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 GLIMPSES 
 
 OF 
 
 THE FRENCH COURT 
 
 from JFrenrf) ^i 
 
 BY 
 
 LAURA E. RICHARDS 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 "CAPTAIN JANUARY," "QUEEN HILDEGARDE," ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 ESTES AND LAURIAT 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 1893, 
 BY ESTES AND LAURIAT. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE earnest student, who desires matter of 
 moment, is warned that these slight sketches 
 contain none such. Old stories re-told ; familiar 
 figures summoned once more from the shades to 
 make their bow and play their part, these are 
 all the writer has to offer. To the general 
 reader who likes historic trifle, flummery a la 
 Louis Quatorze, they are offered as a dish which, 
 even if ill-prepared, cannot be wanting in a 
 certain flavor. 
 
 August, 1893.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. OF PIERRE DE CORNEILLE, AND OTHERS . 9 
 
 II. THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTE .... 40 
 
 III. SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES 72 
 
 IV. AN ODD VOLUME 102 
 
 V. TURENNE 130 
 
 VI. A CORSAIR OF FRANCE 165
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 PORTRAIT OF PIERRE DE CORXEILLE . . Frontispiece 
 
 PORTRAIT OF MADEMOISELLE DE MOVTPEXSIER 41 
 
 PORTRAIT OF MADAME I>E MAINTEXOX ... 57 
 
 PORTRAIT OF THE DUCHESSE DE SAINT-SIMOX. 72 
 PORTRAIT OF MADEMOISELLE HORTEXSE MAX- 
 
 cixi Ill 
 
 PORTRAIT OF Louis DE BOURBON, PRINCE DE 
 
 Co-sot 135 
 
 PORTRAIT OF THE DUCHESSE DE LOXGUEVILLE 143 
 
 PORTRAIT OF ADMIRAL DE RUYTER .... 188
 
 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 OF PIERRE DE CORXEILLE AND 
 OTHERS. 
 
 To many of us, old French poetry is little more 
 than a name. Those who delight in the prose of 
 French writers so brilliant, so witty, so spark- 
 ling turn away in carelessness or distaste from 
 their verse, which seems, by comparison with our 
 own, artificial, shallow, a stream flowing over 
 pebbles rather than a deep and many-voiced sea. 
 Why should I read French poetry ? " asks a 
 young person of my acquaintance ; " I have not 
 half the time I want to give to English ! " That 
 is true ; and true it is that the Gallic muse cannot 
 bear comparison with her stately English sister. 
 
 But it is none the less true that study, like char- 
 ity, should begin at home, but should not stay 
 there always. And he who shall follow the stream 
 of French poetry through its windings, will find 
 many a " sun-bowed cascade," many a sketch of 
 dimpling, sun-kissed water, many a silver tone and 
 murmur which haunt the ear. I shall not take 
 my readers back to the sources of the stream ; in
 
 10 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 truth, I know not precisely where they are. I my- 
 self hare gone no farther back than Master Franqois 
 Villon, poet, housebreaker, student, and rascal-of- 
 all-work, who ruffled, swore, stabbed, and sang 
 divinely, in the reign of Charles VII. No court 
 desperado was this, no stately Guise or lordly 
 Rohan, who could run you through the body with 
 a grace which turned assassination into a personal 
 compliment, but a tavern brawler, a mere drunken, 
 thievish student, with the sacred fire burning in 
 his breast, in spite of himself. It is only in 
 our own day that Villon has become known to 
 English readers. His French is as obscure as 
 Chaucer's English in matter of spelling ; but " cer- 
 tain of our own poets " have set him up on a 
 pedestal and bowed down before him, and have 
 learned from him mysteries of grace, of metre, and 
 haunting musical refrains. Swinburne and Eossetti 
 have loved and praised Villon over much, perhaps, 
 when we look at his poetry in bulk ; but there are 
 some gems so bright that perhaps they ought to 
 illuminate the whole. His most perfect ballad has 
 been so perfectly translated by Rossetti that one 
 is tempted to think the English version more 
 beautiful than the original. 
 
 THE BALLAD OF DEAD LADIES. 
 
 Tell me now in what hidden way is 
 
 Lady Flora, the lovely Roman ? 
 Where 's Hippavchia, and where is Thais, 
 
 Neither of them the fairer woman 1
 
 VILLON. 11 
 
 Where is Echo, beheld of no man, 
 
 Only heard on river and mere, 
 She whose beauty was more than human ? 
 
 But where are the snows of yester-year ? 
 
 Where 's Heloise, the learned nun, 
 
 For whose sake Abeillard, I ween, 
 Lost manhood and put priesthood on 1 
 
 (From love he won such dule and teen !) 
 And where, I pray you, is the Queen 
 
 Who willed that Buridan should steer, 
 Sewed in a sack's mouth, down the Seine ? 
 
 But where are the snows of yester-year ? 
 
 White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies, 
 
 With a voice like any mermaiden, 
 Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice, 
 
 And Ermengarde, the lady of Maine, 
 And that good Joan whom Englishmen 
 
 At Rouen doomed and burned her there ? 
 Mother of God, where are they then ? 
 
 But where are the snows of yester-year ? 
 
 Nay, never ask this week, fair lord, 
 
 Where they are gone, nor yet this year, 
 
 Except with this for an overword, 
 But where are the snows of yester-year ? 
 
 This is lovely and delicate as the fair ghosts it 
 conjures up. Turn the medal, however, and see 
 the same hand that wrote it stabbing a priest to 
 death in a drunken brawl at a tavern door, it may 
 have been on the evening of the very day whose 
 morning had brought out this fragrant blossom of 
 poesy. Yes, and after that, Master Francois Villon
 
 12 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 thought it wise to retire for a time to the provinces, 
 where he planned a series of remarkably clever 
 burglaries. Here we will leave him, for, after all, 
 we know that we must draw the line somewhere, 
 and it might as well be at burglars. Let us take 
 now a flying leap, and, landing in the court of 
 Francis I., pause to greet M. Clement Marot, chief 
 of poets in his day, friend and protege of the king's 
 sister, Marguerite de Valois (herself a poetess of 
 some pretensions). Marot occupies a distinct posi- 
 tion in the history of French poetry. It is in 
 reading his verses that, as Saint-Beuve says, we 
 feel distinctly for the first time that we have got 
 out from the Gallic tangle of language, and are 
 now in France, reading something that is distinc- 
 tively French. A poet of wits rather than of 
 genius or great talent, but full of grace and courtly 
 speech, with no passion, but much gallantry and 
 sensibility, he seems well fitted to the splendid and 
 glittering court where his entire life was spent. 
 In 1534, when the first tempest of reform swept 
 over France, Marot was suspected of heresy, and 
 withdrew to Ferrara, to the protection of its 
 Duchess, Renee of France, daughter of Louis XII. 
 There he met no less a person than Calvin, who 
 was engaged in translating the Psalms into verse. 
 Poet and Reformer talked together of the grandeur 
 of Hebrew poesy, and the former was fired with 
 ambition to make the same attempt. Did so, on 
 his return to France, and presented his version to
 
