise," whose reunions carried off Lauzun from the coterie of Mademoiselle la grande Mademoiselle, and whom of course she hated and abused. But the great event of Madame de la Sabliere 's life was her passion for M. de la Fare.* Her un- happiness at seeing his gradual change towards her, joined, we are told, to the death of her husband, brought her, as was often the case in those days, to a religious life ; and to a religious life that expiated the worst and most dreadful errors. Madame de Sevigne writes to Madame de Grignan e ( Madame de la Sabliere has taken that part which you ap- prove of. 'Rompons, brisonsles tristes restes.' Ma- The Marquis de la Fare, Captain of the Guards to the Duke of Orleans. He was author of " Memoirs of the Times of Louis XIV.," and of various fugitive pieces of poetry. MADAME DE LA SABLIERE. 247 dame de Coulanges declares, that La Fare never was in love with her, and that his love was merely idleness ; and that his passion for play now shews that he sought only society at Madame de la Sabliere's." We have afterwards the following letter from Madame de Sevigne, which is too good to mar by translating : "Vous me demandez ce qui a fait cette solu- tion de continuite entre La Fare et Madame de la Sabliere : c'est la basette : 1'eussiez-vous cru ? C'est sous ce nom que 1'infidelite s'est declaree ; c'est pour cette prostituee de bassette qu'il a quitte cette religieuse adoration. Le moment etoit venu que cette passion devoit cesser, et passer meme a un autre objet: croiroit-on que ce fut un chemin pour le salut de quelqu'un que la bassette ? Ah ! c'est bien dit, il y a cinq cent mille routes qui nous y menent. Madame de la Sabliere regarda d'abord cette distraction, cette desertion ; elle exa- mina les mauvaises excuses, les raisons peu sin- c&res, les pretextes, les justifications embarrassees, les conversations peu naturelles, les impatiences de sortir de chez elle, les voyages a Saint-Germain ou 248 MADAME DE LA SABLIERE. il jouoit, les ennuis, les ne savoir plus que dire. Enfin, quand elle cut bien observe cette eclipse qui se faisoit, et le corps etranger qui cachoit peu a peu tout cet amour si brillant, elle prit sa resolution : je ne sais ce qu'elle lui a coute ; mais enfin, sans querelle, sans reproche, sans eclat, sans le chasser, sans eclaircissement, sans vouloir le confondre, elle s'est eclipsee elle-meme ; et, sans avoir quitte sa maison, oh elle retourne encore quelquefois, sans avoir dit qu'elle renonceroit a tout, elle se trouve si bien aux Incurables, qu'elle y passe quasi toute sa vie, sentant avec plaisir que son mal n'etoitpas comrae celui des malades qu'elle sert. Les superieurs de la maison sont charmes de son esprit ; elle les gouverne tous : ses amis vont la voir; elle est toujours de tres-bonne compagnie. La Fare joue a la bassette. Voila la fin de cette grande affaire qui attiroit 1'attention de tout le monde : voila la route que Dieu avoit marquee a cette jolie femme. Elle n'a point dit, les bras croises, f attends la grace : mon Dieu, que ce dis- cours me fatigue ! he ! mort de ma vie ! la grace saura bien vous preparer les chemins, les tours, les detours, les bassettes, les laideurs, Porgueil, les cha- grins, les malheurs, les grandeurs ; tout sert, tout MADAME DE LA SABLIERE. 249 est mis en oeuvre par ce grand ouvrier, qui fait ton- jours infailliblement tout ce qu'il lui plait. * # * * * Madame de la Sabliere est dans les Incurables, fort bien guerie. Elle est dans ce bienheureux etat, elle est devote, et vraiment devote : elle fait un bon usage de son libre arbitre. Mais n'est-ce pas Dieu qui le lui fait faire ? N'est-ce pas Dieu qui 1'a delivree de 1'empire du demon ? N'est-ce pas Dieu qui a tourne son cceur ? N'est-ce pas Dieu qui la fait marcher, et qui la soutient ? N'est- ce pas Dieu qui lui donne le desir d'etre a lui ? C'est cela qui est couronne, c'est Dieu qui cou- ronne ses dons. Si c'est a ce que vous appellez le libre arbitre, ah ! je le veux bien." Madame de la Sabliere ran the full career of those days, of " femme galante," " femme pedante," " femme devote." She died at the Incurables. None of her writings were ever published, except some Pensees Chretietis, which were after her death placed at the end of an edition of La Rochefou- cauld's " Maxims." But she was more valued for "son art de plaire et de n'y penser pas," than for her literary attainments. M 3 250 LA FONTAINE. LA FONTAINE. Born, 1621 ; died, 1695. LA FONTAINE dedicated his fable of " Le Lion Araoureux" to Madame de Grignan before her mar- riage. The opening lines are full of a certain grace of expression, peculiarly the talent of La 4 Fontaine : " Se'vigne', de qui les attraits Servent aux Graces de modele, Et qui naquites toute belle, A votre indifference pres ; Pouvez-vous etre favorable Aux jeux innocents d'une fable, Et voir sans vous epouvanter Un lion qu'Amour susdomter V Madame de Sevigne writes to Madame de Grignan (in 1671), "Did you not think the five or six fables charming, that are in the volume I sent you ? We were all enchanted with them at M. de la Rochefoucauld's, and we learnt by heart ' Le Singe et le Chat.' ' D'animaux malfaisants, c'e"toit un trfcs bon plat. Us n'y craignoient tous deux aucun, tel qu'il put etre. LA FONTAINE. 251 Trouvoit-on quelque chose au logis de gate, L'on ne s'en prenoit point aux gens du voisinage : Bertrand de>obait tout ; Raton, de son cote", Etoit moins attentif aux souris qu'au fromage.' " How well that is said ! and * La Citrouille et le Rossignol ' are worthy of the others, in the first volume. I want to write a fable for La Fontaine, to make him understand how unworthy it is of him to force his talent out of its own line ; et com- bien la folie de vouloir chanter sur tous les tons fait une mauvaise musique." La Fontaine, whose fables delight every one, from the child of eight years old to the grey-headed old man, had the simplicity of a child. He was absent, careless, idle, graceful, and naif. He had studied mostly the old writers ; he loved Plutarch and he called Plato "le plus grand des amu seurs." From these writers he is said to have taken the moral and political maxims found in his fables. The character of the man is seen from his pri- vate life. His father got him the place of " maitre des eaux et forets," and married him to a very handsome woman. La Fontaine received the place and the lady with equal unconcern. He made a very negligent " maitre des eaux et forets," 252 LA FONTAINE. and a very bad husband. He left his wife , and they merely saw each other when they wanted to raise money. Early in life he dissipated the whole of his fortune. La Fontaine's character was entirely made up of originalities, but of French originalities ; for origi- nalities always correspond with the character of the nation to which the original belongs. His heroism in the case of Fouquet, and his attachment to him, are as celebrated as his unconcern, selfishness, and indolence in other cases. A story is told of him by the younger Racine, that Racine and Boileau had wished him to be reconciled to his wife, with whom, though he was in correspondence, he had often dis- putes. Le bon La Fontaine got up early (which he very much disliked doing), and went off to her abode at Chateau-Thiery, and knocked at the door. A person answered his inquiries, and informed him that Madame la Fontaine was dead. On his return to Paris, he merely said to his friends, " I did not see my wife, she was gone to heaven." The same unconcern is recorded of him as to his son, who had grown up in perfect ignorance of his father. On their meeting accidentally in com- LA FONTAINE. 253 pany, and La Fontaine speaking of the youth with praise, some one informed him that it was his own son. " I am very glad to hear it," said he. Notwithstanding these stories, the frankness and simplicity of la Fontaine's nature made him many friends : and he was certainly not without feeling; for he was seen to weep, when, two years after Fouquet's removal, he went to visit his prison. Fouquet probably inspired la Fontaine with his charming fable of " Les deux Amis," and with those two lines, the most beautiful that the French language can boast: " Je lis au front de ceux qu'un vain faste environne, Que la fortune vend ce qu'on croit qu'elle donne." La Fontaine makes use of an expression no- where else to be found : " Le don d'etre ami ;" a virtue that existed in France, and found a phrase there that completely expresses it. He had no malice in his nature, no vindictive spirit to indulge in, and when he was received at the French Academy, he did perfect justice to Colbert's me- mory as a minister, the protector of literature and the fine arts, in a speech he made on the occasion ; 254. LA FONTAINE. Colbert having done him all the injury neglect could do an author under a government and a king such as Louis XIV. Louis had much Spanish pride in his tastes and pursuits; he liked the grandiose, and the formal in literature, buildings, dress, and every- thing else ; and he had no taste for La Fontaine's fables, or for the Dutch school of painters, or for pastoral life. All the accounts that are given of La Fontaine represent him in appearance and disposition as more like an animal than a man. His attachment to his friends was that of a dog for his master, and he shewed the same unconcern to others that the dog would do. Madame de la Sabliere said one day, that she had got rid of her visitors. " I only kept my three animals, my dog, my cat, and La Fon- taine." After the circumstances of Fouquet's history were forgotten, the Duchess of Orleans, who loved and protected literature, gave La Fontaine a situation in her household; and when this princess died, Madame de la Sabliere received him into her house, took charge of his happiness, and pro- vided him with a fireside and a home : an action LA FONTAINE. 255 of great friendship towards a man of his careless habits. These two pretty lines, so well expressed, were meant for Madame de la Sabliere : " Qu'un ami veritable est une douce chose, II cherche vos besoins au fond de votre coeur !" Under Madame de la Sabliere's roof he lived twenty years, and there formed a friendship with Bernier, and with him studied the philosophy of Descartes and Gassendi. La Fontaine had fits of absence, and was given to reveries more than to talking. Every one liked him, because they could feel at ease in his society : he never required any one to be occupied with him, but, "en revanche," it was necessary to allow him to be totally unmindful of those around him. A wit said of him, that he was the cleverest of men with stupid people, and the most stupid of men in the company of wits ; and this is often the case with indolent persons. The stories of La Fontaine's fits of absence are innumerable. One day he was to present a copy of verses to Louis XIV., on his being received at the French Academy. On coming into the presence, 256 LA FONTAINE. he felt first in one pocket, then in another, for his verses ; but he had forgotten them, arid the King, with his usual good breeding, said to him, " M. de la Fontaine, le sera pour un autre fois." In his old age, La Fontaine was again left homeless and houseless, and the " Fermier-General," M. Hervart, meeting him, stopped his carriage, and said to him, " I have heard of your misfortunes in the loss of Madame de la Sabliere, and I was coming to offer you a home in my house." " I was coming there," was La Fontaine's simple and un- ceremonious reply. In his old age, he had a long illness ; and the Abbe Poujet, Vicar of Saint Roch, who knew La Fontaine, called on him, more as an acquaintance than as an ecclesiastic, but after awhile, he brought the conversation to religious subjects. "I have been reading the New Testament," said the sick man, in his usual quiet manner. " It is a very good book ; yes, a very good book. But there is one article in it I cannot subscribe to ; an eternity of punishment I cannot understand how an eternity of torment can accord with the goodness of God towards his creatures." The Abbe was a good theologian, and he discussed the matter, and re- LA FONTAINE. 257 solved the difficulty in a manner satisfactory to La Fontaine. Charmed with the success of his first visit, he came every day to see La Fontaine during a long illness, and every day he made a progress in the good opinion of one who sought more to instruct himself in religion than to justify his past errors. Most of the literary men of the days of Louis XIV. professed strict religious tenets ; unlike the philosophers of the succeeding reign, who advo- cated irreligious and sceptical doctrines. La Fon- taine brought his mind gradually to the opinions of his cotemporaries. Two points, however, seemed to him very tyrannical in the demands of the Abbe ; one was, that he should make a public avowal of, and excuse for, some writings that had given much scandal and offence to the world; the other, a promise not to publish a play that he had recently composed. This last demand seemed to him so hard that La Fontaine sent his piece to the Doc- tors of the Sorbonne, to be judged by them. They gave their opinion against the play, and he put it into the fire. He received the sacrament in the presence of some of the members of the French Academy, whom he had sent for to be witnesses of his re- 258 LA FONTAINE. pentance and change of sentiment. When he afterwards recovered, he went to the French Aca- demy, and there renewed the expression of his regret at having employed his talents on writings that had given offence to public morals ; and he inflicted on himself many acts of penance. La Fontaine always followed the bent of his ex- traordinary mind. Racine's sisters, who had often met him at their father's table, used to represent him as a very tiresome man, slovenly in his dress, and who would not converse or talk except of Plato. He carried his easy disposition into com- pany, and often in his reveries was thinking of something he was composing, or of some passage in a favourite author; and if Racine's sisters ac- cused him of talking of Plato, others accused him of a passion for Rabelais. One day he was at Boileau's, where there were many learned persons, and the Abbe Boileau and Racine talked with great admiration of the writings of St. Augustine. La Fontaine was absorbed in thought, and did not seem to hear what was going on. All at once he awakened; and addressing himself to the Abbe Boileau, said, "Do you think St. Augustine as clever as Rabelais ?" The doctor of divinity was LA FONTAINE. 259 struck dumb at the question, but recovering him- self, he said, " Take care, M. de la Fontaine, you have got one of your stockings wrong side out." And so he had. During passion week, Racine had taken La Fontaine to evening service, and to occupy him, put into his hands the Bible, while he himself was attending to the service of the church. La Fon- taine opened at the prayer of the Jews, in the pro- phet Barruch. Full of admiration at the beauty of it, he said to Racine, as they were leaving the church, " Who is this Barruch ? he was a great genius ;" and for several succeeding days he said to all his acquaintance, " Have you read Barruch ? he was a great genius !" Doubtless, in his idea of the matter, Barruch, Plato, and Rabelais, were all on the same footing. At one time he wished to dedicate one of his most objectionable writings to the celebrated doctor of divinity, Arnaud, who had spoken with enthu- siasm of his fables ; and Boileau and Racine, with difficulty, made him comprehend how offensive to religion and to good taste such a proceeding would be. These stories justify Madame de la Sabliere's 260 RACINE. remark to him, " En verite, mon cher La Fontaine, vous seriez bien bete, si vous n'aviez pas tant d'esprit." RACINE. Born, 1639 ; died, 1699. RACINE'S family, having been ennobled by the acquisition of a " charge" bore a swan in their arms; and certainly never were armes portantes better deserved. He received his education at the College of Harcourt, and afterwards at Port- Royal des Champs, where he imbibed those reli- gious principles which never left him, and which most of the writers of his immediate day were proud to own. Racine's first composition was " La Nymphe de la Seine," an ode written on the marriage of Louis XIV., for which Colbert sent him a hun- dred Louis d'ors, and shortly after he received from the King a pension of 600 livres. Another ode, called " La Renommee aux Muses," was luckily for Racine criticised by Boileau. Racine went to thank the critic, and thence sprung that friendship so useful and honourable to him, and RACINE. 