THE CZAR.-THE CZARINA.-A FEAST AT A RUSSIAN n.o.bLEMAN"S.
THE next day I dressed myself in my richest attire; and, according to my appointment, went with as much state as I could command to the Czar"s palace (if an exceedingly humble abode can deserve so proud an appellation). Although my mission was private, I was a little surprised by the extreme simplicity and absence from pomp which the royal residence presented. I was ushered for a few moments into a paltry ante-chamber, in which were several models of ships, cannon, and houses; two or three indifferent portraits,-one of King William III., another of Lord Caermarthen. I was then at once admitted into the royal presence.
There were only two persons in the room,-one a female, the other a man; no officers, no courtiers, no attendants, none of the insignia nor the witnesses of majesty. The female was Catherine, the Czarina; the man was the stranger I had met the day before-and Peter the Great. I was a little startled at the ident.i.ty of the Czar with my inquisitive acquaintance. However, I put on as a.s.sured a countenance as I could. Indeed, I had spoken sufficiently well of the royal person to feel very little apprehension at having unconsciously paid so slight a respect to the royal dignity.
"Ho! ho!" cried the Czar, as I reverently approached him; "I told you we should meet soon!" and turning round, he presented me to her Majesty. That extraordinary woman received me very graciously: and, though I had been a spectator of the most artificial and magnificent court in Europe, I must confess that I could detect nothing in the Czarina"s air calculated to betray her having been the servant of a Lutheran minister and the wife of a Swedish dragoon; whether it was that greatness was natural to her, or whether (which was more probable) she was an instance of the truth of Suckling"s hackneyed thought, in "Brennoralt,"-"Success is a rare paint,-hides all the ugliness."
While I was making my salutations, the Czarina rose very quietly, and presently, to my no small astonishment, brought me with her own hand a tolerably large gla.s.s of raw brandy. There is nothing in the world I hate so much as brandy; however, I swallowed the potation as if it had been nectar, and made some fine speech about it, which the good Czarina did not seem perfectly to understand. I then, after a few preliminary observations, entered upon my main business with the Czar. Her Majesty sat at a little distance, but evidently listened very attentively to the conversation. I could not but be struck with the singularly bold and strong sense of my royal host. There was no hope of deluding or misleading him by diplomatic subterfuge. The only way by which that wonderful man was ever misled was through his pa.s.sions. His reason conquered all errors but those of temperament. I turned the conversation as artfully as I could upon Sweden and Charles XII. "Hatred to one power," thought I, "may produce love to another; and if it does, the child will spring from a very vigorous parent." While I was on this subject, I observed a most fearful convulsion come over the face of the Czar,-one so fearful that I involuntarily looked away. Fortunate was it that I did so. Nothing ever enraged him more than being observed in those const.i.tutional contortions of countenance to which from his youth he had been subjected.
After I had conversed with the Czar as long as I thought decorum permitted, I rose to depart. He dismissed me very complaisantly. I re-entered my fine equipage, and took the best of my way home.
Two or three days afterwards, the Czar ordered me to be invited to a grand dinner at Apraxin"s. I went there, and so found myself in conversation with a droll little man, a Dutch Minister, and a great favourite with the Czar. The Admiral and his wife, before we sat down to eat, handed round to each of their company a gla.s.s of brandy on a plate.
"What an odious custom!" whispered the little Dutch Minister, smacking his lips, however, with an air of tolerable content.
"Why," said I, prudently, "all countries have their customs. Some centuries ago, a French traveller thought it horrible in us Englishmen to eat raw oysters. But the English were in the right to eat oysters; and perhaps, by and by, so much does civilization increase, we shall think the Russians in the right to drink brandy. But really [we had now sat down to the entertainment], I am agreeably surprised here. All the guests are dressed like my own countrymen; a great decorum reigns around. If it were a little less cold, I might fancy myself in London or in Paris."
"Wait," quoth the little Dutchman, with his mouth full of jelly broth, "wait till you hear them talk. What think you, now, that lady next me is saying?"
"I cannot guess: but she has the prettiest smile in the world; and there is something at once so kind and so respectful in her manner that I should say she was either asking some great favour, or returning thanks for one."
"Right," cried the little Minister, "I will interpret for you. She is saying to that old gentleman, "Sir, I am extremely grateful-and may Saint Nicholas bless you for it-for your very great kindness in having, the day before yesterday, at your sumptuous entertainment, made me so deliciously-drunk!""