 MAROT. 13 
 
 Charles V., who happened to be passing through 
 the country opportunely, on his way to chastise 
 certain rebellious burghers of Ghent who may be 
 not unknown to my readers. (Let me now throw 
 in here a stray fact which may be productive of 
 meditation. The favorite psalm of His Imperial. 
 Majesty Charles V. was also the favorite of one 
 Martin Luther. ''Trust in the Lord, for he is 
 good," etc. " It is my friend," says Luther. " It 
 has saved me in many a strait from which emperors, 
 kings, sages, nor saints could have delivered me.") 
 Now, I may have my own opinion about most 
 gentlemen, whether poets or reformers, who trans- 
 lated the Psalms into verse. I may think that 
 such translations should be a penal offence, to be 
 visited with fine or imprisonment. But this is 
 neither here nor there. Marot, encouraged and 
 applauded by king and emperor, by Calvin and 
 Luther, translated fifty psalms ; and it was cer- 
 tainly far better that they should be translated in 
 rhyme than not translated at all. He dedicated 
 the collection to the King and the ladies of France. 
 Addressing the ladies, in the dedication he says : 
 " When will the Golden Time come wherein God 
 alone is adored, praised, sung as he ordains, and 
 his glory shall not be given to others ? " He calls 
 upon the matrons and maidens of France, whom 
 God had made to be his temple, to turn from the 
 bad example of those who put unclean songs in 
 their lips. " Here is," he said, " matter without
 
 14 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 offence to sing. But no songs please you that are 
 not of Love. Certes, these are of nothing else but 
 Love ; Love itself, by Supreme Wisdom, was their 
 composer, and vain man was the transcriber only. 
 That Love gave you language and voices for your 
 notes of praise. It is a Love that will not torment 
 your hearts, but fill your whole souls with the 
 pleasure angels share. . . . Oh, happy he who 
 shall see the blossoming of that time when the 
 rustic at his plough, the driver in the street, the 
 workman in his shop, solace labor with the praise 
 of God ! Begin, Ladies, begin ! help on the Golden 
 Age, and, singing with gentle hearts those sacred 
 strains, exchange the everchanging God of Foolish 
 Love for the God of a Love that will not change." 
 And the ladies began, and the gentlemen followed. 
 The " holy song-book " became the fashion of the 
 day, and a rage of what might be called jocund 
 piety possessed the public mind. D'Israeli tells us 
 that " no book was ever more eagerly received by 
 all classes than Marot's ' Psalms.' " In the fervor 
 of that day, they sold faster than the printers 
 could take them off their presses ; but as they 
 were understood to be songs, and yet were not 
 accompanied by music, every one set them to 
 favorite tunes, commonly those of popular ballads. 
 Each of the royal family, and every nobleman, 
 chose a psalm or song which expressed his own 
 personal feelings, adapted to his own tune. The 
 Dauphin, afterwards Henry II., a great hunter,
 
 RONSARD. 15 
 
 when he went to the chase was singing, " Ainsi 
 qu'on vit le cerf bruyre," " Like as the hart 
 desireth the water-brooks." There is a curious 
 portrait of the mistress of Henry, the famous 
 Diane cle Poictiers, recently published, on which is 
 inscribed this verse of the psalm. The Queen's 
 favorite was 
 
 " Ne vueilles pas, O Sire, 
 Me repreudre en ton ire ; " 
 
 that is, " Rebuke me not in thy indignation," which 
 she sang to a fashionable jig. Antony, King of 
 Navarre, sang " Revenge moy, prens la querelle," 
 or, " Stand up, Lord, to revenge my quarrel," to 
 the air of a dance of Poitou. King Francis had 
 no idea that this was all atrocious heresy and wick- 
 edness, till the Sorbonne told him so : whereupon 
 he promptly banished Marot, who fled to Geneva. 
 Here he passed the remainder of his life, becoming 
 more and more identified with the Reformers, 
 writing spiritual songs, praying much, loving much, 
 happier, we may think, than ever in his golden 
 days at court, when a royal princess was his pupil, 
 and king and emperor vied in singing his praises. 
 
 Pass we on to the second half of the sixteenth 
 century, to Pierre de Ronsard, prince of poets, 
 whose father was maitre d' hotel to Marot's master, 
 Francis the First, and who himself began life as a 
 page in the service of the Duke of Orleans, third 
 son of that monarch. Young Ronsard travelled in
 
 16 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 Italy and in England with his princely master. In 
 the latter country he may have met "Wyatt and 
 Surrey, twin morning stars of English poesy : and 
 indeed there are features in his poems which recall 
 their manner, the same classicism, the same 
 formal grace. Forsaking arms to follow the Muse, 
 he gave up the joys of a soldier's life, and spent 
 seven laborious years in making himself a poet. 
 He formed the society of the Pleiade, a constella- 
 tion which shone brightly in the otherwise empty 
 sky of French poetry ; seven young men, full of 
 enthusiasm, devoting themselves to the reformation 
 of their national language, their national poetry, 
 on strictly classical models. 
 
 This, briefly, is what Ronsard and his followers 
 wished to do. He has been speaking of the old 
 romances, of the traditional poetry of Provence 
 and the Trouveres, and conjuring his followers to 
 torn to the classics of Greece and Koine. "Be 
 assured, my readers, that he will be the genuine 
 poet whom I look for in our language who shall 
 make me indignant, shall soothe and rejoice, shall 
 cause me to grieve, to love, to hate, to wonder, to 
 be astounded ; in short, who shall hold the bridle 
 of my affections, turning me to this side or that at 
 his pleasure. . . . Thither, then, Frenchmen, 
 advance courageously, towards that illustrious 
 Roman city ; and with the booty plundered from 
 her, as you have more than once done, adorn your 
 temple and your altars.
 
 RONSARD. 17 
 
 " Fear no more those cackling geese, that fierce 
 Manlius, nor that traitor Camillus, who, under the 
 pretext of good faith, surprises you in your naked- 
 ness as you count out the ransom of the Capitol. 
 Enter that false-tongued Greece, and sow there 
 once again the famous nation of the Gallo-Greeks. 
 Pillage without scruple the sacred treasures of that 
 Delphic temple, as you did of old, and fear no 
 more that dumb Apollo, his false oracles, and his 
 rebounding arrows. 
 