261 which became one of the many advantages which destiny gave him over his great cotemporary Corneille. His first tragedy was " Andromaque." Corneille had astonished and carried away his audience ; Racine made them feel : pity seemed to him an emotion of greater power in tragedy than admira- tion ; he studied the workings of the human heart, its weaknesses and its passions. " Andromaque" is one of the pieces that has the most effect on the stage, from the alternations of hope and fear, of terror and pity, which it contains. Racine afterwards produced " Les Plaideurs," which is weak in action, but abounds in lines of wit and spirit, many of which have passed into sayings. This piece pleased Louis XIV. so much that Racine's friends awakened him in the night to announce its success. In 1669, his " Britannicus" was coldly received by the public. Boileau alone told Racine that it was his chef-d'o3uvre ; it was said that the King silently took a lesson from these lines in it : " Pour toute ambition, pour vertu singuliere, II excelle a conduire un char dans la carriere, A se donner lui-meme en spectacle aux Remains." 262 RACINE. After that time the King left off exhibiting himself in the ballets which were given at court. " Berenice" succeeded, and it was at the request of Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, that Corneille and Racine each composed a piece on this subject. That unfortunate Princess did not live to see the struggle for fame between these two rivals. She was supposed to have combated in her own heart a passion for Louis XIV., which made her wish to see the subject of Berenice treated ; but the truth of this court gossip was never known. Corneille 's piece fell ; Racine was honoured by the tears of the whole audience. The grand Conde once answered to a criticism made on it by quoting from the piece itself: " Depuis cinq ans entiers chaquejour je la vois, Et crois toujours la voir pour la premibre fois." " Iphigenie" succeeded, in 1677 ; and "Phedre" was destined to receive a persecution from the Duke de Nevers and the Duchess de Bouillon, the nephew and niece of Mazarin. One of their manoeuvres cost them the sum of twenty-eight thousand francs, spent in hiring the boxes of two theatres for several repre- sentations, filling the boxes of one theatre for the RACINE. 263 " Phedre" of Paradon, and leaving those empty at the theatre where Racine's piece was acted. The contest ended by a war of sonnets, which the au- thority of the Prince de Conde put a stop to. But this event gave Racine, then in the full energy of his genius, such a disgust to the theatre that he wrote no more plays for twelve years, when, to please Madame de Maintenon, he produced " Esther." Boileau and Racine were named historians of France, and followed the king in many of his jour- neys. Louis loaded Racine with favours : he was " gentilhomme ordinaire," and had the " entree" at court, and an apartment there ; and he was often named for the "voyage de Marli." The King found his conversation so agreeable that he often saw him when he would not see his courtiers. Yet La Rochefoucauld reproaches both Racine and Boileau that they were acquainted with nothing but poetry, and that all their conversation turned on it. The following maxim pointed at these two great geniuses : " It displays a great poverty of mind to possess only one kind of genius." Judg- ing from what we read, in those days persons talked only of what they understood ; a very great 264 RACINE. advantage over the style of conversation of the present day. Louis XIV., during an illness he had, made Racine sleep in the next room to him, that he might see him often, and hear Plutarch read aloud to him. Racine reckoned among his friends the most celebrated persons of his day, Boileau, La Bruyere, Bourdaloue, le Pere Rapin, Bouhours, La Fontaine, &c. He was very handsome, with a great charm of manner, and all the eclat of a great reputation, joined to the good fortune of making it everywhere acknowledged. His talents for read- ing, reciting, and declaiming were unrivalled, and were long talked of at Paris after he could be heard no more. It was in 1689 that " Esther" was given at St. Cyr. Madame de Sevigne" writes the account to her daughter of having been present at one of the re- presentations ; and Madame de Caylus, in her Souvenirs, describes her own success as a young actress.* "Athalie," composed likewise for St. Cyr, had a * See the chapter on Madame de Maintenon for an account of " Esther." RACINE. 265 different fate. It was played twice at Versailles, in a room, and published ; but from some injus- tice done to it in the performance, it was not approved of. Racine thought his genius gone ; and this, joined to his disgust of twelve years be- fore, determined him to retire totally from the world. Racine was so sensitive, that he declared his greatest successes gave him less pleasure than the slightest criticism gave him pain. He had a strong religious feeling, and in giving up the world he abandoned himself to that piety which consoled him for his worldly mortifications. At one time he thought of becoming a monk, but reflection made him hesitate, and he ended by choosing matrimony. It was in 1677, after his first the- atrical disappointment, that he took to himself a wife, who was so strict in her religious feelings that she never read poetry ; and her confessor highly commended her for never having perused her husband's tragedies during her whole life. But it appears that she was an excellent woman, and occupied herself in domestic affairs and the care of her seven children. An unlucky circumstance weakened the King's VOL. I. N 266 RACINE. liking for Racine. It was in 1697. France was exhausted with war, and in a conversation that Madame de Maintenon had with Racine on the subject of the poverty and misery of the lower classes in France, she asked him to put his ideas into the form of a memorial, and promised that the writing should never go out of her own hands. Racine, urged by the hope of being of use, con- sented. The King found the memorial, the name of the writer was revealed, and the lesson must have been a direct one, for the King took offence at it Louis remarked in anger, " Because Ra- cine'writes good verses, does he pretend to un- derstand every thing ? and because he is a great poet, does he suppose that he is a minister of state ?" Allowing for the condition of the times, and the relative position of the parties, the anger of Louis XIV. was natural; though now, in our enlightened times, it appears illiberal now that painters give their opinion on poems that poets decide on the merits of painters that every one judges of authors and their productions ; and that mankind have taken to themselves universally the right of judging the actions of monarchs. But RACINE. 267 was Louis in ignorance of the misery of his sub- jects ? Probably not, as he had hastened the peace of Ryswick to relieve the country. But he did not like to be attacked ; and he had once said to a celebrated preacher, " I love to take my share in the sermon, but I do not like having it made for me." But it was still more characteristic of Louis to be angry with a man, whose vocation was purely literary, interfering in the affairs of government. The King, however, at length forgave Racine ; he continued to see him, and shew him kindness ; but Racine never forgave himself. In his latter years, the education of his children became Racine's great occupation. He had prayers daily with his wife and children, and servants, and read and explained the gospel to them, placing all his happiness in domestic life, and only going to court when called there to fulfil the duties of his appointments. Racine had many enemies, and they continued to assail his memory for half a century after his decease. This is explained from the influence of Fontenelle on French literature. Fontenelle was N2 268 RACINE. the nephew of Corneille, and was disposed to quarrel with all the rivals of his uncle's fame, even at the expense of truth and justice. Fontenelle hated Racine personally, ever after a certain epi- gram which immortalized his tragedy of Aspar. It was a hatred of sixty years, a long fit of anger for a philosopher to indulge in. This hatred was perpetually shewing itself, until Voltaire (who never was blind, except on the subject of re- ligion,) extolled the inimitable perfection of Ra- cine. Racine died, in 1699, of a painful death, which he endured with Christian fortitude. He was buried at Port-Royal ; and his epitaph, composed by Boileau, ends thus : " O toi ! qui que tu sois, que la piete attire en ce saint lieu, plains, dans un si excellent homme, la triste destinee de tons les mortels ; et, quelque grande idee que puisse te donner de lui sa repu- tation, souviens-toi que ce sont des prieres, et non pas de vains eloges, qu'il te demande." The last poetry written by Racine was " Les Cantiques Spirituels." Fenelon admired them much. The third cantique is a prayer of a Chris- RACINE. 269 tian on the contradictions he feels in his own mind : " Mon Dieu! quelle guerre cruelle ! Je trouve deux hommes en moi ; L'un veut que, plein d'amour pour toi, Mon co3ur te soil toujours fidele ; L'autre, a tes voloutes rebelle, Me revoke centre ta loi." Louis XIV. said of these lines, " Voila deux hommes que je connois bien !" A curious speculation has been started, as to what would have been the national tastes of Eng- land and France had Shakspeare been a French- man, and Racine and Boileau written in English. But Shakspeare could not have written as he has done in any other country but England, " free and familiar England," or in any country where the Reformation had not made an entire change in the habits and feelings of the great mass of the population. English tragedy existed a hundred years before the tragedies of Corneille and Racine were known. In French tragedy there was not only the progress that time and refinement had made in the world, but the forms and cere- monials of the court of France were so strict, that a breach of etiquette was a more formidable crime 270 RACINE. than deficiency of genius or spirit. Shakspeare's tragedies have been compared by an eminent critic to Salvator Rosa's paintings " a chaos of the wonderful, agitating the passions too strongly to leave time to inquire whether the rules of taste are violated/' Racine's tragedies are finished with the care of an enamelled miniature. To what extent is the difference of feelings in the two countries, any one may be a judge by seeing the performance of Hamlet, in London, and a few nights after finding himself at the Theatre Fran9ais," at Paris, listening to Hamlet, a tragedy made up for the French taste by Ducis. To the Englishman it will appear a wearisome caricature of his dearly-beloved tragedy; but he will be astonished to see that this play is admired by a critical and severe audience ; that the feelings are affected ; that as many tears are shed at what ap- pears to him overstrained and ridiculous, as are shed by an English audience at the best represen- tation of Hamlet on the English stage. The merits of Racine are lost to English per- sons, even to those who understand the French language critically. Each nation is struck with the faults that belong to a cast of composition so MOLIERE. 271 totally different from their own, as in the case of Shakspeare and Racine ; but when Voltaire was asked to write a commentary on Racine's works, he answered, " II n'y a qu'a mettre au has de toutes les pages, beau, pathetique, harmonieux, admirable, sublime !" MOLIERE. Bprn, 1622; died, 1673. JOHNSON has defined comedy to be "a dra- matic representation of the lighter faults of man- kind, with a view to make folly and vice ridi- culous ;" and in this representation he has exactly defined Moliere's genius. It is extraordinary how true genius, in every instance, masters and tri- umphs over all distinctions in life, education, pro- fession, the opinions and prejudices of families. This is remarkable in the histories of Shakspeare, Moliere, Cervantes, and (even foreigners add to this list) Sir Walter Scott. These persons have all suffered like other men, some from distress of circumstances, from misery of mind, from passions, 272 MOLIERE. from domestic troubles ; they have all partaken of the common lot of mortals; but pure, unalloyed genius in its genuine beauty, has triumphed over everything. Moliere's genius was more original and deter- mined to one point than any one of those above named, the genius of the others having been more universal. He was the cotemporary of the greatest persons France has produced, Racine, Bossuet, Pascal, and Boileau ; all, excepting the last, op- posed to him in spirit and doctrine. Moliere was of a family of burghers of Paris, of the name of Poquelin, who followed the business of dealers in tapestry. His father had also the office of valet de chambre in the royal household. The young Poquelin served his apprenticeship in his father's trade, and at the age of fourteen he could read, write, and keep accounts. He had a grandfather who spoilt him, and took him often to the play at the Hotel de Burgogne ; the day after which the youth was certain to be melancholy, ab- sent, disgusted with his business, his home, and his prospects. Human life opened to his view as one perpetual and shifting scene of comic life, and he entreated and obtained from his father the per- MOLIERE. 273 mission to become a pensioner of the College of Clermont, since College Louis le Grand. This college was directed by the Jesuits ; and five years of constant study influenced his future life, as well as those persons whom he met and contracted friendship with. Amongst these per- sons were the Prince de Conti, intended for an ecclesiastic, but passionately fond of theatrical amusements a Jesuit, as long as he remained with the Jesuits ; afterwards as strong a Jansenist, and writing against those same amusements he had formerly patronized ; Gassendi, Chapelle, Her- nault, Bernier, the future traveller, who returned to France late in life to end his days, " en petit comite" with Ninon de 1'Enclos and Madame de la Sabliere (before her conversion); and to tell Louis XIV. that Switzerland was the best country in Europe to live in. But what is very remarkable, there issued from this school of the Jesuits, the scholars of whom were mostly composed of pure " bourgeoisie," a freedom of speech, an epicurism, an independence, a liberty of humours and man- ners, more like la jeune France of modern days, than like the refinement and courtesy of the age of Louis XIV. Independence became the motto N3 274 MOLIERE. of these daring spirits ; each followed the bent of his own genius, and those ways were not the ways of Racine or of Bossuet. Moliere had hardly finished his education before his father's increasing years and infirmities had caused him to yield his situation, as valet de chambre to the King,, to his son, who followed Louis XIII. in a journey to the South of France, which lasted a year. Moliere had then an op- portunity of comparing the manners and follies of the royal court with those of the provincial no- blesse, and by his satirical powers they have both been handed down to posterity. On his return to Paris, the young Poquelin began the study of the law ; but instead of fre- quenting the courts, he passed his time with the actors of the different theatres at Paris, and at last formed a company himself, and so much displeased his parents at his embracing a profession then pro- nounced infamous, that to gratify these honest burghers he dropped the family name of Poquelin and adopted that of Moliere. It appears that the court were more liberal than his parents, and con- tinued him in possession of his place. The troubles of the Fronde having broken up MOLIERE. 