"You are witty, Monsieur," said I, smiling. "Se non e vero e ben trovato."
"By my soul, it is true," cried the Dutchman; "but, hush!-see, they are going to cut up that great pie."
I turned my eyes to the centre of the table, which was ornamented with a huge pasty. Presently it was cut open, and out-walked a hideous little dwarf.
"Are they going to eat him?" said I.
"Ha! ha!" laughed the Dutchman. "No! this is a fashion of the Czar"s, which the Admiral thinks it good policy to follow. See, it tickles the hebete Russians. They are quite merry on it."
"To be sure," said I; "practical jokes are the only witticisms savages understand."
"Ay, and if it were not for such jokes now and then, the Czar would be odious beyond measure; but dwarf pies and mock processions make his subjects almost forgive him for having shortened their clothes and clipped their beards."
"The Czar is very fond of those mock processions?"
"Fond!" and the little man sank his voice into a whisper; "he is the sublimest buffoon that ever existed. I will tell you an instance-Do you like these Hungary wines, by the by?-On the 9th of last June, the Czar carried me, and half-a-dozen more of the foreign ministers, to his pleasure-house (Peterhoff). Dinner, as usual, all drunk with Tokay, and finished by a quart of brandy each, from her Majesty"s own hand. Carried off to sleep,-some in the garden, some in the wood. Woke at four, still in the clouds. Carried back to the pleasure-house, found the Czar there, made us a low bow, and gave us a hatchet apiece, with orders to follow him. Off we trudged, rolling about like ships in the Zuyder Zee, entered a wood, and were immediately set to work at cutting a road through it. Nice work for us of the corps diplomatique! And, by my soul, Sir, you see that I am by no means a thin man! We had three hours of it, were carried back, made drunk again, sent to bed, roused again in an hour, made drunk a third time; and, because we could not be waked again, left in peace till eight the next morning. Invited to court to breakfast; such headaches we had; longed for coffee; found nothing but brandy; forced to drink; sick as dogs; sent to take an airing upon the most d.a.m.nable little horses, not worth a guilder, no bridles nor saddles; b.u.mp-b.u.mp-b.u.mp we go, up and down before the Czar"s window,-he and the Czarina looking at us. I do a.s.sure you I lost two stone by that ride,-two stone, Sir!-taken to dinner; drunk again, by the Lord, all bundled on board a torrenschute; devil of a storm came on; Czar took the rudder; Czarina on high benches in the cabin, which was full of water; waves beating; winds blowing; certain of being drowned; charming prospect!-tossed about for seven hours; driven into the port of Cronsflot. Czar leaves us, saying, "Too much of a jest, eh, gentlemen?" All got ash.o.r.e wet as dog-fishes, made a fire, stripped stark naked (a Dutch amba.s.sador stark naked,-think of it, Sir!), crept into some covers of sledges, and rose next morning with the ague,-positive fact, Sir! Had the ague for two months. Saw the Czar in August; "A charming excursion to my pleasure-house," said his Majesty; "we must make another party there soon.""
As the Dutchman delivered himself of the little history he was by no means forgetful of the Hungary wines; and as Bacchus and Venus have old affinity, he now began to grow eloquent on the women.
"What think you of them yourself?" said he; "they have a rolling look, eh?"
"They have so," I answered: "but they all have black teeth; what"s the reason?"
"They think it a beauty, and say white teeth are the sign of a blackamoor."
Here the Dutchman was accosted by some one else, and there was a pause. Dinner at last ceased; the guests did not sit long after dinner, and for a very good reason: the brandy bowl is a great enforcer of a prostrate position! I had the satisfaction of seeing the company safely under the table. The Dutchman went first, and, having dexterously manoeuvred an escape from utter oblivion for myself, I managed to find my way home, more edified than delighted by the character of a Russian entertainment.
CHAPTER IV.
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE CZAR.-IF CROMWELL WAS THE GREATEST MAN (CAESAR EXCEPTED) WHO EVER ROSE TO THE SUPREME POWER, PETER WAS THE GREATEST MAN EVER BORN TO IT.
IT was singular enough that my introduction to the notice of Peter the Great and Philip le Debonnaire should have taken place under circ.u.mstances so far similar that both those ill.u.s.trious personages were playing the part rather of subjects than of princes. I cannot, however, conceive a greater mark of the contrast between their characters than the different motives and manners of the incognitos severally a.s.sumed.