 " Remember your ancient Marseilles, the second 
 Athens, and your Gallic Hercules, drawing the 
 people behind him by their ears, with a chain 
 attached to his tongue." 
 
 This was the counsel which Pierre de Ronsard 
 kept steadily before him during the years of study 
 which were to make him, as he proudly hoped, the 
 poet of the future France. The poet of the pre- 
 sent, that is, of his own day, he speedily became. 
 After the publication of his "Odes and Amours" 
 in 1552, he sprang lightly to the pinnacle of fame. 
 France hailed him as her Pindar, her Horace, her 
 Petrarch. Wise men and monarchs vied in pay- 
 ing him homage. Marguerite of Savoy accepted 
 the dedication of his " Hymns and Amours." Mary 
 Stuart lent a similar patronage to the first col- 
 lected edition of his works in 1560, and sent him 
 two thousand crowns and a costly piece of plate. 
 Elizabeth of England sent him a valuable dia- 
 mond in token of her regard. Catherine de' Medici
 
 18 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 publicly thanked him for his discourse about the 
 miseries of these times (1563), directed against 
 the Calviriists, and suggested to him the publica- 
 tion of his heroic poem, " La Franciade." This 
 epic appeared twenty days after the massacre of 
 St. Bartholomew. It was intended to describe in 
 twenty-four books the mighty deeds of the race of 
 French kings, descended from Francion, a child of 
 Hector, and a Trojan by birth. But, alas ! royal 
 patronage was needed for so mighty a Avork, and 
 only four books, only a poor matter of five or six 
 thousand verses, had appeared, when the death of 
 Charles the Ninth put a summary step to further 
 publication. May we not also surmise that, good 
 Catholic though Ronsard was, his Muse may have 
 shrunk so appalled by the monstrous deed of the 
 reigning Valois that he had no longer the heart to 
 tell, nor the world to hear, more tales of royal 
 heroism ? 
 
 But higher approbation by far did Ronsard 
 receive than that of these tinselled monarchs of 
 a day. The immortal Tasso submitted to him the 
 first outline of the "Jerusalem Delivered," and 
 Montaigne, talking with himself and the ages in 
 his quiet study, declared that French poetry had 
 attained its standard, and could not go beyond 
 Ronsard. Of the other six stars of the Pleiade I 
 shall say nothing ; for their glory, such as it was, 
 was eclipsed by the brilliancy of their master, and 
 their poetry would have for us but little interest.
 
 MALHERBE. 19 
 
 Of one of them, however, Joachim cle Bellay, it 
 is worth while to say that Spenser admired him 
 greatly, and made several translations from his 
 works. 
 
 But to go back to Eonsard. Surely never was a 
 more signal example of the fickleness of fashion 
 and of fame than the "to-day" and the "to- 
 morrow " of the Prince of Poets : the day brilliant 
 with the sun of success ; the morrow, when clouds 
 of abuse and ridicule were to hide entirely his 
 bhining image. Already at his death, in 1585, Mal- 
 herbe was thirty years old, Malherbe, who was 
 to dethrone the prince, to tear off his crown, and 
 hold him up to the pitiless laughter of the same 
 public which had so lately bowed before his throne. 
 " Enfin," says Boileau, " Malherbe vint," " At 
 last Malherbe came." 
 
 When Henry of Navarre asked Cardinal Du- 
 perron why he no longer wrote verses, the prelate 
 replied that no one ought to meddle with poetry 
 after a certain gentleman of Normandy, M. de 
 Malherbe. To this contemporary opinion the next 
 generation, that of Boileau, Corneille, Bossuet, sub- 
 scribed, and Malherbe was lauded to the skies, 
 while Ronsard was contemptuously relegated to an 
 oblivion from which only the present generation 
 has seen him rescued. And yet this mighty Mal- 
 herbe, if we look at what he really did, was only a 
 follower of the school of which Ronsard was the 
 apostle. Great things he did for the language, no
 
 20 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 doubt, refining, chiselling, condemning, selecting; 
 an eminent critic, caustic and acute. But a poet ? 
 Of twenty who read Ronsard to-day, I doubt if 
 there are three who would care to read Malherbe's 
 coldly polished verse. But he and his followers 
 laughed with malicious contempt over the poetry 
 of the Pleiade and the host of minor poets which 
 had sprung up around them. In his bitterness, he 
 sometimes forgot his manners, a thing which a 
 Frenchman seldom does. Dining one day with Des- 
 portes, another translator of psalms, and a worthy 
 and excellent man, if no great poet, the latter rose 
 from the table early in the course of the dinner, 
 with all an author's eagerness to bring his great 
 work for his guest's inspection. "Never mind, 
 never mind," said Malherbe; "your soup is 
 better than your psalms!" Assuredly, if labor 
 could make a poet, this accomplished man of letters 
 should have been a great one. Witness the ode 
 addressed to the President of Verdun, and intended 
 to console him for the loss of his wife : it took a 
 year to compose, and reached the bereaved hus- 
 band soon after he had consoled himself by a 
 second marriage. In his passionate desire and 
 endeavor for the purification of the language, his 
 savage energy of criticism, nay, in some of his 
 more personal qualities, Malherbe has been not 
 inaptly compared to Samuel Johnson. Also he 
 had his Boswell, in the person of Racan, friend, 
 pupil, and follower, who "danced attendance on
 
 MALHERBE. 21 
 
 the old pedant as he sat at his meals, and thank- 
 fully picked up the crumbs which fell from the 
 lips of the literary giant." Here is a single sen- 
 tence, taken from Racan's Life of Malherbe, which 
 certainly has the true Johnsonian ring: "Sir, be 
 assured that if our verses live after us, all the 
 glory for which we can hope is that we shall be 
 called two excellent arrangers of syllables ; that it 
 will be said that we had a great power over words, 
 for the placing of them fitly, each in its order, and 
 that we were both great asses to spend the best 
 part of our lives in an exercise so little serviceable 
 to the public and to ourselves." Malherbe's death 
 was wholly consistent with his life, if we may trust 
 an anecdote which, if not true, is well found. He 
 lay on his death-bed, we are told, in his modest 
 chamber. On one side sat the old woman who 
 cared for him and made his gruel ; on the other 
 a priest, with crucifix in hand and breviary on 
 knee. The good father, with more zeal than elo- 
 quence, conjured the dying sinner to repent; and 
 then, to encourage him, began to describe the heav- 
 enly joys which awaited the ransomed soul beyond 
 the grave. " Crowns of glory, my faith ! harps 
 and wings, the finest music sounding all day long, 
 and streets all paved with gold. Blessed Ursula, 
 to think of it ! One should smile, one should laugh, 
 instead of groaning in this manner." For the 
 patient was groaning ; was becoming more and 
 more agitated every moment. Thinking him over-
 
 22 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 come with religious emotion, the worthy priest 
 waxed warmer, and fairly revelled in gold and 
 glory, while the old nurse clasped her hands in. 
 rapture over her own and her master's blessedness 
 to come. To these two good souls this man lying 
 here was not the rehabilitator of the French lan- 
 guage, the scourge of the Ronsardists, the literary 
 light of his age, he was simply a person who was 
 dying. But now, as some sounding phrase rolled 
 from the father's lips, full of glory but not of 
 grammar, the dying man raised himself in bed, and 
 opened his hollow eyes : " Improve your style, 
 sir ; improve your style ! If these are your joys 
 of heaven " and he fell back on his pillows, and 
 spoke no more. 
 