275 theatricals, Moliere disappeared for some time, but in 1653 his first play, " L'Etourdi," was performed at Lyons. He was thirty-one when he first appeared as an author, and had then, in the errant existence of an actor, seen much of life. But a temptation was held out to him to withdraw from the stage ; the Prince de Conti offered to make him his secretary ; and 'the love of independence must have been strong in Moliere, to prefer the fluctuating life of an actor. He declined it, from a love of the stage or some other motive ; or perhaps it came to his.know- ledge how the place came to be vacant. The death of the last secretary, Sarasin, had been in consequence of " un mauvais traitement de Mon- seigneur le Prince de Conti :" the prince, in a fit of passion, had struck his secretary with the fire- tongs, who never had recovered the effects of the blow. Moliere came to Paris in 1658, where, under the protection of the Prince de Conti, he acquired that of Louis XIV. In 1659, he brought out " Les Precieuses Ridicules." " Le Facheux" he wrote to please the generous and magnificent Fouquet, for the fete at Vaux, which proved so fatal to the donor. Probably the King had had the piece to read 276 MOLIERE. before it was acted, for he named to Moliere a grand seigneur of his court a great original, a determined sportsman, and a resolute story-teller of his sporting adventures ; and from this gentle- man, at the King's suggestion, Moliere learnt the terms in hawking. " L'Ecole des Femmes" was cried up to the skies and abused without mercy. There was a league made against it of jealous authors and very proper ladies; and, to revenge himself, Moliere wrote " La Critique de 1'Ecole des Femmes." " La Princesse d'Elide" was written for a fete that Louis gave in 1664 ; and the " Misanthrope" came out two years after. It appears that the serious and refined beauties of this play were not appre- ciated or understood in those days. The virtuous and inflexible Alceste attacks the vices of those times that are the most worthy of his indignation ; while the beauteous heroine, a queen of coquettes, and a lover of scandal, attacks the fashions of the day. Thus these two persons divide between them a satire of all existing follies, and no one can escape the sarcasms of the just Alceste, or of the unjust Celimene. The idea of putting a religious hypocrite on the MOLIERE. 277 stage, in a country where the Jesuits had great influence, was a bold project ; but Moliere ex- ecuted it, and wrote " Tartuffe." It was forbidden to be acted. There is a story that Moliere came on the stage, and said, " Messieurs, Tartuffe est defendu ce soir; Monsieur le premier President ne veut pas qu'on le joue." Louis was then at the siege of Lisle. Moliere despatched two actors to him, with a petition in favour of the play ; they returned without an answer, and it was two years before he got permission to have his piece per- formed. The king was aware of the injustice of the decree, for, one evening, leaving the theatre with the Prince de Conde, and having heard a very impious farce, called " Scaramouche Her- mite," he said to the Prince de Conde, " I wonder why those persons, who are so scandalized at Moliere's play, say nothing about this piece." To which the prince answered, " It is that * Scara- mouche ' makes a joke of Heaven and of religion, for which those persons do not care, but Moliere laughs at them, which displeases them so much." Moliere had not only for his enemies the ladies of the society of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and the Jesuits, but the medical faculty were incensed 278 MOLIERE. against him, in consequence of three or four of his plays, in which both themselves and their modes of treatment were made ridiculous ; and it could only have been Moliere that could, with the help of Le Sage's Gil Bias, produce the overturn of the cherished errors of a whole profession. Every physician had some one mode of treatment, and killed in as many instances as cured. Their dress and gait were extraordinary, and may now be seen on the stage at Paris when Moliere's pieces are given. They ambled about Paris on mules, in this extraordinary dress, the jest of the populace, and the dread of their patients ; and, in their consultations, they used a barbarous Latin, or if they condescended to speak their native language, made it almost as incomprehensible, from the terms they used. "L'Avare" was given to the public in 1668, when the highest compliment to Moliere's play was paid him by an actual miser, who was so much delighted with the lessons of economy that it contained, that he said " he did not grudge the money which the admission had cost him." The subject of his " Amants Magnifiques," the King gave to Moliere ; and he inserted some jokes on MOLIERE. 279 astrology, the study of which some persons of rank about the court were at that time addicted to. In 1670, the " Bourgeois Gentilhomme" was re- presented at Versailles. Louis saw the first repre- sentation without giving any signs of approbation ; the courtiers thought him displeased, and began to abuse it ; their consciences were hurt at the doubly vile and refined part of Dorante. Moliere was in agonies. But the King, having seen it again, said to him, " Your play is excellent, you have not written any thing that has amused me so much ; " upon which all the echoes at Versailles repeated, " Your play is excellent" The best comedy Moliere ever wrote was not liked when first brought on the stage : " Les Fem- mes Savantes." Madame de Sevigne writes to her daughter, " Nous tachons d'amuser notre bon Car- dinal (de Retz) ; Moliere lui lira Trissotin, qui est une forte plaisante chose." Moliere terminated his dramatic career with " Le Malade Imaginaire." The story of the valets de chambre at court not thinking the greatest genius of France good enough company to dine with, came to the King's knowledge. The King, like every monarch of the house of Bourbon, was blessed with a great 280 MOLIERE. appetite ; but in case he should ask for any thing in the night, something was always kept ready " en cas de nuit." One ef the pictures of a Versailles life, is Louis calling one day for his " en cas de nuit," making Moliere sit down to table with him, and the King helping him to part of a woodcock. Louis then ordered u les entrees familieres," that the courtiers might see them at table together. After this, the valets de eham- bre no longer objected to Moliere's dining with them. The circumstances of Moliere's death are the most sad and melancholy possible, as if in con- trast with the joy and laughter he had inspired. On the fourth day of the representation of " Le Malade Imaginaire," Moliere was ill ; he would not give up acting; he was taken home, where two sisters of a religious establishment in the country, who were at Paris to gather charity, came to visit him: a short time afterwards he burst a blood vessel, and died an hour after he had quitted the theatre. He died excommuni- cated, and was refused burial by the curate of Saint Eustache. The King, to put an end to the public scandal, desired the Archbishop of Paris to MOLIERE. 281 interfere, and he was buried in the churchyard of Saint Joseph. On the day of the funeral, the peo- ple gathered in crowds before his house, and his widow, much terrified, threw out money amongst them ; and the same mob, who had come to insult his remains, departed with prayers for the soul of Moliere. Only two priests accompanied the body to interment, but two hundred of his friends followed, carrying torches ; and the most nattering epitaphs were thrown on his grave. One of these epitaph writers, having had the unlucky idea of presenting his production to the Prince de Conde, who had always loved Moliere, got for answer, " Would to God that he, whose epitaph you write, was in a state to write yours ! " Bouhour's lines on Moliere are well known : " Tu reformas et la ville et la cour, Mais quelle eu fut la recompense ? Les Franfais rougeront un jour De leur peu de reconnaissance. II leur fallut un Comedien Qui mil a les polir sa gloire et son tude ; Mais, Moliere, a ta gloire, il ne manquera rien, Si parmi les de'fauts que tu peignit si bien Tu les avois repris de leur ingratitude." Moliere shook society to its very foundations. He spared neither customs, ridicules, vices, insti- 282 MOLIERE. tutions nor prejudices. Moliere and Pascal looked with the same pity on human nature, but they dealt with it differently. Moliere considered human nature as a foolish old child, an incurable, that must be laughed at and corrected, supported and amused ; Moliere was entirely a child of this world and for this world. Pascal looked with the same pity on human nature, and its weaknesses and its incurableness ; but the results were different. Pascal threw off the world and its follies, to attach himself entirely to religion. Moliere, with all his satirical spirit, was one of the most benevolent of men ; a hundred traits are on record of his charity and generosity. He once gave a piece of gold to a beggar, who came after him, telling him he had made a mistake in the money ; on which Moliere said " Keep the money, and take this also," giving him another piece, and exclaiming, " Ou la vertu va-t-elle se nicher ?" His domestic life was a scene of misfortunes. He was unfortunate in his connexion with an actress, and still more unfortunate in marrying her. She was young and a coquette, and brought on him a thousand ridicules inseparable from the state of jealousy he lived in. MOLIERE. 283 The description left of Moliere's appearance by a cotemporary accords with that of the portraits which remain of him painted by his friend Mignard.* " Moliere was neither fat nor thin, rather tall, with a commanding air; his looks and countenance, serious and grave ; he had a large nose and mouth ; a dark complexion ; thick bushy eye-brows, which moved with every change of countenance, and which gave the most comic expression to his face at times. In his disposition he was mild, generous and complaisant ; he loved to hold forth, and when he read his pieces to the actors he liked their children to be present, as he formed conjectures from the natural expressions of childhood." Moliere was a good actor in comic parts, but a bad actor in tragedy ; but preferred the latter, and has been painted by Mignard in the parts of Caesar and Augustus. He was a very impatient spirit ; he liked every thing about him in great order, and Laforet herself, the servant to whom he read his comic parts, did not always get clear of the marks of his impatience, when any thing he wanted was mislaid or put out of the way. * Pennant, in his Tour through England, mentions a good portrait of Moliere, in the possession of Lord Bagot, at Blithe- field, in Staffordshire. 284 MOLIERE. Moliere, with all his joyous character, with all his wit, and with all his powers of amusing, was not happy ; and yet at forty years of age he had arrived at the summit of his glory; protected by the King ; sent for continually by the Prince de Conde, who had a great affection for him ; invited to M. de la Rochefoucauld's to read his " Bourgeois Gentil- homme ;" to the Cardinal de Retz, to read his " Femmes Savantes." He was known and admired by all judges of good literature. The rapidity and strength of his sketches of character have made him termed a Saint Simon in verse. But inde- pendent of the misery of his domestic position, notwithstanding the eclat of his reputation, not- withstanding the royal favour, he suffered from the want of that serious settled consideration which was due to his genius. The actor lost what the poet claimed; he was invited to amuse persons; he was asked, " Pour egayer le bon vieux Car- dinal." That is the tone Madame de Sevigne takes about Moliere. He was a buffoon, and con- sidered as such, and had a thousand bitter feelings to swallow in consequence. Boileau, the first and greatest of his friends, regretted this for him, and used all his influence with him to try and make MOLIERE. 285 him give up the profession of actor, charged bv the negotiation from the French Academy to this effect, preparatory to his being made one of its members, Moliere answered Boileau's remon- strances, that a point of honour made it necessary that he should not desert those to whom his per- sonal exertions could secure an existence. The Academy afterwards did him justice, placing under his bust this inscription, Nothing is wanting to the glory of Molifere, Moliere is wanting to ours. But the justice done was too late for Moliere, for he had been dead many years ; it was, in fact, justice done to themselves. His reputation was unbounded, his pi a : se the theme of every tongue, from the King to the meanest of his subjects, with the exception of certain persons who were alarmed at the tendency of some of his writings, and of certain professions who were in terror of the ridi- cule heaped upon them. When the King helped Moliere to his " en cas de nuit," and said to his courtiers, " Me voici occupe a faire manger Moliere, que mes officiers ne trouvent pas assez bonne compagnie pour eux," was the reqaration equal to the offence? 286 DESPREAUX BOILEAU. Moliere, in his serious moments, felt that his lot was " une position incomplete ;" a false posi- tion. Such is Vauvenargue's opinion of Moliere's feelings, which he takes from the sentiments of Mo- liere himself, strongly and seriously expressed to a young man when dissuading him from the profession of an actor, and, at the same time, citing his own feelings as a reason for so doing. DESPREAUX BOILEAU. Born, 1636; died, 1711. MADAME de Sevigne speaking of Boileau says, " qu'il n'etait cruel qu'en vers." His readers were astonished at finding the author full of can- dour and good nature, and that his conversation, as he himself expresses it, " n'avait ni griffes ni ongles." Two traits of Boileau will shew the goodness of his heart. The celebrated Patru was obliged to sell his library for subsistence. Boileau bought it and paid for it, but would not take possession of it till after Patru's death. The other story con- DESPREAUX BOILEAU. 