Philip, in a scene of low riot and debauch, hiding the Jupiter under the Silenus,-wearing the mask only for the licentiousness it veiled, and foregoing the prerogative of power, solely for indulgence in the grossest immunities of vice.
Peter, on the contrary, parting with the selfishness of state in order to watch the more keenly over the interests of his people, only omitting to preside in order to examine, and affecting the subject only to learn the better the duties of the prince. Had I leisure, I might here pause to point out a notable contrast, not between the Czar and the Regent, but between Peter the Great and Louis le Grand: both creators of a new era,-both a.s.sociated with a vast change in the condition of two mighty empires. There ceases the likeness and begins the contrast: the blunt simplicity of Peter, the gorgeous magnificence of Louis; the sternness of a legislator for barbarians, the clemency of an idol of courtiers. One the victorious defender of his country,-a victory solid, durable, and just; the other the conquering devastator of a neighbouring people,-a victory, glittering, evanescent, and dishonourable. The one, in peace, rejecting parade, pomp, individual honours, and transforming a wilderness into an empire: the other involved in ceremony, and throned on pomp; and exhausting the produce of millions to pamper the bloated vanity of an individual. The one a fire that burns, without enlightening beyond a most narrow circle, and whose l.u.s.tre is tracked by what it ruins, and fed by what it consumes; the other a luminary, whose light, not so dazzling in its rays, spreads over a world, and is noted, not for what it destroys, but for what it vivifies and creates.
I cannot say that it was much to my credit that, while I thought the Regent"s condescension towards me natural enough, I was a little surprised by the favour shown me by the Czar. At Paris, I had seemed to be the man of pleasure: that alone was enough to charm Philip of Orleans. But in Russia, what could I seem in any way calculated to charm the Czar? I could neither make ships nor could sail them when they were made; I neither knew, nor, what was worse, cared to know, the stern from the rudder. Mechanics were a mystery to me; road-making was an incomprehensible science. Brandy I could not endure; a blunt bearing and familiar manner I could not a.s.sume. What was it, then, that made the Czar call upon me, at least twice a week in private, shut himself up with me by the hour together, and endeavour to make me drunk with Tokay, in order (as he very incautiously let out one night), "to learn the secrets of my heart"? I thought, at first, that the nature of my mission was enough to solve the riddle: but we talked so little about it that, with all my diplomatic vanities fresh about me, I could not help feeling I owed the honour I received less to my qualities as a minister than to those as an individual.
At last, however, I found that the secret attraction was what the Czar termed the philosophical channel into which our conferences flowed. I never saw a man so partial to moral problems and metaphysical inquiries, especially to those connected with what ought to be the beginning or the end of all moral sciences,-politics. Sometimes we would wander out in disguise, and select some object from the customs or things around us, as the theme of reflection and discussion; nor in these moments would the Czar ever allow me to yield to his rank what I might not feel disposed to concede to his arguments. One day, I remember that he arrested me in the streets, and made me accompany him to look upon two men undergoing the fearful punishment of the battaog;* one was a German, the other a Russian: the former shrieked violently, struggled in the hands of his punishers, and, with the utmost difficulty, was subjected to his penalty; the latter bore it patiently and in silence; he only spoke once, and it was to say, "G.o.d bless the Czar!"
* A terrible kind of flogging, but less severe than the knout.
"Can your Majesty hear the man," said I, warmly, when the Czar interpreted these words to me, "and not pardon him?" Peter frowned, but I was not silenced. "You don"t know the Russians!" said he, sharply, and turned aside. The punishment was now over. "Ask the German," said the Czar to an officer, "what was his offence?" The German, who was writhing and howling horribly, uttered some violent words against the disgrace of the punishment, and the pettiness of his fault; what the fault was I forget.
"Now ask the Russian," said Peter. "My punishment was just!" said the Russian, coolly, putting on his clothes as if nothing had happened; "G.o.d and the Czar were angry with me!"
"Come away, Count," said the Czar; "and now solve me a problem. I know both those men, and the German, in a battle, would be the braver of the two. How comes it that he weeps and writhes like a girl, while the Russian bears the same pain without a murmur?"
"Will your Majesty forgive me," said I, "but I cannot help wishing that the Russian had complained more bitterly; insensibility to punishment is the sign of a brute, not a hero. Do you not see that the German felt the indignity, the Russian did not? and do you not see that that very pride which betrays agony under the disgrace of the battaog is exactly the very feeling that would have produced courage in the glory of the battle? A sense of honour makes better soldiers and better men than indifference to pain."