 It may occur to some of my readers that the 
 title of this paper is Pierre de Corneille, and that 
 an essay should have its limits. But take heart ! 
 I am coming to Corneille very soon, in a little 
 moment. Let me just stop long enough to found 
 the French Academy, a trifle, a bagatelle, which 
 I can briefly dispose of. 
 
 Once upon a time there was a club, a literary 
 club, which met at the house of Valentin Conrart, 
 one of the secretaries of Louis XIII. There were 
 at first nine members, then twelve. These friends, 
 to quote Pellissoii in his " History of the French 
 Academy," " finding that nothing was more incon- 
 venient in this great city than to go often and call 
 upon one another without finding anybody at home,
 
 THE ACADEMY. 23 
 
 resolved to meet one day in the week at the house 
 of one of them. They used to assemble at M. 
 Corn-art's, who happened to be most conveniently 
 quartered for receiving them, and in the very heart 
 of the city. There they conversed familiarly as 
 they would have done on an ordinary visit, and 
 upon all sorts of things, business, news, and liter- 
 ature. If any one of the company had a work done, 
 as often happened, he readily communicated its 
 contents to all the others, who freely gave him 
 their opinion of it ; and their conferences were fol- 
 lowed sometimes by a walk, and sometimes by a 
 collation. 
 
 " Thus they continued for three or four years, as 
 I have heard many of them say ; it was an extreme 
 pleasure and an incredible gain, insomuch that 
 when they speak nowadays of that time, and of 
 those early days of the Academy, they speak of it 
 as a golden age during the which, without bustle 
 and without show, and without any laws save 
 those of friendship, they enjoyed all that is sweet- 
 est and most charming in the intercourse of intel- 
 lects and in retired life." 
 
 Surely, this was an ideal club; something too 
 good to last. This light could not remain hid ; it 
 was remarked by many, among others by Bois 
 Robert, gossip and scapegrace, and purveyor of 
 intelligence and amusement to his Eminence Car- 
 dinal Richelieu. This man, a beneficed clergyman 
 of notorious profligacy, has no claim to be remem-
 
 24 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 bered by posterity; yet a small anecdote fixes him 
 in our minds. So scandalous was his life that the 
 Cardinal felt obliged at one time to dismiss him, 
 but actually pined for the ready wit and overflow- 
 ing merriment of the boon companion who could by 
 shaking his cap and bells divert and refresh the 
 ear and mind of the great statesman weary with 
 the tumult of the nations. One day the Cardinal 
 fell ill, and his physician, who knew him well, pre- 
 scribed, in addition to the medical horror, whatever 
 it was, " a dose of Bois-Robert, to be taken at least 
 once a week." Doctors' orders are of course never 
 disobeyed. Bois-Robert was recalled, and the Car- 
 dinal was amused, and recovered. 
 
 This man heard of the gatherings at Conrart's 
 house ; and scenting at once a new amusement for 
 his patron, begged permission to attend the meet- 
 ings, and received it. Enchanted with what he 
 heard and saw, he flew to the Cardinal with a full 
 account of the proceedings of the literary circle. 
 With his unerring instinct, Richelieu at once saw 
 the possibilities of the affair ; and, full of interest, 
 sent through Bois-Robert a proposal that these 
 gentlemen should form a body, and assemble regu- 
 larly and under public authority. 
 
 Great was the dismay in the little circle of 
 familiar friends when this bombshell fell among 
 them. They had been so happy, so free, so un- 
 trammelled by any shadow of authority, by any 
 loop or knot of red-tape. Just fancy how some
 
 CORNEILLE. 25 
 
 little band of friendly students would feel if they 
 were suddenly called upon to read their essays and 
 give their opinions before the legislature, for ex- 
 ample ! The very thought would be dreadful. And 
 dreadful it was to the cheerful circle at Conrart's 
 house. 
 
 The majority of the club were in favor of declin- 
 ing this unsolicited honor and publicity ; but pru- 
 dence, prevailed, the Cardinal was not a person to 
 offend, and so the Academy was duly organized 
 and established, with forty members, with Conrart 
 as first president, all under the supervision of 
 Eichelieu, who wished, as he said, to be its pro- 
 tector and its father. 
 
 So much for the Academy, which has continued 
 to accumulate honor and glory down to the present 
 day, and will, let us hope, long so continue. Now 
 the moment has come for me to inform you that 
 in the year 1606 was born, in the ancient city of 
 Eouen, Pierre de Corneille. I could tell you much 
 about Rouen, for it was once my happiness to 
 spend a week there, a town out of a fairy tale, 
 the thought of which always calls to my mind 
 the three words in which Tennyson so perfectly 
 describes the Camelot of King Arthur : " the dim, 
 rich city." But I can tell you very little about 
 Corneille's life there. His life seems to have been 
 his work ; little outside of that is known of him. 
 Reserved and sensitive, if not morose, he lived 
 apart, almost an ascetic ; yet some would have us
 
 26 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 think that a love affair, a passion for a shadowy 
 Mademoiselle Milet (but where are the snows of 
 yester-year?) gave him the first impulse towards 
 dramatic production. 
 