287 cerns Corneille, whose pension had been sup- pressed. Boileau flew to the King ; and offered to sacrifice his own pension to have that of Cor- neille restored, saying he could not receive a pension when such a man as Corneille was de- prived of his. Racine and Boileau were historiographers of France, and they sometimes accompanied Louis XIV. to the army, to be able to write an account of the war. As poets, they both worked slowly, and Boileau describes himself " Et toujours mecontent de ce qu'il vient de faire, II plait a tout le monde, et ne saurait se plaire." Boileau read his " first Epistle to the King" to Louis XV. The King praised it much, and made him read three times over his verses on Titus. The friendship between Racine and Boileau was strong, deep, and lasting. When Racine was dying he wrote to Boileau, " All my consolation is, that I die before you." When Boileau went to the King to announce the death of Racine, Louis heard him with feeling ; and when he was going away, he said to him, " Monsieur Boileau, I shall have an hour to spare every week to see you," But Boileau went no more to court, for he said, 288 DESPREAUX BOILEAU. " What could I do there ? I have forgotten how to praise." The brusquerie of Boileau's manner was noto- rious, and how he could ever have been a courtier is surprising. When Louis asked him, before Madame de Maintenon, " Who was the greatest dramatic poet of France ?" he said, " Sire, it is Moliere; all the others wrote farces, like those wretched pieces of Scarron's." At the name of Scarron, Madame de Maintenon coloured. An- other day, Boileau, declaiming against a taste for burlesque poetry, said to the King, " Luckily, the taste is gone by no one reads Scarron now, even in the provinces." These speeches account for the dry manner in which Madame de Maintenon notifies the death of the greatest poet of France, in her correspondence with the Princess des Ursins (March 1711): "The satirist Despreaux is dead." Boileau could sometimes flatter, and in good taste, though it was not his habit They were talking before the King of synonymous terms, and whether "gros"and "grand" were the same in meaning. The King said that they were not, and asked Boileau his opinion, who answered, " I am of your Majesty's THE ABBE COTIN. 289 opinion ; it is certain that there is a great difference between Louis le Grand and Louis le Gros." Boi- leau was very exact in regard to all engagements in society, and was careful to make his excuses early when he could not fulfil them ; for he said, " I have observed that a man's faults are always brought forward whenever he is waited for." The scene in Madame de Sevigne's letters between Boileau and the Jesuit, as to the merits of Pascal, is charming ; Boileau's passion and eager- ness are there described in a scene fit for the stage. Boileau was a Christian philosopher ; he attacked * the doctrines of the Jesuits, whose writings he did not approve o Bourdaloue, however, was one of his greatest friends. He left all his fortune to the poor, and at his death, he said that it was a conso- lation to him, that as a poet he had never hurt the morals of the age. THE ABBE COTIN. Born, 1604; died, 1682. AFTER Moliere ? s "Precieuses Ridicules" had be- come known, the French women no longer dared to make themselves conspicuous by the jargon of ro- VOL. i. o 290 THE ABBE COTEN. mance, but a new ambition seized hold of the ladies of those same coteries of the Hotel de Rambouillet, though no longer held there. Moliere, Boileau, and Menage, still frequented those societies ; for there appears always to have been in France, (witness the times of the Fronde, and all other times,) a spirit of forgiving and forgetting, quite extraordinary. A pretension to learning now completely turned the heads of the women, and this ridicule was the means of bringing forward one of the best comedies Moliere ever wrote, "LesFemmes Savantes." The women tried to combine impossibilities in their daily existence, the knowledge of Greek, or Latin, or the sciences, with opera-going, supper- giving, the cares of their never-ending family law- suits, and the invention of new head-dresses and trimmings. Politics, it is true, had been exploded from women's society, since the Fronde ; the pre* tensions to learning had the advantage of banishing play from certain coteries ; and female fund-holders and speculators were not known in France till fifty years after ; so that the activity of aristocratic life has increased in proportion to every thing else in modern times. But the dressing-room of aFrench lady was a glorious scene of confusion, and presented THE ABBE COTIN. 291 the same sights to be seen in England a century .after : " Bills, books, caps, couplets, combs, a varied mass, Oppress'd the toilet and obscured the glass, Unfinish'd here an epigram was laid, And there a mantua-maker's bill unpaid." The Abbe Cotin held a distinguished place in these societies, modestly styling himself the father of French epigram. He combined in himself a variety of professions, seemingly incongruous. He held a place about court, having been councillor and almoner to the King, which gave him some influence with the court ladies ; he was a mem- ber of the French Academy ; he was a poet, and wrote sonnets and epigrams, and especially his madrigal on Titi, Mademoiselle d'Orleans' dog, had made a sensation; he wrote gallant letters to ladies; and he was a celebrated preacher. Flattered, feared, coaxed and consulted by the fairest, finest, and wittiest ladies of France, who asked his assis- tance or his approbation in their endeavours at learning, the Abbe Cotin was in those days a character of great influence in French society " un Abbe pedant et petit-maitre." But these good days did not last with the Abbe ; o2 292 THE ABB COTIN. in the evening meetings at Mademoiselle de Scu- dery's and elsewhere, his authority as to the merit of a madrigal or an epigram was no longer undis- puted. Another order of things had arrived, the ladies deserted him, and the Abbe Cotin became what was not to be got over in France he became ridiculous. But it is through Moliere that the Abbe is become known to posterity. Moliere ap- propriated to himself a sonnet of Cotin's, " a la Princesse Uranie sur sa fievre," and placed it in his comedy of " Les Femmes Savantes," and did not even attempt to disguise the name of him whom he meant to show up to the ridicule of the public ; calling his hero Tricotin, but afterwards changing it to " three times a fool" Trissotin. The following is the manner in which Moliere has painted the unfortunate Abbe : " Monsieur Trissotin M'inspire au fond de 1'aine un dominant chagrin. Je ne puis consentir, pour gagner ses suffrages, A me deshonorer en prisant ses ouvrages : C'estpar eux qu'& mes yeux il a d'abord paru, Et je le connoissois avant que 1'avoir vu. Je vis, dans le fatras des e'crits qu'il nous donne, Ce qu'e'tale en tous lieux sa pe'dante personne, La constante hauteur de sa presumption, Cette intre"pidite de bonne opinion, THE ABB COTIN. 293 Get indolent e"tat de confiance extreme, Qui le rend en tout temps si content de soi-meme, Qui fait qu'a son m6rite incessament il rit, Qu'il se salt si bon gre de tout ce qu'il ecrit, Et qu'il ne voudroit pas changer sa renomme'e Centre tons les honneurs d'un general d'armee." The Abbe Colin had had a quarrel with Menage, in one of those curious evenings held at Mademoi- selle de Scudery's, and their meeting was in con- sequence anything but in "le pays de Tendre." Vadius, (Menage,) a pedant of deep scholarship, talks such solemn sense, that the listeners are con- vinced by his serious and severe criticism of Trisso- tin, that he is the wise man of the piece ; but after Vadius has discoursed on the folly of verse-making, he gravely draws from his pocket a cahier, which probably always accompanied him, and says, "Voici de petits vers pour de jeunes amants." This trait of character never fails to be much applauded on the French stage. The scene of the quarrel is the best in the whole play, but too long to extract. That of the sonnet shall be given, but with some curtailment. The scene is placed at the house of Philaminte, at Paris ; Philaminte, her sister-in-law, and one of her daughters, all learned ladies, are all in admi- 294 THE ABBE COTIN. ration of Trissotin, while he is preparing to read some of his compositions. PHILAMINTE. Servez-nous promptement votre aimable repas. TRISSOTIN. Pour cette grande faim qu'a mes yeux on ex- pose, Un plat seul de huit vers me semble peu de chose, Et je pense qu'ici je ne ferois pas raal De joindre a I'epigramme, ou bien au madrigal, Le ragout d'un sonnet qui, chez une princesse, A passe pour avoir quelque delicatesse. II est de sel attique assaisonne partout, Et vous le trouverez, je crois, d'assez bon gout. ARMANDE. Ah ! je n'en doute point. PHILAMINTE. Donnons vite audience. BELISE, interrompant Trisaotinchaquejbis qu'il se dispose a lire. Je sens d'aise mon coeur tressaillir par avance. J'aime la poe'sie avec entetement, Et surtout quand les vers sont tournes galam- ment. PHILAMINTE. Si nous parlons toujours, il ne pourra rien dire. TRISSOTIN. So.... BELISE, a Henriette. Silence, ma nidce. ARMANDE. Ah! laissez-le done lire. TRISSOTIN. Sonnet a la princesse URANIE, sur sa fievre. Votre prudence est endormie, De trailer magnifiquement, Et de loger superbement Votre plus cruelle ennernie. BELISE. Ah ! le joli de"but ! ARMANDE. Qu'il a le tour galant ! PHILAMINTE. Lui seul des vers aise"s poss&de le talent. ARMANDE. A prudence endormie il faut rendre les armes. THE ABBE COTJN. 295 BELISE. Loger son ennemie, est pour rnoi plein de charmes. PHILAMINTE. J'airae superbement et magnifiquement ; Ces deux adverbes joints font admirablement ! BELISE. Pretons 1'oreille au reste. TRISSOTIN. Votre prudence est endormie, De trailer magniflquement, Et de loger superbement Votre plus cruelle ennemie. ARMANDE. Prudence endormie ! BELISE. Loger son ennemie ! PHILAMINTE. Superbement et magnifiquement ! TRISSOTIN. Faites-la sortir, quoi qu'on die, De votre riche appartement, Ou cette ingrate insolemment Attaque votre belle vie. BELISE. Ah, toutdoux! laissez-moi, de grace, respirer. ARMANDE. Donnez-nous, s'il vous plait, le loisir d'ad- mirer. PHILAMINTE. On se sent, a ces vers, jusques au fond de Tame, Couler je ne sais quoi qui fait que Ton se pame. ARMANDE. Faites-la sortir, quoi qu'on die, De votre riche appartement. Que riche appartement est la joliment dit! Et que la metaphore est raise avec esprit ! PHILAMINTE. Faites-la sortir, quoi qu'on die. Ah ! que ce quoi quon die est d'un gout admir- able! C'est, a mon sentiment, un endroit impayable. ARMANDE. De quoi qu'on die aussi mon cceur est amoureux. BELISE. Je suis de votre avis, quoi qu'on die est heureux. ARMANDE. Je voudrois 1'avoir fait. The ecstasies and transports of the learned ladies continue, for some time, accompanied with agita- 296 THE ABBE COTIN. tion of fans, much gesture, and screams of appro- bation. When the applause subsides TRISSOTIN continues. Et nuit et jour vous fait outrage! Si vous la conduisez aux bains, Sans la marchander davantage, Noyez-Ia de vos propres mains. PHILAMINTE, On n'en peut plus. BELISE. On pame. ARMANDE. On se meurt de plaisir. PHILAMINTE. De mille doux frissons vous vous sentez saisir. ARMANDE. Si vous la conduisez aux bains, BELISE. Sans la marchander davantage, PHILAMINTE. Noyez-la de vos propres mains. De vos propres mains, 1&, noyez-la dans les bains. ARMANDE. Chaque pas dans vos vers rencontre un trait charmant. BELISE. Partout on s'y promene avec ravissement. PHILAMINTE. On n'y sauroit marcher que sur de belles choses. ARMANDE. Ce sont petits chemins tout parsemes de roses. THISSOTIN. Le sonnet done vous semble.... PHILAMINTE. Admirable, nouveau; Et personne jamais n'a rien fait de si beau. " L'espritguinde" of the learned ladies, and the character of the father of the family, a sensible man, who vindicates his title to be obeyed as long as his wife is absent, but yields on the lady shewing her spirit, are admirably portrayed ; and the calm good sense of Henriette, especially when acted with all the grace and tact of Mademoiselle Mars, makes this play the most admirable of any now represented of Moliere ; the changeable ness of THE ABBE COTIN. 297 usages and fashions has no influence over it, and the interest is the stronger from the knowledge of the facts that produced it. The origin of the scene in this play was in fact the hatred Boileau bore to Cotin, whom he unmercifully ridiculed. The Abbe, in revenge, did all he could to ruin Boileau in society, and his influence with the court ladies seemed to make it probable he might succeed ; but the poor Abbe's destiny or his " tracasseries " raised up Moliere as an enemy also ; and Cotin having become the con- stant object of the satires of the two great poets of France, withdrew from the world, and never ven- tured, after the sonnet of " La Princesse Uranie," to publish either verses or sermons. The Abbe Cotin's sermons were extolled or abused, according as the parties judging were his friends or his foes. Boileau sent a young eccle- siastic to hear them, that he might avoid, he said, both the manner and the matter of the preacher. Those who took his part said that he was not as low in knowledge as those who ridiculed him pretended he was, and that he understood the Hebrew and Syriac tongues, and was well read in theology and philosophy. o3 298 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. The following madrigal, written by him, was much admired in its day: " Iris s'est rendue a ma foi ; Qu'eut-elle fait pour sa defense? Nous n'etions que nous trois ; elle, I'Amour et moi, Et I'Amour fut d'intelligence." HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. Bom, 1644; died, 1670. THE fate of the Princesses of the house of Stuart has ever been tragical, until misfortune, tired of pursuing them, gave up the chase. Their charac- ters have been such as to create a strong interest in their histories. They were highly gifted in charms and fascinations; but blended with those charms and fascinations were alloys that hastened their destinies ; and if it is only considered what their fate was, during several generations, it may perhaps strengthen the French saying of " Le caractere fait la destinee." Misfortune seems to have pursued their very connexions by marriage. Take the destiny of Mary, Queen of Scots ; that of her grand-daughter, the Queen of Bohemia ; her grand-daughter, by HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 299 marriage, Henrietta-Maria ; Mary of Modena, wife of James IL ; the Duchess of Orleans, and her unfortunate daughter, Maria-Louisa, Queen of Spain. In what romance can such stories be found? and yet these were but links that con- nected a chain : the Duchess of Orleans, the daughter of Charles L, and the great grand-child of Mary, Queen of Scots, having for her daughter the Queen of Sardinia, who was great grand- mother to Louis XVL : so that there were but six generations between Charles L, King of England, and Louis XVL, King of France. To understand the influence that Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, or Madame, as she was called, possessed at the court of France, we may picture her with the beauty of the Queen of Scots, the sensibility of her father, the vivacity of Hen- rietta-Maria, and the love of literature of her aunt, the Queen of Bohemia. In taking this view there is no intention of making her story more of a romance than it really was. Historical characters should be represented in historical works as thev are, and not embellished by fiction. The history of the Duchess of Orleans, written by Madame de la Fayette, gives but few particu- 300 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. larities of the Princess's own character, and only represents those facts in the story which she her- self was a witness to. Henrietta, the daughter of Charles I. and Henrietta-Maria, and the grand- child of Henry IV. of France, was