"But had I ordered the Russian to death, he would have gone with the same apathy and the same speech, "It is just! I have offended G.o.d and the Czar!""
"Dare I observe, Sire, that that fact would be a strong proof of the dangerous falsity of the old maxims which extol indifference to death as a virtue? In some individuals it may be a sign of virtue, I allow; but, as a national trait, it is the strongest sign of national misery. Look round the great globe. What countries are those where the inhabitants bear death with cheerfulness, or, at least, with apathy? Are they the most civilized, the most free, the most prosperous? Pardon me; no! They are the half-starved, half-clothed, half-human sons of the forest and the waste; or, when gathered in states, they are slaves without enjoyment or sense beyond the hour; and the reason that they do not recoil from the pangs of death is because they have never known the real pleasures or the true objects of life."
"Yet," said the Czar, musingly, "the contempt of death was the great characteristic of the Spartans."
"And, therefore," said I, "the great token that the Spartans were a miserable horde. Your Majesty admires England and the English; you have, beyond doubt, witnessed an execution in that country; you have noted, even where the criminal is consoled by religion, how he trembles, and shrinks,-how dejected, how prostrate of heart he is before the doom is completed. Take now the vilest slave, either of the Emperor of Morocco or the great Czar of Russia. He changes neither tint nor muscle; he requires no consolation; he shrinks from no torture. What is the inference? That slaves dread death less than the free. And it should be so. The end of legislation is not to make death, but life, a blessing."
"You have put the matter in a new light," said the Czar; "but you allow that, in individuals, contempt of death is sometimes a virtue."
"Yes, when it springs from mental reasonings, not physical indifference. But your Majesty has already put in action one vast spring of a system which will ultimately open to your subjects so many paths of existence that they will preserve contempt for its proper objects, and not lavish it solely, as they do now, on the degradation which sullies life and the axe that ends it. You have already begun the conquest of another and a most vital error in the philosophy of the ancients,-that philosophy taught that man should have few wants, and made it a crime to increase and a virtue to reduce them. A legislator should teach, on the contrary, that man should have many wants: for wants are not only the sources of enjoyment,-they are the sources of improvement; and that nation will be the most enlightened among whose populace they are found the most numerous. You, Sire, by circulating the arts, the graces, create a vast herd of moral wants. .h.i.therto unknown, and in those wants will hereafter be found the prosperity of your people, the fountain of your resources, and the strength of your empire."
In conversation on these topics we often pa.s.sed hours together, and from such conferences the Czar pa.s.sed only to those on other topics more immediately useful to him. No man, perhaps, had a larger share of the mere human frailties than Peter the Great; yet I do confess that when I saw the n.o.bleness of mind with which he flung aside his rank as a robe, and repaired from man to man, the humblest or the highest, the artisan or the prince,-the prosperity of his subjects his only object, and the acquisition of knowledge his only means to obtain it,-I do confess that my mental sight refused even to perceive his frailties, and that I could almost have bent the knee in worship to a being whose benevolence was so pervading a spirit, and whose power was so glorious a minister to utility.
Towards the end of January, I completed my mission, and took my leave of the court of Russia.
"Tell the Regent," said Peter, "that I shall visit him in France soon, and shall expect to see his drawings if I show him my models."
In effect, the next month (February 16), the Czar commenced his second course of travels. He was pleased to testify some regard for me on my departure. "If ever you quit the service of the French court, and your own does not require you, I implore you to come to me; I will give you carte blanche as to the nature and appointments of your office."
I need not say that I expressed my grat.i.tude for the royal condescension; nor that, in leaving Russia, I brought, from the example of its sovereign, a greater desire to be useful to mankind than I had known before. Pattern and Teacher of kings, if each country in each century had produced one such ruler as you, either all mankind would now be contented with despotism or all mankind would be free! Oh! when kings have only to be good, to be kept forever in our hearts and souls as the G.o.ds and benefactors of the earth, by what monstrous fatality have they been so blind to their fame? When we remember the millions, the generations, they can degrade, destroy, elevate, or save, we might almost think (even if the other riddles of the present existence did not require a future existence to solve them), we might almost think a hereafter necessary, were it but for the sole purpose of requiting the virtues of princes,-or their SINS!*
* Upon his death-bed Peter is reported to have said, "G.o.d, I dare trust, will look mercifully upon my faults in consideration of the good I have done my country." These are worthy to be the last words of a king! Rarely has there been a monarch who more required the forgiveness of the Creator; yet seldom perhaps has there been a human being who more deserved it.-ED.