 Be that as it may, we find him in his early man- 
 hood in Paris, one of the five playwrights who 
 " composed " the plays of the great Cardinal. For 
 Richelieu, not content with all the great things he 
 could do, and do admirably, must needs aspire 
 to one thing that he could not do; namely, the 
 writing of plays. Nevertheless, the plays were 
 written somehow. His Eminence made the sketch, 
 and gave it to his proteges, who elaborated it, made 
 it ready for the stage, a.nd then returned it for 
 His Eminence's signature. Thus were produced 
 " Miraine," the " Tuileries," and the " Blind Girl 
 of Smyrna." But the young Corneille had ideas 
 of his own which were not always in harmony 
 with those of the Cardinal. He began to use too 
 much freedom, to alter the plans of the acts given 
 him to arrange. The Cardinal objected, and told 
 him he lacked "the follower spirit." Corneille, 
 only too well aware of this, quietly took his leave, 
 and retired to Rouen in 1635. He had already 
 written and produced several comedies of his own. 
 Of his first, "Melite," which he wrote at three- 
 and-twenty, he said : " It was my first attempt, and 
 it has no pretence of being according to the rules ; 
 for I did not know then that there were any. I 
 had for guide nothing but a little common-sense,
 
 CORNEILLE. 27 
 
 together with the models of the late Hardy, whose 
 vein was rather fertile than polished." The come- 
 dies were successful ; but no one thought the young 
 writer above his fellows, the host of petty writers 
 who in the newly awakened passion for the drama 
 (consequent upon the prohibition of the miracle- 
 plays) vied with each other for the success of the 
 hour. In 1633 appeared Corneille's first tragedy, 
 % Medee ; " and three years later Paris was electri- 
 fied by the production of the " Cid." 
 
 For the plot of this famous play Corneille was 
 indebted to a Spanish work, "The Youth of the 
 Cid," by Guilhen de Castro. From him he bor- 
 rowed the preparations of Kodrigue for his contest 
 against the Moors, the duel, and some other details ; 
 but he made them his own by right of genius, after 
 Shakespeare's fashion. And the loves of Rodrigue 
 (the Cid) and Chimene, round which the great 
 interest of the play centres, are all his own. So it 
 appeared, and all Paris went mad over it. If we 
 wish to have a clear appreciation of the rise and 
 development of theatres and theatre-going, we have 
 but to look back a hundred years, and see Shak- 
 speare bringing out his immortal dramas in the ill- 
 lighted, ill-contrived shed which passed for a 
 theatre in "the spacious times of great Elizabeth." 
 Look at the matter as we will, Shakspeare was, 
 in his own day, but a player and a writer of plays, 
 like many another, to the many-headed multitude. 
 Appreciated by a few he was, no doubt, but that
 
 28 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 was all. Whereas now, in Paris, the whole city 
 was agog over the " Cid." Not a child but cried 
 " Vive Corneille ! " not a man or woman of any 
 pretentious to " le beau monde " but had some 
 lines of it by heart, to be spouted on any or all 
 occasions. 
 
 "I wish you were here," writes the comedian 
 Mondory to Balzac, " to enjoy, amongst other pleas- 
 ures, that of the beautiful comedies that are being 
 played, and especially a Cid who has charmed all 
 Paris. So beautiful is he that he has smitten with 
 love all the most beautiful ladies, whose passion 
 has many times blazed out in the public theatre. 
 Seated in a body on the benches of the boxes have 
 been seen those who are commonly seen only in 
 gilded chambers and on the seat of the fleur-de-lys. 
 So great has been the throng at our doors, and our 
 room is so insufficient, that the corners of the 
 theatre, which served at other times as niches for 
 the pages, have been given as a favor to the people 
 of rank, and the stage itself is often embellished 
 with the crosses of knights of the order." 
 
 "It is difficult," says Pellisson, "to imagine 
 with what enthusiasm this piece was received by 
 court and people." It was impossible to tire of 
 seeing it; nothing else was talked of, and "Beauti- 
 ful as the Cid " passed into a proverb in many 
 parts of France. 
 
 Will you hear briefly the story of this all-con- 
 quering Cid ? Behold a king of Castile. Behold
 
 CORNEILLE. 29 
 
 a count, father of Chimene, and Don Diegue, father 
 of Kodrigue. Behold, finally, the lovers, Rodrigue, 
 the flower of young Castilian knighthood, Chimene 
 (in Spanish, Xiraena), the peerless beauty. The 
 count and Don Diegue quarrel, having different 
 views as to their respective glory, and the former 
 gives the latter a blow. Don Diegue, heroic but 
 infirm, cannot slay the insulter, but calls on his 
 son to avenge him. Kodrigue, prompt to obey the 
 call of honoi-, challenges the count and kills him out 
 of hand ; then, rushing to his Chimene, his sword 
 still red with her father's blood, flings himself at 
 her feet and implores her to put an end to a life 
 which has no further charms for him. He has 
 . saved his father's honor, and asks only the 
 privilege of dying at her hands. Chimene cannot 
 slay the man whom she madly loves ("half of 
 my life," the poor lady cries, " has struck to death 
 the other half!"); he must die, but not by her 
 hand. Unable to obtain the blood}'' service he 
 craves, Rodrigue flies, summons his followers, 
 leads an army against the Moors, who seize this 
 opportune moment to invade the kingdom, smites 
 them hip and thigh, and captures their two kings, 
 whom he brings back to the capital and presents 
 to his own monarch. He is clasped to the royal 
 bosom, loaded with thanks and blessings, and the 
 king then and there confirms the title of Cid, or 
 Lord, by which the captive Moors had hailed 
 him.
 
 30 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 Now comes Chimene, whose filial duty has con- 
 quered her love, kneels before the king, and 
 solemnly demands the death of her father's mur- 
 derer. "Kill the deliverer of Spain?" cries the 
 good monarch, " By no means ! " and he ventures 
 to hint that as the whole world knows that she 
 loves Kodrigue to distraction, she should marry 
 him, and make the best of it. Chimene rejects 
 this proposal with anger, and finally finds a 
 champion, Don Sancho, who is willing for her 
 sake to encounter the terrible Cid. Ah, women, 
 women ! why will you give color to the gibes of 
 men ? When Don Sancho (whom Kodrigue disarms 
 as if he were a baby, and gently sends about his 
 business) comes to tell her how he has sped, she 
 thinks he has slain her lover ; and she shrieks and 
 raves at the poor little man I am quite sure that 
 Don Sancho ivas little, and that he had flaxen hair, 
 and was rather nervous till he does not know 
 what to say or do. At this moment the king enters, 
 whereupon Chimene, in her transport of grief, con- 
 fesses to him that he was quite right about her 
 loving Kodrigue to distraction ; now that the latter 
 is dead, slain by a slave, a wretch, a murderer 
 (can you not see poor little Don Sancho standing 
 by, with his knees knocking together, and his mouth 
 open ?), there is no harm in her confessing it. 
 " Dead ? " cries the jolly king, " Pooh, pooh ! nothing 
 of the sort. Hey ! presto ! call in Rodrigue ! " 
 
 The Cid enters. " Ah, Chimene ! " Oh, Kod-
 
 CORNEILLE. 31 
 
 rigue! Ah, Kodrigue!" "Oh, Chimene!" "Oh, 
 miracle of love ! " etc. Grand transformation scene. 
 Columbine in the arms of Harlequin. Pantaloon 
 (the king) and Clown (Don Sancho) in attitudes of 
 delight. The good fairy descends in a gilded car 
 drawn by doves ; music, fire-works, curtain. This 
 is the Cid in shorthand. 
 