born at Exeter, during the troubles, and nursed in a camp ; and the first words she heard in infancy were those of rage and popular excitement towards the royal family. Her governess, the Countess of Morton, escaped from England with the little Princess, who was brought from her native land to the court of France, having nearly become the prisoner of her father's murderers. Queen Henrietta-Maria had arrived in France during the time of the Fronde ; and the court of France, then in all the perils of civil war, had neither inclination nor power to help her. The Cardinal de Retz became the benefactor of the Stuarts until peace and tranquillity were restored to the kingdom. Henrietta-Maria, herself uneducated, gave but little care to her daughter's education. She was brought up a Catholic. Her manners were the most graceful and charming, and nature supplied the place of instruction. Anne of Austria wished HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 301 Louis XIV. to marry her, but he thought her too young, and she and the Queen Dowager went to England to congratulate Charles II. on his resto- ration to his kingdom. On their return, the Princess, being then seven- teen, was married to Monsieur, Duke of Orleans, brother to the King. The courtiers were surprised to find a young girl, who had never left her mother's side, perfectly fitted to reign over them. The softness and gentleness of Madame won all hearts, and she was admired by every body except her husband. Monsieur was the most tiresome man in the world ; an incessant chatterer, who never said any thing worth listening to. An idea may be formed of the amount of his information to supply this torrent of words, from the fact of his having pos- sessed but one book, his mass-book, which one of his attendants always carried in his pocket. Every thing had been done to make him a trifling, effeminate character. Cardinal Mazarin used to say to his governor, " Do not make the King's brother a clever man ; he will no longer be willing to obey blindly." This advice was so well followed, that he was dressed up in petticoats, and amusing 302 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. himself in Anne of Austria's room, when, at the same age, his brother was expert in manly sports and exercises. Monsieur grew up, loving dress, court etiquette, ceremonies, masquerades, and funeral processions ; for which latter he had a particular vocation. Madame de Sevigne writes to her daughter, " You will understand the delight of Monsieur at being to be married with all forms and ceremonies." He did not love music ; but he loved the noise of bells, and never failed to go from St. Cloud to Paris on the night of All Saints, when the bells of all the churches were rung. He was brave, and had done so well in the army that jealousy never permitted him again to distin- guish himself; but the soldiers used to say that he was more afraid of being tanned with the sun, than of powder and shot. To this frivolous Prince Henrietta was united. There reigned then in France a system of cal- culated gallantry, that had all the forms of simple politeness. The young Comte de Guiche, the son of the Marechal de Grammont, was then the favourite of Monsieur. He was very handsome, and clever as handsome, and as brave as clever. He HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 303 had served with great distinction in the army, could speak all European languages, and his man- ners and address were, formed on the model of a hero of romance. In describing him, Madame de Sevigne says, " the Comte de Guiche, in his air and manner, stands alone at court ; he is a hero de roman, and does not resemble the rest of the world." The Comte de Guiche being very intimate with Monsieur, he presented him to Madame, begging of her to admit him for his sake into her private society. The young Comte did not see all the charms which the Duchess of Orleans possessed without being captivated. His first feelings were those of respectful admiration ; but they soon assumed another shape, and became violent love. One of Henrietta's maids of honour, Mademoi- selle de Montalais, got hold of the secret of his passion, and, far from discouraging him, she pre- vailed on him to write a letter to the Duchess, which she undertook to deliver. The Duchess refused to receive the letter, but Mademoiselle de Montalais advocated the cause of the Comte de Guiche so powerfully, that Henrietta had not only the imprudence to receive his letters, but to see him 304 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. several times ; when Monsieur, becoming very jealous, complained to the King, who sent off the Comte de Guiche to Poland, and sent away the maid of honour. This is all that is known of an intrigue which led to others that occupy a place all through Ma- dame de Sevigne's letters. Madame de la Fayette dismisses all idea of the Duchess being guilty; but she calls her connexion with the Comte de Guiche " une confidence libertine ;" and Monsieur's se- cond wife was accustomed to say that her prede- cessor was an innocent woman, more unfortunate than guilty, and who had had to do with very bad people. The men and women of the House of Stuart have been always given to violent fancies, sentimental friendships, and great admirations. Taking their histories into consideration, beginning with Mary, Queen of Scots, continuing to James I. and Charles L, this feature is found the leading one in their characters, and will, on tracing their stories, be found to have been the means of bring- ing two of these sovereigns to the scaffold. The heart of Henrietta was too susceptible of attachments. Although in all the pride of youth HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 305 and beauty, she was a very unhappy person. An- other of her lovers was the Comte de Treville ; and it has been said that, in her delirium on her death-bed, she was heard to say, " Adieu, Tre- ville !" M. de Treville was so much affected at her horrible death that he shut himself for years after in a monastery ; and when he was seen again, from having been a dissipated man about the court, he became a serious and altered character. It was soon after their marriage that the Duke and Duchess of Orleans went to pass some time at Fontainbleau. Louis then first saw his sister- in-law's merits, and he perhaps repented not having raised her to a throne which she was so much fitted to adorn. He was much taken with her convrsation, and she was not insensible to an admiration which flattered her. Monsieur, always jealous, did not like this grow- ing intimacy. He complained to his mother, and she spoke to the King about it, who continued to give fetes and send verses to the Duchess fetes many of which were, in reality, for Mademoi- selle de la Valliere, for whom the King's passion was then at its height. Henrietta, most unfortunately for her, was in 306 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. habits of friendship with Mazarin's niece, the Comtesse de Soissons. They agreed in wishing to place some one in the King's favour who would be more docile to their wishes than was the unambi- tious and retiring Mademoiselle de la Valliere. The Comte de Guiche, the Marquis de Vardes, and the Chevalier de Lorraine were abettors and urgers on of this court intrigue. They composed a letter in Spanish, which was supposed to be written from the King of Spain to his daughter, the Queen of France, informing her of the King's passion for Mademoiselle de la Valliere. The letter fell into the hands of Louis, who did not for some years discover the real author of it, and some innocent persons suffered. Vardes, upon the exile of the Comte de Guiche, became his confidant as to his passion for the Duchess of Orleans. Once in the knowledge of this secret, Vardes played a despicable part in this court intrigue. He formed the project of making Henrietta dependent on him, and placing her in his power ; and he represented to her the necessity of getting possession of the letters of the Comte de Guiche, left in the custody of Mademoiselle de Montalais. Vardes became depositary of these HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 307 letters, but once in his possession he would not give them up ; and he became so presuming and disagreeable to Madame that she complained of him to the King, and he was sent to the Bastille. The Comtesse de Soissons, enraged at the loss of her lover, M. de Vardes, disclosed the secret of the letters to the King. Henrietta, obliged to own the truth of her assertions to Louis, at the same time disclosed her knowledge of the Spanish letter. Louis XIV., provoked at having been so long imposed on, banished Vardes to the South of France, where he remained during eighteen years, ordered the Comte and Comtesse de Soissons to their government in Champagne, and, notwith- standing the prayers and entreaties of Monsieur, whom he despotically governed, the Chevalier de Lorraine was sent out of France. But the Duchess found neither calm nor hap- piness in her own home ; she continued to live in the agitation of court intrigue ; and her husband, in great anger at the loss of his favourite, revenged himself in additional bitterness towards his wife. Monsieur's first almoner, Cosnac, the Archbishop of Aix, took the part of the Duchess in all their domestic disputes, and the character he gives of 308 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. her, on whose account he suffered disgrace, is a most touching one. . The history of the Spanish letter, although an event of some years previous to the present time, had cooled for a moment the King's intimacy with his sister-in-law. That the Duchess admired the King was acknowledged, but it was equally cer- tain that that admiration never passed the bounds of friendship or decorum. A political business, in which was involved the fate of Europe, brought them together again. In the meantime the Duchess's mother, Hen- rietta-Maria, died ; which brought her in contact with Bossuet. The Queen of England had re- tired for the last four years of her life to the con- vent of Chaillot. She had left England partly from the bitter recollections an abode there brought daily to her mind, partly from regret that she could not succeed in making all her children catholics. She died at a country-house at Colombe, near Paris, where she was in the habit of passing the fine autumn days. She desired to be buried in the convent at Chaillot; but the King of France wished that the funeral should be con- ducted with all the pomp and ceremony usual with HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 309 queens, and she was interred at St. Denis ; and forty days after, Bossuet pronounced his celebrated oration to her memory, in the presence of the court. Bossuet's discourse made an impression on the Duchess of Orleans that was never effaced ; and yet, had Henrietta not been present, the sermon would have been more striking and magnificent. Bossuet's good taste prevented his bringing for- ward the bloody and tragical end of Charles in the presence of his daughter ; her eyes fixed on him, as she was placed near the pulpit, and intent on every word that dropped from his mouth, Bos- suet felt that he dared not enter upon such a sub- ject ; accordingly he placed the catastrophe in the history of the kings of Judea. No modern writer has drawn such lessons from death, and the destruction of mortal things, as did Bossuet. The pagans were satisfied to terrify the imaginations, and lower the pride, of their hearers ; with Christian orators, the results must be different. The pagans called on their disciples to enjoy the transient passing moment, for that it must soon come to an end ; the Christian preacher considers time but as a passage to an eternity of 310 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. joys or punishments, and offers views of religion of a higher nature. The subject that Bossuet had to treat of was of a grandeur to inspire his genius, and in stirring up the ashes of the dead he gave them new life. His- torians inform us of the thoughts and actions of men agitated by human passions. Bossuet, in his pictures, brings the dead to life, seemingly no longer under the influence of worldly illusions, having cast off their earthly nature ; dead to the loves and hatreds of this world, absorbed in the thoughts of eternity, and left alone with their conscience in the presence of a more equitable judge than posterity. From the day that Henrietta heard this discourse, religious feelings took their place in her heart. She had a natural love of virtue, and of what was noble and amiable ; but it was a taste, not a prin- ciple ; neither her nature nor her education had given her strength of mind. Henrietta saw Bossuet, and entreated him to come to her often, which he did, and began to instruct her in the duties of her religion. The first fruits of her intimacy with him was a calm of mind she had long been a stranger to in the life of HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 311 intrigues and passions in which she had existed. Bossuet saw, with a sort of paternal solicitude, that her heart was one that lay open to passions, and he wished her to employ her leisure hours in some pursuit or occupation. As her mental physician, he prescribed to her a study of history, which he called the wise counsel of princes. " In history," he said, " princes have no rank but what their virtues confer on them ; they become submitted to the judgment and impartiality of posterity." In these studies the Duchess lost her taste for romances, and what Bossuet called dangerous fiction. But while he was acquiring an influence over a mind that nature had done much for, and circumstances had much perverted, politics came across his best endeavours and disputed with him an ascendancy over the Princess. Louis XIV., in his ambition, had determined on the ruin of Holland. He had seized upon the Spanish Netherlands as part of the Queen's dower. The United Provinces, at the mercy of France, besought the protection of England, and the alli- ance with England and Sweden, called the triple alliance, had been conducted with a celerity unknown in diplomatic history. 312 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. Charles II. was not sincere in this alliance ; he secretly wished to establish with Louis, not so much a political alliance as a private intercourse, and some opening to that end was already in progress. Louis sought the connexion with still greater earnestness. Charles was suffering from want of money, and at that time he is said to have de- clared to his cabinet that he would give the office of lord-high-treasurer to any one who would devise the means of relieving him ; and Clifford earned the staff and peerage by suggesting a measure. Such aids, however, were transitory, and Charles secretly accepted a pension from Louis, and agreed to give up his allies. It was this disgraceful treaty for England that the Duchess of Orleans con- cluded with Charles. The progress of the French court was arranged as if to visit the fortresses in Flanders. Louis knew Henrietta's ascendancy over her brother. Flattered with the importance of the mission communicated to her, she consented to take charge of it, provided Louvois, whose brusque and disagreeable manners she disliked, had nothing to do with it. Louvois secretly directed the whole negotiation, but Turenne was to all ap- pearance substituted in his place. HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 313 Louis made a point of the whole business being kept a secret ; Monsieur was not to know of it, and the conversations and secret negotiations attending upon it increased the jealousy and anger of Mon- sieur towards the Duchess.