CHAPTER V.
RETURN TO PARIS.-INTERVIEW WITH BOLINGBROKE.-A GALLANT ADVENTURE.-AFFAIR WITH DUBOIS.-PUBLIC LIFE IS A DRAMA, IN WHICH PRIVATE VICES GENERALLY PLAY THE PART OF THE SCENE-SHIFTERS.
IT is a strange feeling we experience on entering a great city by night,-a strange mixture of social and solitary impressions. I say by night, because at that time we are most inclined to feel; and the mind, less distracted than in the day by external objects, dwells the more intensely upon its own hopes and thoughts, remembrances and a.s.sociations, and sheds over them, from that one feeling which it cherishes the most, a blending and a mellowing hue.
It was at night that I re-entered Paris. I did not tarry long at my hotel, before (though it was near upon midnight) I conveyed myself to Lord Bolingbroke"s lodgings. Knowing his engagements at St. Germains, where the Chevalier (who had but a very few weeks before returned to France, after the crude and unfortunate affair of 1715), chiefly resided, I was not very sanguine in my hopes of finding him at Paris. I was, however, agreeably surprised. His servant would have ushered me into his study, but I was willing to introduce myself. I withheld the servant, and entered the room alone. The door was ajar, and Bolingbroke neither heard nor saw me. There was something in his att.i.tude and aspect which made me pause to survey him, before I made myself known. He was sitting by a table covered with books. A large folio (it was the Casaubon edition of Polybius) was lying open before him. I recognized the work at once: it was a favourite book with Bolingbroke, and we had often discussed the merits of its author. I smiled as I saw that that book, which has to statesmen so peculiar an attraction, made still the study from which the busy, restless, ardent, and exalted spirit of the statesman before me drew its intellectual food. But at the moment in which I entered his eye was absent from the page, and turned abstractedly in an opposite though still downcast direction. His countenance was extremely pale, his lips were tightly compressed, and an air of deep thought, mingled as it seemed to me with sadness, made the ruling expression of his lordly and n.o.ble features. "It is the torpor of ambition after one of its storms," said I, inly; and I approached, and laid my hand on his shoulder.
After our mutual greetings, I said, "Have the dead so strong an attraction that at this hour they detain the courted and courtly Bolingbroke from the admiration and converse of the living?"
The statesman looked at me earnestly: "Have you heard the news of the day?" said he.
"How is it possible? I have but just arrived at Paris."
"You do not know, then, that I have resigned my office under the Chevalier!"
"Resigned your office!"
"Resigned is a wrong word: I received a dismissal. Immediately on his return the Chevalier sent for me, embraced me, desired me to prepare to follow him to Lorraine; and three days afterwards came the Duke of Ormond to me, to ask me to deliver up the seals and papers. I put the latter very carefully in a little letter-case, and behold an end to the administration of Lord Bolingbroke! The Jacobites abuse me terribly; their king accuses me of neglect, incapacity, and treachery; and Fortune pulls down the fabric she has built for me, in order to pelt me with the stones!"*
* Letter to Sir W. Windham.-ED.
"My dear, dear friend, I am indeed grieved for you; but I am more incensed at the infatuation of the Chevalier. Surely, surely he must already have seen his error, and solicited your return?"
"Return!" cried Bolingbroke, and his eyes flashed fire,-"return!-Hear what I said to the Queen-Mother who came to attempt a reconciliation: "Madam," said I, in a tone as calm as I could command, "if ever this hand draws the sword, or employs the pen, in behalf of that prince, may it rot!" Return! not if my head were the price of refusal! Yet, Devereux,"-and here Bolingbroke"s voice and manner changed,-"yet it is not at these tricks of fate that a wise man will repine. We do right to cultivate honours; they are sources of gratification to ourselves: they are more; they are incentives to the conduct which works benefits to others; but we do wrong to afflict ourselves at their loss. "Nec quaerere nec spernere honores oportet."* It is good to enjoy the blessings of fortune: it is better to submit without a pang to their loss. You remember, when you left me, I was preparing myself for this stroke: believe me, I am now prepared."