 Criticism itself was silenced for a while. The 
 former rivals of Corneille, bewildered, carried away 
 by the torrent of popular enthusiasm, appeared by 
 their silence to share in the applause ; but it was 
 only in appearance, only for a moment, till they 
 could draw breath. Then, in response to the songs 
 of praise, rose the antistrophe of criticism, abuse, 
 satire, ridicule. All the other playwrights, with 
 the one exception of Eotrou, the Ben Jonson who 
 understood and appreciated his French Shakspeare, 
 set zealously to work to pick flaws in the new 
 play. Leading the opposition and giving strength 
 and confidence to the rest, was Richelieu himself. 
 There were several reasons why the Cardinal should 
 dislike the Cid. It was a story of Spain, and held 
 up for glory and admiration a Spaniard, one of the 
 traditional enemies of France and of Richelieu 
 himself. It gave countenance and praise to the 
 practice of duelling, against which he had set 
 his face, and which he had tried to put down with 
 a high hand. It described a king simple, genial, 
 patriarchal, the very opposite of all that he wished 
 to identify with the idea of monarchy. Yes, all this
 
 32 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 was true : but was this all ? I think not. Greatly as 
 I admire the great Cardinal, it is impossible to be 
 blind to his littlenesses ; and there seems little 
 doubt that the real secret of his bitter animosity 
 towards Corneille was the latter's success. For 
 years the Cardinal had strained and labored up 
 the steep heights of dramatic glory. With his 
 five assistants even, he had made little headway, 
 and his shrewdness knew well enough that it was 
 the Cardinal, and not the dramatist, who was 
 applauded in " Mirame " and " Europe." Smarting 
 under this knowledge, how could he calmly see his 
 former literary hack, who had tacitly disdained his 
 master's work, spring lightly past him, and stand 
 like Mercury on the heaven-kissing hill ? It was 
 perhaps too much to expect. With this power 
 behind them, the chorus of critics barked loud 
 and louder. The play was not classic. Oh, hor- 
 ror ! this barbarian had departed from the tradi- 
 tions. He made his characters talk, act, live, like 
 real people, not like the models of antiquity. 
 What Greek or Latin dramatist ever produced 
 anything like this ? None ! ergo, down with the 
 " Cid ! " Thus the critics, with Scudery (brother of 
 the authoress of " Clelie ") at their head, and the 
 Cardinal cheering them on. Not content with indi- 
 vidual attacks, Richelieu now called upon the young 
 Academy, which he had fostered and protected as 
 we have seen, to pronounce judgment on the " Cid ; " 
 I should rather say, to pronounce against it. The
 
 CORNEILLE. 33 
 
 Academy did not relish the task, very naturally : 
 hung back, demurred, made one excuse and another; 
 but the great man was inexorable. What were 
 these poor gentlemen to do ? On the one hand King 
 and people, the court, the Precieuses, the very 
 boys in the street; on the other, His Eminence. 
 Need I say it ? The Cardinal's scale was the 
 heavier. The Academy, after much sorrowful 
 labor, produced its famous judgment, which did 
 not then seem so funny as it does now : " A piece 
 is only good when it gives a reasonable content- 
 ment ; that is, when it pleases the learned as well 
 as the people. We ought to inquire, not whether 
 the 'Cid'has pleased, but whether it ought to have 
 pleased," etc. In speaking of this some years 
 later, when the Cardinal was gone, and the fame of 
 Corneille had forever silenced the lesser critics, 
 Boileau says: 
 
 " In vain against the ' Cid ' a minister makes league ; 
 All Paris, gazing on Chimene, thinks with Roclrigue. 
 In vain to censure her the Academy aspires ; 
 The stubborn populace revolts, and .still admires." 
 
 And, indeed, the "sentiments of the Academy," 
 published in December, 1637, made no difference 
 whatever in the popularity of the "Cid," failed 
 to satisfy the Cardinal, on the one hand, and made 
 Corneille very angry, on the other ; the moral of 
 which is obvious. Finding this weapon of no avail, 
 the politic Cardinal changed his tactics, accepted 
 the situation, and gave Corneille a pension. The 
 
 3
 
 34 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 poet, with cheerful magnanimity, forgot his resent- 
 ment, and dedicated his tragedy of " Horatius " 
 to his Eminence, whom he once more styles " My 
 Lord." So ended the dispute. " Henceforth," 
 says Guizot, "Corneille walks freely by himself 
 and in the strength of his own powers ; the circle 
 of his ideas grows larger ; his style grows loftier 
 and stronger together with his thoughts, and 
 purer, perhaps, without his dreaming of it. A 
 more correct, a more precise, expression comes to 
 him, evoked by greater clearness in idea, greater 
 fixity of sentiment; genius, with the mastery of 
 means, seeks new outlets. Corneille writes ' Poly- 
 eucte.' " This was a tragedy of early Christianity, 
 a daring attempt in a day when paganism had 
 obtained such complete control of the stage that 
 Richelieu, when alluding to Gustavus Aclolphus 
 and the religious wars in his comedy of " Europe," 
 dared not mention the name of God save in the 
 plural. The Hotel Kambouillet shook its gracious 
 head a little over the " Christianism " which, like 
 the Spanish fire of the " Cid," found no prototype 
 in the models of antiquity. But again genius tri- 
 umphed, and "Polyeucte" holds its own to this 
 day, a masterpiece of pathetic tenderness, full 
 of sublime thoughts. 
 
 In "Cinna" Corneille showed that he could pro- 
 duce a strictly classical drama with equal power 
 and success ; and most of his plays, indeed, after 
 this are formed on the classical model. One may
 
 CORNEILLE. 35 
 
 question whether this was on the whole fortunate. 
 Was it best for Corneille or the world that he 
 should desert the dramatic ground of the " Cid," 
 and force himself strictly into the classical mould? 
 " Did he," asks Van Laun, an eminent French critic, 
 " in this way just miss the chance of becoming the 
 genuine tragic genius whom France has never yet 
 seen, because she cannot divorce tragedy from the 
 classical models?" The point is well put. The 
 question would probably be answered in the affir- 
 mative by every Anglo-Saxon reader who has been 
 brought up with Shakspeare on a mountain top, 
 with all the winds of heaven blowing about him, 
 and who would stifle in the incense-laden air of the 
 most strictly classical temple the world has ever 
 seen, if the doors were shut. 
 