* When the Princess got to Calais, she passed across to Dover, where Charles had appointed to meet her. She brought in her train of ladies, Louise de la Querouille, as maid of honour, with whom Charles fell in love. She afterwards went over to London, was created Duchess of Ports- mouth, and her influence over him ended but with his life. In the plan of bribery that Louis had determined on, the members of the party called the Cabal were not forgotten ; their friendship was purchased by exorbitant boons, and Charles and his minis- ters became bound to each other by a common interest, to strengthen which he conferred upon * There never was anything like the lavish ostentation of this progress. An army of 30,000 men preceded and followed the royal party. In one fine carriage, all glass and gilding, were the King, the Queen, Madame de Montespan, and the Duchess of Orleans. Then followed, with their respective retinues. Mademoiselle, the Dauphin, and the Princesses. Lauzun rode at the head of the royal guards. VOL. I. P 314 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. them titles and dignities. It was impossible, how- ever, to keep up this system of corruption. Par- liamentary inquiries were dreaded; England de- clared war against the Dutch, and France followed her example. The alliance between these powers burst unexpectedly upon Europe ; and the Duchess of Orleans gained the credit in France of the whole negotiation. When the Duchess returned to St. Cloud, fetes and rejoicings accompanied all her steps ; and, to use Bossuet's expression, " Elle alloit se precipiter dans la gloire." But each fete, each party of pleasure, brought with its joys unhappiness to a nature full of sensibility and given to attachments. Troubles and contradictions mixed themselves up with seductions and dissipation ; and the interior storms at St. Cloud made her so unhappy that she regretted the early obscurity that had kept her youth in peaceful retirement A dispute with her husband, who had shewn himself much dissatisfied with her, had occurred in the morning of the day on the evening of which she was taken ill at St. Cloud. It was about seven o'clock on the evening of the 29th of June, 1670, that this terrible attack shewed itself. Madame HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 315 lay down on a pile of cushions ; her ladies talking and laughing around her. She asked for a glass of eau de chicoree, that for some days she had been in the habit of drinking. Hardly had she swallowed it when she felt the most agonizing pains, which caused her to say to those present, that she was poisoned that she was dying ; and as soon as the physicians could arrive, they were struck with consternation at her appearance, and bid her seek spiritual help. " God," says Madame de la Fayette, "blinded them, and would not allow of their trying remedies that might have retarded a death which it was his will should be horrible." The Duchess gave herself up, and desired that M. de Coudom (Bossuet) should be immediately summoned from Paris. Three couriers were suc- cessively dispatched for him, but he was from home, and did not arrive at St. Cloud till late at night; and Madame growing every moment worse, and fearful of dying before Bossuet's arrival, made a general confession to the Abbe Feuillet, Canon of St. Cloud, a man of austere character and harsh manners. The confessor, by his own recital of facts, ap- p2 316 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. pears to have been severe towards this poor victim ; and in her screams of agony he repeated to her, that God had not punished her sins with enough rigour, and that her shrieks were rebellion to the divine will. She humbled herself before him with the natural gentleness of her nature; but often inquired, in a low voice, from Madame de la Fayette, whether they saw Bossuet coming, saying with earnestness how much she wished to see him before she died. The King and some of the royal family arrived in the evening. Mademoiselle says, "We found Madame on a small bed, her features drawn, her hair in disorder, looking like a dead person, people going and coming, and talking in the room. Mon- sieur appeared much astonished." The King complained that the physicians and every one had that night completely lost their heads. Madame took leave of the King with much feeling. She told him that all she regretted in life was his friendship and esteem. Louis, much affected, spoke to the physicians, and then went back to Versailles. The English Ambassador, Lord Montague, had some conversation with Ma- dame, in English; he remained there during the HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 317 hours that the Duchess lived. She said to her husband, that she knew he had ceased to love her, but that she had nothing to reproach herself with regard to him; she embraced him, and spoke to him with gentleness. The exhortation of the Abbe Feuillet had pre- pared the Duchess to die with resignation : she had just received the extreme unction when Bossuet arrived, and the palace rung with the sounds of " Madame is dying Madame is dying." She saw him with great satisfaction : she was quite sensible, and made him promise not to leave her while life remained. Bossuet was much affected, and his voice struggled with his feelings. He knelt down by the side of the bed, and desired Madame to follow him in the prayers he recited, in contrition and penitence, faith and hope. The Princess fol- lowed him in his words in her agony, and if he stopped for a moment, entreated him to proceed. He said the prayers - for the dying, and filled her mind with compunction for the past, resignation for her awful ending, and faith and confidence in God, surrounding her mind with the twilight of another existence in a world where she might hope for repose and felicity. Her entire submission to 318 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. the will of God augmented her merits in the eyes of Bossuet. Those who were present at this painful scene, said that Bossuet, always eloquent, and then much affected, seemed inspired, in the beauty and elo- quence of his prayers. The Abbe Feuillet, who appears to have been a mixture of austerity, cold- ness, and harshness, gives this curious testimony to their merits, in his published memorial of the death of the Duchess: "J'en etoit moi-meme charme." Bossuet held a crucifix, which Henrietta remem- bered her mother to have held to her lips on her death-bed. She took it, and kept it clasped in her hands, until, in the convulsions of death, it dropped from her. Madame de la Fayette says, that she carried her natural consideration for others into the arms of death ; for she said in English to one of her women, so that Bossuet should not hear her, " When I am dead, give M. de Condom the ring I had made for him." Madame expired at three o'clock in the morning. Madame de la Fayette immediately went to inform the King, at Versailles, of the last moments of his HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 319 sister-in-law. She gave the King the ring that Madame had left to Bossuet, and Louis, the next day, placed it in Bossuet's hand, inviting him to wear it always. The Princess was in her twenty-sixth year; she left three children, a son, who died young, and two princesses, who became the Queens of Spain and of Sardinia. She was no sooner dead, than her papers and money were seized by her husband. The writings were in cypher, so that he could learn nothing from them. Charles II. was not satisfied that his sister died a natural death. He sent Sir William Temple to Paris to make inquiries. Sir William told Lord Dartmouth that he found more in it than was fit to be known ; but that he advised Charles to drop the inquiry, unless he was in a condition to resent it as became a great monarch. Louis XIV. desired Bossuet to preach the fune- ral sermon. When the day appointed arrived, the church was hung with black, the coffin was placed in the choir, the court were assembled, and an im- mense concourse of persons was drawn thither by the circumstances of awful interest under which he preached. Bossuet took his text from Ecclesiastes, 320 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. " Vanity of vanities: all is vanity;" words that never could have been more applicable. Bossuet said, " After what we have witnessed, we may say that health is but a word, life is but a dream, glory is but a vain show." He then described the bril- liant career of the Princess, the idol of France, the ornament of a court. He then eloquently pictured her sudden and awful death; and he added much as to the necessity of weaning the heart from the world's fascinations. He went on to speak of the Princess and of her nature, and de- scribed her as gentle in death as she was in life ; and when she expired, her dying hand sought for force to apply to her lips the sign of our redemption. Bossuet then gave an exhortation to the as- sembled congregation: "Ye who listen, begin from to-day to disdain the favours of the world, and when ye are in those august places, in those superb palaces to which she who is no more gave an eclat that your eyes will vainly look for when you see that one who filled that place so well is now no more reflect, that what you admire made her peril here on earth. Notwithstanding the great heart of this admired and beloved HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 321 princess, she is now as death has made her. Our flesh is changed, our body even takes another fctame ; it is no longer part of ourselves ; its very name changes; but eVen these mortal remains must finish soon. She descends to those vaults to lie in dust with the great upon earth, with kings and princes crowded together, so quickly has death taken them for his victims." The effect of this sermon upon the minds of those who heard it was so great, that persons rose from their seats, and appeared to suffer terror. Both this funeral oration and that upon Henrietta Maria abound in magnificent passages ; but there is much in them that the Protestant can feel no sympathy with, and perhaps there is no time when the Catholic and Protestant faith are so apart in feelings and doctrines as in the case of the dying sinner. Fifteen days after the death of Madame, Lord Montague, the English Ambassador at Paris, ad- dressed the following letter to the Earl of Ar- lington, Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Lon- don: 322 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. Paris, 15 July, 1670. " My Lord, According to your lordship's orders, I send you the ring which Madame wore on her death-bed, which you will be so good as to present to his Majesty. I have taken the liberty of giving an account myself to the King of some circumstances that Madame charged me to say to him, being persuaded that as they touch you nearly, your modesty would not allow of your repeating them. There have been since the death of Ma- dame a great many reports here : the general opinion is, that she was poisoned, which reports much annoy the King and ministers. I have been so unhappy since this terrible occurrence that I have never had the heart to leave my house till now. This circumstance, joined to the reports current of the resentment of the King, my master, at a crime so full of horror, of his having refused to receive Monsieur's letter, and that he has ordered me to return home, makes persons here conclude that the King, my master, is displeased at the conduct of France ; so that when I went to St. Germain, from whence I am just returned, to make the complaints which your lordship com- manded me to do, it is impossible to tell you the joy HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 323 with which I was received when it was understood that the King begins to be appeased, and that all the reports make no impression on him prejudicial to the interests of France," &c. &c. LETTER FROM LORD MONTAGUE TO CHARLES II. " Paris, 15 July, 1670. " Sire, I should begin this letter in requesting your Majesty to forgive me the liberty I am about to take, in addressing'a letter to your Majesty on so me- lancholy an occasion, in which it has been my mis- fortune to witness the most severe and cruel death that has ever been heard of. I had the honour of a conversation with Madame, on the Saturday, the day previous to her death. She told me that it was impossible that she could ever be happy with Mon- sieur, who had been more violent against her than ever, two days before, at Versailles, when he found her in a secret conference with the King on affairs which were not to be communicated to him. She told me that your Majesty and the King of France had resolved to declare war against Holland, as soon as you should agree as to the form. These were the last words that the Princess did me the honour of addressing to me, before she was taken ill. At this moment Monsieur came in, and I re- 324 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. turned to Paris. The next day, on the Princess being taken ill, she sent for me ; and Madame de Mekelbourg desired my attendance. When I ar- rived, the Princess said, ' You see the sad state I am in; I am dying; I am sorry for the pain my brother will feel, for he loses the person in the world who loves him the best.' When I was going, she called me back, and told me not to forget to tell the King, her brother, how she loved him, and to thank him for all his kindness to her. She then inquired whether I well recollected what she had said the day before, of the intentions of your Majesty to join France against Holland. I said, ' Yes ;' upon which the Princess said, * I beg of you to tell my brother that I did not persuade him from selfish mo- tives, but because I was convinced that his honour and his interest were equally concerned in it ; and my greatest regret in losing life is leaving him.' She spoke in English, and said often, ' Don't forget to tell the King.' I took the liberty of asking the Princess, whether she thought herself poisoned? Her confessor, who was by, said, * Madame, n'ac- cusez personne, et offrez a Dieu votre mort en sacrifice.' That prevented her answering ; and though I often renewed my question, she only HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 325 answered in raising her shoulders. I asked for the casette, in which were her letters, to send them to your Majesty, and the Princess desired I should ask Madame de la Borde for them ; but that lady was dying of grief, and fainting continually at the sight of her mistress in such a cruel state, and Monsieur seized on them before she could recover from a fainting-fit. The Princess desired I should ask your Majesty to provide for all her poor ser- vants, and to write to Lord Arlington, to remind him to do so. She added to this, * Tell the King my brother, that I hope he will do for Lord Ar- lington, for my sake, what he promised; for he serves him well, and is attached to him. Madame then spoke in French, before every one, as sorry for the affliction her loss would give your Majesty. I beg of your Majesty once more to forgive my misfortune in having to announce to him this fatal intelligence, since of all his servants there is none who would wish, with more earnestness and sin- cerity, his happiness and satisfaction," &c. The physicians gave in their attestation that the Duchess of Orleans died of the cholera mor- bus ; but it was of such consequence to France at that moment to keep the interests of England 326 