* "It becomes us neither to court nor to despise honours."
And in truth Bolingbroke bore the ingrat.i.tude of the Chevalier well. Soon afterwards he carried his long cherished wishes for retirement into effect; and Fate, who delights in reversing her disk, leaving in darkness what she had just illumined, and illumining what she had hitherto left in obscurity and gloom, for a long interval separated us from each other, no less by his seclusion than by the publicity to which she condemned myself.
Lord Bolingbroke"s dismissal was not the only event affecting me that had occurred during my absence from France. Among the most active partisans of the Chevalier, in the expedition of Lord Mar, had been Montreuil. So great, indeed, had been either his services or the idea entertained of their value, that a reward of extraordinary amount was offered for his head. Hitherto he had escaped, and was supposed to be still in Scotland.
But what affected me more nearly was the condition of Gerald"s circ.u.mstances. On the breaking out of the rebellion he had been suddenly seized, and detained in prison; and it was only upon the escape of the Chevalier that he was released: apparently, however, nothing had been proved against him; and my absence from the head-quarters of intelligence left me in ignorance both of the grounds of his imprisonment and the circ.u.mstances of his release.
I heard, however, from Bolingbroke, who seemed to possess some of that information which the ecclesiastical intriguants of the day so curiously transmitted from court to court and corner to corner, that Gerald had retired to Devereux Court in great disgust at his confinement. However, when I considered his bold character, his close intimacy with Montreuil, and the genius for intrigue which that priest so eminently possessed, I was not much inclined to censure the government for unnecessary precaution in his imprisonment.
There was another circ.u.mstance connected with the rebellion which possessed for me an individual and deep interest. A man of the name of Barnard had been executed in England for seditious and treasonable practices. I took especial pains to ascertain every particular respecting him. I learned that he was young, of inconsiderable note, but esteemed clever; and had, long previously to the death of the Queen, been secretly employed by the friends of the Chevalier. This circ.u.mstance occasioned me much internal emotion, though there could be no doubt that the Barnard whom I had such cause to execrate had only borrowed from this minion the disguise of his name.
The Regent received me with all the graciousness and complaisance for which he was so remarkable. To say the truth, my mission had been extremely fortunate in its results; the only cause in which the Regent was concerned the interests of which Peter the Great appeared to disregard was that of the Chevalier; but I had been fully instructed on that head anterior to my legation.
There appears very often to be a sort of moral fitness between the beginning and the end of certain alliances or acquaintances. This sentiment is not very clearly expressed. I am about to ill.u.s.trate it by an important event in my political life. During my absence Dubois had made rapid steps towards being a great man. He was daily growing into power, and those courtiers who were neither too haughty nor too honest to bend the knee to so vicious yet able a minion had already singled him out as a fit person to flatter and to rise by. For me, I neither sought nor avoided him: but he was as civil towards me as his brusque temper permitted him to be towards most persons; and as our careers were not likely to cross one another, I thought I might reckon on his neutrality, if not on his friendship. Chance turned the scale against me.
One day I received an anonymous letter, requesting me to be, at such an hour, at a certain house in the Rue---. It occurred to me as no improbable supposition that the appointment might relate to my individual circ.u.mstances, whether domestic or political, and I certainly had not at the moment any ideas of gallantry in my brain. At the hour prescribed I appeared at the place of a.s.signation. My mind misgave me when I saw a female conduct me into a little chamber hung with tapestry descriptive of the loves of Mars and Venus. After I had cooled my heels in this apartment about a quarter of an hour, in sailed a tall woman, of a complexion almost Moorish. I bowed; the lady sighed. An eclairciss.e.m.e.nt ensued; and I found that I had the good fortune to be the object of a caprice in the favourite mistress of the Abbe Dubois. Nothing was further from my wishes! What a pity it is that one cannot always tell a woman one"s mind!
I attempted a flourish about friendship, honour, and the respect due to the amante of the most intimate ami I had in the world.
"Pooh!" said the tawny Calypso, a little pettishly, "pooh! one does not talk of those things here."
"Madame," said I, very energetically, "I implore you to refrain. Do not excite too severe a contest between pa.s.sion and duty! I feel that I must fly you: you are already too bewitching."