 If we are to believe Fontenelle, Richelieu proved 
 his new friendship for the poet in the matter of 
 his marriage. Mademoiselle Michel poor snow- 
 flake of a bygone year ! was long since forgotten ; 
 and Corneille (I cannot discover in what year) 
 was desperately in love with a fair Mademoiselle 
 de Lamperiere, whose father had other views for 
 her, and considered dramatic genius of less impor- 
 tance in a son-in-law than a fortune. Seeing the 
 poet one day plunged in gloomy thought, Richelieu 
 asked him if he were at work upon a tragedy. 
 Corneille replied that his own sorrows had taken 
 the place of imaginary ones, that, in short, he 
 was hopelessly in love. But see, now, what a fine
 
 36 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 tiling it is to be a cardinal and a minister ! Kiche- 
 lieu drew from the unhappy poet the story of his 
 passion, and left him without comment. Next day 
 the father of the damsel was summoned to appeal- 
 before his Eminence ; went, with what tremblings, 
 what agonized mental review of any little pecca- 
 dilloes of his that might possibly have come to the 
 ear of the terrible Cardinal, we may well imagine ! 
 But we see him emerging joyful from the dreaded 
 presence, and calling to his arms the despised son- 
 in-law elect, thankful, for his own part, to have 
 got off so easily, and well pleased to have in his 
 family a man whom the Cardinal favored. 
 
 With this bride, of whom I can find no other 
 mention, Corneille retired once more to his native 
 Rouen, where he lived and wrote many years. His 
 later productions had not the success which had 
 crowned the "Cid" and "China." Always melan- 
 choly, he became embittered, and we are sorry to 
 know that the success of the young Racine was a 
 sharp thorn in his side. He should have been 
 satisfied with his own reputation, which was great 
 and has proved enduring. But when was man ever 
 satisfied ? Do we not all know the story of the 
 fisherman and the flounder ? 
 
 Corneille died in 1684. Have you patience to 
 hear what his brother Frenchmen think of him 
 to-day ? If so, listen to Henri Van Lauu : " When 
 we have read one of the best tragedies of Corneille, 
 and I admit at once that they are very unequal,
 
 CORNEILLE. 37 
 
 we rise from its perusal better than we were 
 before, with an intense reverence for these more 
 than human heroes and heroines whose adventures 
 we have followed. They are superhumanly brave, 
 generous, lofty in words and action, and the atmo- 
 sphere they move in becomes purer and better 
 because they dwell there. They have no mental 
 weaknesses, or if they show them, it is on a much 
 grander scale than ordinary human beings. Their 
 virtues are enhanced by the vices and follies of 
 the tyrants, the wicked and sometimes ridiculous 
 personages who serve as their foil. All the char- 
 acters, indeed, are so completely concrete in their 
 actions, so monotonously virtuous or vicious, so 
 argumentative, that they seem not to possess many 
 passions, but only one ; and whether as fathers or 
 lovers, friends or enemies, tyrants or champions, 
 we admire them, respect them, but admit that they 
 sometimes weary us. And this is not to be won- 
 dered at; for we are accustomed to meet, in the 
 circle in which we move, complex men and women, 
 gifted with many virtues, having not a few vices, 
 and animated by various passions, of which one 
 may now and then predominate, but which gen- 
 erally work harmoniously together, and do not 
 obtrude themselves offensively. 
 
 " Shakspeare is perhaps the best delineator of 
 humanity, considered from this point of view. 
 But Corneille's characters are ever grandiloquent, 
 move always on stilts, are often too refined, and
 
 38 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 not seldom over-emphatic in the expression of their 
 love or hatred. Hence we feel constrained when 
 in their company ; they are wanting in something ; 
 they are too completely good, bad, or heroic ; they 
 are quite different from ns, they are, perhaps, 
 too much above us. What are our petty moving- 
 strings, our huckstering ambition, in comparison 
 with their motives ? Their principles are not 
 ours; their very language differs; their noble 
 actions tacitly reprove our daily mode of living. 
 It is all very well to sneer at such tragedies ; to 
 say that it would be very uncomfortable to live 
 with such eminently dignified and virtuous men; 
 but granted all this, yet the fact remains that we 
 feel all the better and more moral after the perusal 
 of Corneille. We rise with a momentary desire to 
 imitate, if possible, such pure ideals. We go on 
 with our every-day life, mayhap not much better, 
 yet certainly not much the worse, after reading 
 one of Corneille's tragedies, thanking God in our 
 innermost heart, if we have any manliness left in 
 us, that there were men in this world who created 
 such genuine and high-minded characters, which 
 have no prototypes in real life, but are grand exem- 
 plars for many ages, to be respectfully admired as 
 long as there exist people wise enough to reverence 
 imaginative and unapproachable creations. Men, 
 as a general rule, love variety and emotion ; but 
 if it be the highest aim of poetry to ennoble and 
 strengthen the mind, and not to deprave or torture
 
 CORNEILLE. 39 
 
 it, then Covneille is one of the few grand people 
 with which the world has been blessed." 
 
 Now, how far can English-speaking readers 
 indorse this opinion? Do I, after reading (all 
 too cursorily, I sorrowfully admit) Corneille, feel 
 impelled to put down his name in the list of 
 books for young readers ? Frankly, no ! Every- 
 thing goes by comparison in this world ; and in 
 regard to the Father of French Tragedy, I must 
 repeat what I said in the beginning of French 
 poetry in general, that it is artificial, shallow ; 
 a stream flowing over pebbles rather than a deep 
 and many-voiced sea. Most of the heroes and 
 heroines of Corneille are abstract monstrosities. 
 They talk through interminable pages of polished 
 rhyme ; they talk, they walk, but they do not live. 
 If he had had the courage to pursue the path which 
 he opened so brilliantly in the " Cid," who knows 
 what he might have accomplished ? Then France 
 might have had an original dramatic literature in 
 tragedy, as by grace of Moliere she has in comedy, 
 instead of a weak imitation of a great defunct 
 one. In a word, French tragedy, Tarpeia-like, was 
 crushed to the earth by the immortal classics.
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTE (LULLY). 
 1633-1637. 
 