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. chained to theirs, that reasons of state may have overruled these attestations. Mademoiselle says, in her memorial, that Charles II. was much dis- pleased, and made representations; and Madame de la Fayette and the Duke de Saint-Simon both believe in the Duchess having died from poison. About 250 years back, poison brought from Italy, and poisoners found to administer it, were first heard of in France. For a long time after this, no more cases of poison occurred, but about the middle and end of the seventeenth century there were frequent examples. The Duchess probably died the victim of the resentment of the Chevalier de Lorraine, or of some woman jealous of her growing influence over Louis XIV., or of some political or domestic intrigue. No public inquiry took place, no further questions were asked by the court of England, and the whole story was wrapt up in mystery. But there were two persons in Madame's household, named Breuvron and Effiat, who ardently desired the return to France of the Chevalier de Lorraine. It was reported in France, that he sent a subtle poison to them by an Italian, named Morelli ; and that one of these men either rubbed the gold cup HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 327 out of which Madame drank, or poisoned the drink itself. Morelli afterwards became maitre-d'hotel to Monsieur, and he was soon permitted to sell his situation, and retire. He was a man of diabolical character, bound neither by religion nor laws, and he died an atheist. The night after Madame died, Louis sent for Surnom, at that time her maitre-d'hotel, and ques- tioned him, promising him a pardon for himself but, under pain of death, to disclose the whole truth. Surnom owned to the crime, and that the two per- sons named Breuvron and Effiat had effected it, with poison brought from Italy. The King, re- doubling promises and menaces, inquired whether his brother had any knowledge of it, and it seemed a great relief to his mind when he found that he had not. Two years after the death of the Duchess of Orleans, the Chevalier de Lorraine was permitted to return to court, and the King made him mare- chal-de-camp. Madame de Sevigne's letters attest what a sensation his return to court created, and it was thought of sufficient importance for the English Ambassador to address a letter in cypher to the Secretary for Foreign Affairs in London. 328 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. Lord Montague says, " If Madame died from poison, as every one believes she did, all France look on him as the author of her death, and are astonished that the King of France has so little consideration for the King our master as to allow of it, seeing the insolent manner he always treated the Princess during her life-time. Duty pbliges me to communicate this to you, that you may make it known to the King, and that he should speak strongly to the French Ambassador, should his Majesty judge it proper so to do, as I can assure you it is a matter not fit to be over- looked." Much has been written on this subject. It has been argued, would Louis have permitted a man who had poisoned one who was dear to him to return to his court ? On the other hand, Breuvron and d'Effiat having gone on unquestioned and un- punished, why should not the Chevalier de Lor- raine ? It is to be concluded that Louis deemed it necessary either to investigate the matter, arid inflict punishments, or to seem ignorant of the whole transaction. The King found that the Chevalier de Lorraine's return was necessary to govern his brother, and keep him under control. HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 329 Charles II. shewed no great feeling on the whole subject; and Louis buried the whole history in oblivion, as a matter of state expediency. The whole history of Henrietta abounds in mat- ters to work up the deepest tragedy, and one in which there would be no occasion to borrow from fiction. She had received no education that fitted her to control the circumstances she was thrown into. She owed her powers of pleasing to her noble blood, and to her gentle nature. Living in constant dissension with a weak and insufferable husband, she became the idol of a corrupt and dis- sipated court, and fell a victim to the hatred of her husband's minions. It only remains to state what became of the principal actors in this sad story. Monsieur mar- ried, two years afterwards, a princess of Bavaria. Henrietta's friend, the Countess de Soissons, was sent out of France after the affair of La Brinvil- liers, and wandered about from court to court, known by the name of La Vieille Medee. Her last crime was poisoning the daughter of her early friend, Marie Louise, Queen of Spain. The Chevalier de Lorraine's name occurs per- petually all through Madame de Sevigne's letters, 330 HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. as having a share in duels, intrigues, and exploits of all descriptions. Madame de Sevigne relates the death of the Comte de Guiche, three years after the death of the Duchess of Orleans : " 8 Dec. 1673. " I must begin, my dear child, by telling you of the death of the Comte de Guiche. This poor young man has died of a lingering illness, with the army under M. de Turenne. The news came on Tuesday morning. Pere Bourdaloue announced it to the Marechal de Grammont, who anticipated the cause of his coming, knowing his son to be in danger. He caused every one to leave the room when he entered. The Marechal was living in a little apartment he has, just outside the Capuchins. When he was alone with Bourdaloue, he threw himself on his neck, saying, he guessed what he was come to tell him that it was his death-stroke, which he received as from the hand of God that he lost the true and only object of his love and tenderness that he had never had any subject of grief or of pleasure in life that had not come through this son, who had admirable qualities. He then threw himself in despair on HENRIETTA, DUCHESS OF ORLEANS. 331 his bed, but without crying (for one does not shed tears at such a stroke) ; but Pere Bourdaloue shed tears, and Bourdaloue as yet had not spoken. At last he spoke, and of God, as you know he can speak of God. They were together for six hours ; and Bourdaloue, wishing him to make his entire sacrifice, took him into the church of the Capuchins, where they said ' vigiles' for this dear son. The Marechal entered the church in trem- bling, and more dragged along than walking on his legs ; he appeared so altered in looks and countenance as hardly to be known again. M. le Due saw him, and with tears in his eyes gave us this account at Madame de la Fayette's. The poor Marechal then returned to his little chamber. He is like one condemned ; no person sees him. The King has written to him. Madame de Mo- nacco, sister of the Comte de Guiche, is incon- solable ; Madame de Louvigny is so too ; but think of her good fortune she will be Duchess de Grammont in a moment. La Chanceliere (Se- guier, grandmother to Madame de Guiche) is very glad.* The Comtesse de Guiche behaves very well ; * The Countess de Guiche became the wife of the Duke de Lude in 168;. 332 BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. she cries when her husband's kind speeches and excuses for his conduct to her are repeated. She says, * He was very amiable, and if he had loved me but a little I could have loved him much. I have suffered his neglect with grief, and I feel his sad death, and had almost hoped that he might have changed in his sentiments towards me.' All this is quite true, and there is no invention in it." BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. Born, 1627; died, 1704. IN the biography of the reign of Louis XIV. there are a few characters that shine out from the rest, and are superior in genius and virtue to any- thing surrounding them. Amongst these was Bos- suet. His failings, for he had failings, were ex- actly those that one might expect to find allied to talents and virtues like his. He may be reproached with too blind an admiration for Louis XIV. We cannot give him our sympathy in his conduct to Fenelon ; and his great and powerful mind never could descend to household expenses, and petty BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. 333 details; consequently he lived in embarrassed cir- cumstances, and died in debt. Bossuet's father and ancestors were distinguished in the profession of the law at Dijon. The Jesuits early saw the promising genius of the young Bos- suet; but an uncle, who saw their designs, had him removed to the College of Navarre, at Paris, where he shewed his power for controversy at an early age. When he was but sixteen years old, he became known to the society of the Hotel de Rambouillet, which was the great reunion of per- sons of education. Notwithstanding the ridicule to be found in the mixture of pretension and cle- verness, pedantry and knowledge, amongst the leading persons of that society, language and man- ners of the court of Louis XIV. were there pre- pared during the regency of Anne of Austria. It was at one of these reunions that the Marquis de Feuquieres, who had known the father of Bossuet at Metz, was extolling the talent of the young ecclesiastic for public speaking : he said, that were he shut up in a room but for ten minutes, he would be able to pronounce a discourse on any given subject. At the request of Madame and Made- moiselle de Rambouillet, M. de Feuquieres sent 334 BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX to fetch Bossuet from his college, and the young orator astonished the assembly with his speech, and surpassed the idea that M. de Feuquieres had formed of his powers. It was eleven o'clock at night when Bossuet delivered this extraordinary sermon ; and the wit and poet of the day, Voiture, whose sayings were more estimated than they were afterwards, said that he had never heard a sermon preached so early or so late. Bossuet shewed his powers of controversy early in life. It was in 1648, when the peace of West- phalia was about to be concluded, that the young Prince of Conde, the hero of the day, entered the hall of the College of Navarre, in all the honours of victory. Bossuet was publicly delivering his first discourse, the subject of which was a com- parison of the glories of this world, and the glories that the righteous may expect in the world to come. The preacher, without stopping in his lec- ture, paid the tribute of gratitude and admiration to the young hero, who had so suddenly appeared before him, and with a sort of anticipated authority, told him how vain and perishable that worldly glory was. Forty years afterwards, it fell to the lot of Bossuet to repeat these truths at the funeral BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. 335 sermon on the death of that prince; but all through his life Conde was so touched by this discourse, heard in his youthful days, that he remembered it, and gave Bossuet his friendship and esteem in consequence. In appointments in the church in France, merit was everything. This system was begun in France by the Cardinal de Richelieu, and continued by Louis XIV. ; and however fond the King might be of hereditary distinction, he never let them in- terfere when the church was in question, as may be seen in the instances of Flechier, Mascaron, Soanen, and Massillon. A reform in pulpit eloquence was but beginning at the time Bossuet appeared. The preachers were either buffoons, such as were seen on the stage, or their discourses were like college themes. In preaching the word of God, they made use of terms which they themselves did not understand, or attempts at wit which were not fit to be under- stood. A sermon was generally made up of bar- barous terms in learning, stupid buffoonery, and indecent introduction of mythology. Bossuet studied the holy scriptures and the writings of the fathers of the church. He owed 336 BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. much to St. Vincent de Paul, under whose care he was placed at St. Lazare. The very name of St. Vincent de Paul brings with it nothing but associations of virtue and charity, and has been respected in times of anarchy by those who affected not to respect anything human or divine. He placed Bossuet, when a very young man A under the care of the most simple-minded and unpre- tending of the ecclesiastics of his congregation; thus to teach him that the greatest human abilities are nothing compared to humble and retired virtue. Bossuet's talents having made him known, he became successively Canon and Dean of Metz ; and at that time commenced his intimacy with the Marechal de Schomberg, who commanded in that town ; and in after years, when Bossuet became Bishop of Meaux, such was his love for the me- mory of his friend, that he never passed near Nan- tieul, where the Marechal was buried, without going to pray at his tomb. But Bossuet's talents were not long suffered to remain in the provinces ; and he was summoned to court, to preach before Louis XIV. and Anne of Austria. The greater part of his discourses were BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. 337 never written, therefore whatever was gathered from them cannot pass for being exactly as he delivered them. He was accustomed some hours before he went into the pulpit to meditate on his subject ; he wrote some passages from the fathers to guide his discourse, and in preaching he gave himsel^Kip to the inspiration of the moment. Bossuet studied the classical writers of antiquity, as artists travel to Italy to form their taste after the works of Raphael and Michael Angelo. Lan- guage in France was just then only settling into beauty, and Pascal was the only prose writer as yet who had written in the pure language of modern days. The magnificent verse of Corneille was the forerunner of prose in France, as Shake- speare and Milton appeared in England before prose had settled into refinement. In the writings of Bossuet are to be found the tone and accent of the prophet, when he terrifies the sinner by his menaces ; and what sinners and what consciences had not Bossuet to deal with and to work upon! After having worked on their hardness of heart, he left them to their remorse, before healing the wounds he had made. Madame de Sevigne says, " M. de Bossuet se bat a outrance VOL. I. Q 338 BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. avec son auditoire; tous ses sermons sont des combats a mort." Death was always uppermost in Bossuet's mind ; whenever glory and grandeur presented themselves powerfully to his imagination, death presented itself by the side of them, as the old painters, particularly those of the German school, liked to represent death by the^side of beauty, magnificence, or any of the grandeurs and prosperities of this world. One of Bossuet's finest passages is in a sermon preached on Easter Sunday. Take it in its literal meaning, or take it as an allegory on life and death, there cannot be found a finer passage in prose writing : " La vie humaine est semblable a un chemin dont Tissue est un precipice affreux. On nous en avertit des le premier pas ; mais la loi est portee, il faut avancer toujours. Je voudrais retourner sur mes pas ; march e marche ! Un poids invin- cible, un force invincible, nous entrainent ; il faut sans cesse avancer vers le* precipice affreux. Non non il faut marcher, il faut courir ; telle est la rapidite des annees. On se console pourtant, parce que de temps en temps on rencontre des objets qui nous divertissent, des eaux courantes, des fleurs BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. 