Just as I rose to depart in rushes the femme de chambre, and announces, not Monsieur the Abbe, but Monseigneur the Regent. Of course (the old resort in such cases) I was thrust in a closet; in marches his Royal Highness, and is received very cavalierly. It is quite astonishing to me what airs those women give themselves when they have princes to manage! However, my confinement was not long: the closet had another door; the femme de chambre slips round, opens it, and I congratulate myself on my escape.
When a Frenchwoman is piqued, she pa.s.ses all understanding. The next day I am very quietly employed at breakfast, when my valet ushers in a masked personage, and behold my gentlewoman again! Human endurance will not go too far, and this was a case which required one to be in a pa.s.sion one way or the other; so I feigned anger, and talked with exceeding dignity about the predicament I had been placed in the day before.
"Such must always be the case," said I, "when one is weak enough to form an attachment to a lady who encourages so many others!"
"For your sake," said the tender dame, "for your sake, then, I will discard them all!"
There was something grand in this it might have elicited a few strokes of pathos, when-never was there anything so strangely provoking-the Abbe Dubois himself was heard in my anteroom. I thought this chance, but it was more; the good Abbe, I afterwards found, had traced cause for suspicion, and had come to pay me a visit of amatory police. I opened my dressing-room door, and thrust in the lady. "There," said I, "are the back-stairs, and at the bottom of the back-stairs is a door."
Would not any one have thought this hint enough? By no means; this very tall lady stooped to the littleness of listening, and, instead of departing, stationed herself by the keyhole.
I never exactly learned whether Dubois suspected the visit his mistress had paid me, or whether he merely surmised, from his spies or her escritoire, that she harboured an inclination towards me; in either case his policy was natural, and like himself. He sat himself down, talked of the Regent, of pleasure, of women, and, at last, of this very tall lady in question.
"La pauvre diablesse," said he, contemptuously, "I had once compa.s.sion on her; I have repented it ever since. You have no idea what a terrible creature she is; has such a wen in her neck, quite a goitre. Mort diable!" (and the Abbe spat in his handkerchief), "I would sooner have a liaison with the witch of Endor!"
Not content with this, he went on in his usual gross and displeasing manner to enumerate or to forge those various particulars of her personal charms which he thought most likely to steel me against her attractions. "Thank Heaven, at least," thought I, "that she has gone!"
Scarcely had this pious gratulation flowed from my heart, before the door was burst open, and, pale, trembling, eyes on fire, hands clenched, forth stalked the lady in question. A wonderful proof how much sooner a woman would lose her character than allow it to be called not worth the losing! She entered, and had all the furies of Hades lent her their tongues, she could not have been more eloquent. It would have been a very pleasant scene if one had not been a partner in it. The old Abbe, with his keen, astute marked face, struggling between surprise, fear, the sense of the ridiculous, and the certainty of losing his mistress; the lady, foaming at the mouth, and shaking her clenched hand most menacingly at her traducer; myself endeavouring to pacify, and acting, as one does at such moments, mechanically, though one flatters one"s self afterwards that one acted solely from wisdom.
But the Abbe"s mistress was by no means content with vindicating herself: she retaliated, and gave so minute a description of the Abbe"s own qualities and graces, coupled with so any pleasing ill.u.s.trations, that in a very little time his coolness forsook him, and he grew in as great a rage as herself. At last she flew out of the room. The Abbe, trembling with pa.s.sion, shook me most cordially by the hand, grinned from ear to ear, said it was a capital joke, wished me good-by as if he loved me better than his eyes, and left the house my most irreconcilable and bitter foe!
How could it be otherwise? The rivalship the Abbe might have forgiven; such things happened every day to him: but the having been made so egregiously ridiculous the Abbe could not forgive; and the Abbe"s was a critical age for jesting on these matters, sixty or so. And then such unpalatable sarcasms on his appearance! ""Tis all over in that quarter," said I to myself, "but we may find another," and I drove out that very day to pay my respects to the Regent.
What a pity it is that one"s pride should so often be the bane of one"s wisdom. Ah! that one could be as good a man of the world in practice as one is in theory! my master-stroke of policy at that moment would evidently have been this: I should have gone to the Regent and made out a story similar to the real one, but with this difference, all the ridicule of the situation should have fallen upon me, and the little Dubois should have been elevated on a pinnacle of respectable appearances! This, as the Regent told the Abbe everything, would have saved me. I saw the plan; but was too proud to adopt it; I followed another course in my game: I threw away the knave, and played with the king, i.e., with the Regent. After a little preliminary conversation, I turned the conversation on the Abbe.