339 qui passent. On voudrait s'arreter, marche marche ! Et cependant on voit tomber derriere soi, tout ce qu'on avait passe ; fracas effroyable, in- evitable mine. On se console, parce qu'on emporte quelques fleurs cueillies en passant, qu'on voit se faner en ses mains du matin au soir quelques fruits .qu'on perd en les goutant : enchante- ment. Toujours entraine, tu approches du gouffre affreux ; deja tout commence a s'effacer ; les jardins moins fleuris, les fleurs moins brillantes, leurs cou- leurs moins vives, les prairies moins riantes, les eaux moins claires; tout se ternis, tout s'efface: 1'ombre de la mort se presente ; on commence a sentir Papproche du gouffre fatal. Mais il faut aller sur le bord ; encore un pas. Deja 1'horreur trouble les sens, la tete tourne, les yeux s'egarent ; il faut marcher. On voudrait retourner en arriere ; plus de moyens : tout est tombe, tout est evanoui, tout est echappe." Mr. Rogers has given this noble passage in verse : Our pathway leads but to a precipice ; And all must follow, fearful as it is ! From the first step 'tis known ; but No delay ! On 'tis decreed we tremble, and obey. A thousand ills beset us as we go. " Still could I shun the fatal gulf ?" Ah, no, Q2 340 BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. 'Tis all in vain the inexorable law ! Nearer and nearer to the brink we draw. Verdure springs up, and fruits and flowers invite, And groves and fountains all things that " Oh, I would stop and linger if I might. We fly ; no resting for the foot we find ; All dark before, all desolate behind ! At length the brink appears but one step more ! We faint On on ! we falter and 'tis o'er ! tw. s invite, ") t delight. V light." ) We can imagine Bossuet, in his magnificence and his learning, preaching to persons whose imagi- nations were as vivid as those of the French, and whose religious feelings were connected with a large share of superstition. There is a passage in one of his sermons, the prophetic spirit of which, politically taken, as the philosophy of politics, re- sounds to this very day; it is in the funeral oration upon the death of Maria Theresa of Austria, the Queen of Louis XIV. Bossuet says, " God has made use of the powerful houses of France and Austria to balance power in human events. To what degree that power is to go, and to what time that power is to extend, He knows, and we remain ignorant." As a subject of his- torical notice, this passage is extraordinary, when the history of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, and that of Napoleon and Marie Louise, present themselves with it. BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. 341 Bossuet's opinion on the utility of the study of history exactly corresponds with all that has ever happened in the history of nations. " In all affairs, there is the preparation for them ; there is what determines their course, and what makes them succeed ; therefore the student of history has to find out the hidden and secret dispositions, that were preparatory to great changes, and the nature of the important conjunctions when these changes arrived." * * * " It is not sufficient to look straight before you, or see what passes immediately under your eyes ; that is only to consider the great events which decide on the fortune of empires. Whoever wishes to look into the course of human things, must take them long before they happen, and must observe the manners, and morals, and habits, not only of the mass of the people, but of the kings, the princes, and leading men who have had influence on the times, and by the part that they have played in the world, have contributed, either by good or evil, in any way towards a change in the state or in public affairs." In reading passages in which eloquence goes along with powerful reasoning and the strongest feeling, can it be wondered at that Bossuet made 342 BO8SUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. so many converts to the Catholic faith, and of men of such a variety of disposition and character? Amongst them were the frivolous and acute Dan- geau ; Turenne, the hero of the age ; Pellisson ; the Duke of Richmond, a son of Charles II. ; and several Scotch peers, amongst whom were Lord Perth, and Lord Lovat, who was beheaded in 1743. The Abbe de Ranee and Bossuet had been known to each other in early life, and at one time had been competitors for a prize of theology: afterwards they lost sight of one another. De Ranee plunged into dissipation and into the world, and Bossuet took to study and retirement. But religious concerns brought them together, and after a number of years they became intimate again, when De Ranee expiated his sins in the garb of austerity, and when Bossuet made part of the brilliant court of Louis XIV. Bossuet left the world and his studies no less than eight times, to pass some days at La Trappe. He used to say, that eight days of the calm and peace, and of the profound stillness, of the desert, gave him courage and strength of mind to return and prosecute his schemes of reform in the world. The service of the chapel of La Trappe filled his BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. 343 mind with religious awe, and he particularly liked the chant of the psalms used there. After vespers the Abbe and Bossuet walked by the side of a lake or in the woods, to confer on religious reforms. The origin and destiny of these two men seemed reversed. The wild imagination of the youth of De Ranee had been nurtured in that world of which the old age of Bossuet now made part. De Ranee's character had in it a power and force that made him fitted for the command of enthusiastic natures. Bossuet had powers of address and persuasion that gave him an equal control over civilized and worldly natures. One had been torn from worldly dissipation and worldly sins, and had renounced the comforts of human existence, to bury himself alive in a tomb ; the other, after forty-four years of study and retirement, had been called to the existence of a court life, and to control the minds of the most ambitious and corrupt of man and woman kind souls nursed in selfishness, passion, and flattery. After Bossuet was appointed preceptor to the Dauphin, he resigned his bishopric, to give him- self up entirely to his new duties. He then wrote for his pupil's instruction, the Universal History. 344 BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. His opinions were that Providence, and not man- kind, govern events : he thought that events were drawn on by a current of circumstances that can neither be resisted or stopped. He has been reproached with holding opinions tending to des- potism, but patience and a reliance on Providence are the virtues that he has always inculcated the most. It has been affirmed that Bossuet proved the truths of religion, and that Fenelon made them loved. Bossuet lived without ostentation; everything in his house and equipage was the most simple. He gave no thought, after the education of the Dauphin was finished, but to his duties as an ecclesiastic. One day his gardener was shewing him his trees, and Bossuet not attending to him, the man said, if he could but plant Saint Augus- tines and Saint Jeromes, he should be rewarded for his pains. There was an avenue in the park at Versailles where Bossuet was often to be seen in his old age, expounding the scriptures, or discoursing on some subject of literature. This avenue was called by the courtiers, " 1'Allee des Philosophes." The word philosopher had then, however, a very dif- BOS9UET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. 345 ferent acceptation from what it has had since. This venerable old man, with his flowing white hair, surrounded by ecclesiastics, or some of his old friends, La Bruyere, Pellisson, and a particular society of grave persons, who looked up to him, was a striking sight amidst all the scenes of tur- moil, ambition, and dissipation witnessed daily at Versailles. Bossuet's appearance was noble; his counte- nance full of spirit and sense : the picture of him by Rigaud, in the Louvre, gives this impression. La Bruyere, who was no flatterer of his cotem- poraries, says, " Can we name a virtue that he had not? and as for his talents, we are overcome by the number and greatness of them." He was at once, orator, philosopher, theologian, and historian ; and equally eloquent in his writings, his orations, and his conversation. He was gifted with a fine voice, deep and harmonious, soft and flexible, but grave, dignified, and suited to the majesty of re- ligion. His manners with his friends and family, and towards his servants, were kind and gentle ; every morning he assembled them for prayer, and every night he gave them his blessing before parting. 346 BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. Bossuet loved to be of use, and would leave his books and studies to be so ; but he immediately saw through the characters of all who approached him, and discovered the difference between feeling and attachment, and vanity and interest. His charities were immense, and in a year of scarcity he increased them until his man of business came to him in alarm, to intreat that he would moderate them, which he refused, saying that he would sooner sell all that he had than not give to the poor. In his conduct towards Louis XIV., Bossuet seems always to have acted with prudent firmness, but never to have been over zealous, for fear of a defeat. Bossuet had written against the theatre, but in his youth he had been to plays, to assist him in declamation ; a lesson that he allowed himself to take, he said, to enrich himself, like the Israelites of old, in the spoils of the Egyptians. But after he was ordained, he renounced the theatre for ever ; he refused even to go to see Esther represented at court ; a representation that all the very strictest persons were making the greatest interest to get to. He was consulted by the King on the subject of theatricals. Perhaps he thought it was one of the few means of letting BOSSUET, BISHOP OF MEAUX. 347 Louis know the truth sometimes, for his answer was cautious : " Sire, there is much to be said in favour of theatres, and still stronger reasons against them." Bossuet studied and composed at night ; he rose after four or five hours' sleep ; there was a lamp always burning in his room, and in the severity of winter, he was well wrapt up in dressing-gowns and furs ; and after reciting matins and lauds, he set himself to work at his desk. Everything was arranged for him the night before ; his pens, ink, and papers, and his books settled on chairs to the right and left of his desk. After working for two or three hours, he went to bed again, and he adopted this habit of life during seventeen years, when his health obliged him to relinquish it. Bossuet died in his seventy-sixth year, and was buried in the cathedral at Meaux, 348 MASCARON, BISHOP OF TULLE, ETC. MASCARON, BISHOP OF TULLE AND AGEN. Born, 1634; died, 1703. PERE MASCARON was a preacher whose sermons were so popular, that all the cities of the south of France disputed the honour of having him, and all the churches of Paris likewise. At a time when Louis gave great cause for scandal, during the Lent of 1669, Mascaron preached before the King a sermon on the story of Nathan, charged to an- nounce to David the punishment of his crime. On this occasion he brought forward the words of St. Barnard, addressed to princes : " If the respect I have for you only allows of my telling you truth disguised, you must have more penetration than I have boldness, &c If with these precau- tions truth cannot reach you, the word of Jesus Christ will be withdrawn, and God will avenge his despised word." The courtiers tried to take advantage of this bold discourse, and set the King against the preacher, but Louis shut their mouths, saying, FLECHIER, BISHOP OF NISMES. 349 " He has done his duty, let us do ours." The King thanked Mascaron for the interest he took in his eternal welfare, recommended him to continue to speak the truth, and to aid him by his prayers to gain a victory over his passions. In telling this story, La Rue says that he does not know which to admire most, the straightfor- wardness of the King or the conduct of Mascaron. Two years after this the King made Mascaron Bishop of Tulle, and afterwards Bishop of Agen. The last time he preached at court, Louis was so moved by his sermon, pronounced in his advanced years, that he said to him, " Your eloquence never grows old." FLECHIER, BISHOP OF NISMES. Bom, 1632 ; died, 1710. FLECHIER was educated in ecclesiastical learning by an uncle, who early foresaw his talents as an orator. He used also to study Spanish and Italian sermons, which he called his buffoons, in order to avoid the errors that they were filled with. He 350 FLECHIER, BISHOP OF NISMES. became lecturer to the Dauphin, and he and Racine were the same day made members of the French Academy. Louis XIV. early distin- guished Flechier ; and the King, who had the art of bestowing his gifts so as to double their value, when he made him a bishop, said to him, " I have made you wait for what was your due long ago ; but I could not deprive myself of the pleasure of hearing you preach." There is another story of the King and Fle- chier. When the court passed through Nismes on one of their journeys, the King was to be lodged at the episcopal palace. The Bishop rubbed out the name of Madame de Montespan, written on the door of the room destined for her use in his palace. The courtiers informed the King of it, and when he arrived he said to the Bishop, " M. de Nismes, vous n'etes pas galant ; il y a des personnes qui ont le droit de ce plaindre de vous." " Oui, Sire," the Bishop answered, " le plus bel homme de son royaume ; mais j'au- rais pour moi le fils aine de 1'eglise." It was in 1687, when Flechier became bishop, that the Calvinists were in full force in his diocese ; but he joined so much gentleness and charity to FLECHIER, BISHOP OF NISMES. 351 prudence in his conduct towards them, that he won many over to the Catholic faith, and he softened the rigour of the edicts as much as he could. He shewed so strong a feeling for the persecuted Cal- vinists that he was respected by them all ; he gave away immense sums in charity without distinction of tenets : he was enlightened, zealous, and unfet- tered by superstition. Madame de Sevigne speaks unfavourably of his funeral oration on Turenne. That on the Duke de Montansier is full of excellence. After having spoken of the public services of the Duke de Mon- tansier during the Fronde, he adds, " Quelle justice lui rendit-on ? On approuva ses services, et bientot on les oublia. Dans ces jours de confusion et de trouble, ou les graces tombaient sur ceux qui savaient a-propos se faire soupconner ou se faire craindre, on le negligea comme un serviteur qu'on ne pouvait pas perdre ; et Ton ne songea pas a sa fortune, parce qu'on n'avait rien a craindre de sa vertu." This was painting vigorously and con- cisely the spirit of the court and of the times. Flechier in this sermon gives a proof of the respect that the austere morals of Montansier inspired. " L'insense ferma devant lui ses Hvres impies ; et 352 FLECHIER, BISHOP OF NISMES. retint toujours, sous un silence force, mais re- spectueux, ses vaines et sacrileges pensees." Flechier died in 1710, at the age of seventy- eight. Before his death he took precautions to have a plain monument erected to him, in the fear that his heirs should erect a sumptuous tomb over his remains. END OF VOL. I. T. C. Savill, Printer, 107, St. Martin's Lane. v,/- UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. Beriet