 IT sounds like a fairy story. Once upon a time 
 there was a little boy, a little black-eyed, dirty boy, 
 who played about the streets of Florence, in the 
 years following 1633, which was the year of his 
 birth ; his parents, a shadowy Cavaliere Lulli and 
 Catarina somebody, seem to have concerned them- 
 selves little or not at all about the lad, and all the 
 care he had seems to have been given by an old 
 Franciscan monk who was fond of music, and 
 played the guitar. On pleasant evenings this good 
 old man was used to sit in the cloister of his con- 
 vent and strum on his guitar, and sing pious hymns, 
 and perhaps other songs, too, which had nothing to 
 do with his vocation, songs about Ninetta and 
 " barchetta," and moonlight, and other pretty and 
 irreligious things. Now he often noticed that as 
 soon as he began to play, there stole round the 
 corner, coming he knew not whence, a little black- 
 eyed boy, who listened and listened, as if hearing 
 had become for the moment his only sense. From 
 notice it was but a step to acquaintance. " Hola, 
 little one, thou ! Thou lovest music, it appears ! 
 Approach, then, and sit here by me. So we shall 
 enjoy it together, the heavenly science."
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTIST E. 41 
 
 Soon a warm affection sprang up between this 
 odd pair, the little ragamuffin and the ancient 
 monk. Seeing that the lad was full of nervous 
 energy, which vented itself in constant pranks and 
 misdemeanors, the good / 'rate thought it well to turn 
 this energy in some useful direction. He taught 
 him the rudiments of music, taught him the guitar, 
 and perhaps other things besides, though the boy 
 may have learned to read and write elsewhere. 
 Little Jean Baptiste was so clever with his guitar, 
 and played so charmingly, that other people began 
 to take notice of him, notably the great Chevalier 
 de Guise, who chanced to come a-visiting in Florence 
 at that time, and who thought here was a new 
 plaything. It would be a pretty amusement to 
 take this lad to France and have him educated. 
 Accordingly, Jean Baptiste was duly enrolled in 
 the Chevalier's train, and bade farewell to Florence 
 and his good old friend the monk, who, we may 
 believe, missed him sorely, and played only sad 
 tunes thereafter on his guitar. 
 
 But the Chevalier de Guise was a very busy man, 
 and there were many more amusements in Paris 
 than there had been in Florence. He had no time 
 to attend to the musical education of this little 
 Italian monkey who played the guitar. What 
 should he do with him ? Tiens ! there was Made- 
 moiselle de Montpensier, the (jrande Mademoiselle , 
 who was always wanting new playthings, and with 
 whom the Chevalier particularly wished to stand
 
 42 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 well. This ten-year old musician, with his funny 
 broken French, would be sure to amuse her. That 
 was the one thing to do for those weary great 
 people, to amuse them. So Jean Baptiste, who 
 did look a good deal like a monkey, with little 
 sharp black eyes and a grotesque face, was dressed 
 up in a new suit of clothes and given, to the 
 princess, just as if he had been a pug or a parrot, 
 or a real little marmoset, instead of only a common 
 human boy. And the princess was delighted with 
 him. He talked his funny jargon, and strummed 
 his tunes, and sang his little songs, and was the 
 most amusing plaything in the world, really for 
 nearly six months ! But the poor foolish child did 
 not know any better than to learn French, to 
 speak it almost like other people, being extremely 
 quick and clever. And then, naturally enough, the 
 princess did not care anything more about him ; 
 she was really tired of him in any case, and some- 
 body else gave her another present, a spaniel, it 
 might be, with lovely drooping ears, or a Persian 
 cat. So nobody looked at Jean Baptiste any more, 
 and nobody cared to hear him sing or play. He 
 drifted from boudoir to salon, ' from salon to ante- 
 chamber, down and down, till he finally found a 
 place in the kitchens, and became a little scullion, 
 kicked and cuffed about by the cooks, and made to 
 scour greasy pans, scrub floors, and turn meats on 
 the spit. A mischievous and thievish scullion he 
 was, playing tricks on every one, from the cooks
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTE. 43 
 
 up to- the chief butler himself. Another kitchen- 
 boy, called Petit-Pierre, was his sworn comrade ; 
 and many a fowl was stolen from the spit or oven, 
 and many a wild carouse did these two hold in the 
 cellar, with their chicken or pheasant, and a bottle 
 of the Duke of Orle'ans' choice old wine, which 
 H. K. H. had not presented to them. 
 
 Five years did Jean Baptiste spend in the kitchens 
 of the great Mademoiselle ; but he did other things 
 besides turning meat and scouring pans. All the 
 time his music burned within him. He had his 
 guitar , but that was not enough, he pined for a 
 violin. The good monk in Florence had also given 
 him a little acquaintance with the queen of instru- 
 ments. " Petit-Pierre ! I must have a violin. It 
 is a question of my life ! But how shall I get it ? " 
 
 "Courage!" said Petit-Pierre. "Thou shalt 
 have thy violin. Come with me into the wine 
 cellar to-night, and we will arrange it." 
 
 At midnight, when all in the great house were 
 asleep, from Mademoiselle on her gold-fringed 
 pillow, dreaming of Lauzun, to the cook on his 
 straw pallet, the two lads crept noislessly into the 
 cellar. It was a huge vault, damp and cobwebby. 
 How they got in I know not, whether by stolen 
 keys, or by burrowing like veritable rats under the 
 door; but there they were. On all sides were 
 shelves, bins, racks, all full of bottles, precious, 
 some of them, as if their contents were potable 
 gold.
 
 44 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH CO CRT. 
 
 " Softly now, Jean Baptiste ! Let us take one 
 only from each shelf, so they will never be missed ; 
 for the fat old fellow will think he has taken them 
 himself. Parllen ! he often cannot tell, wheti he 
 leaves this place, whether he has one bottle or 
 three beneath his girdle. So, now ! the oldest 
 ones are worth most money ; I heard him say so." 
 
 Whispering and chuckling, these two very 
 naughty young scamps possessed themselves of 
 half-a-dozen bottles, and got out as they came in, 
 without mishap. Next day the bottles were 
 promptly converted into gold, and before another 
 midnight Jean Baptiste had his violin, and was 
 happy. 
 
 One day, when the boys were about fifteen, it 
 chanced that they were left alone in the great 
 kitchen to mind the roast. Report says nothing 
 of where the other servants were, perhaps they 
 were gone to mass; perhaps the Queen had come to 
 visit her cousin, and they were all on the back 
 stairs, trying to catch a peep at royalty. At all 
 events, they were not in the kitchen. The roast 
 was a very large one, perhaps a baron of beef ; a 
 cut corresponding to the saddle of mutton, and 
 rarely seen save in great houses like this. It 
 roasted very slowly ; very, very slowly. It Avas 
 tiresome work, this everlasting turning and bast- 
 ing, basting and turning. " Tiens ! " said Jean 
 Baptiste, " I will bring my violin, and play to the 
 beast ; perhaps he will roast faster. Who knows? "
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN DAPTISTE. 45 
 
 He brought the violin and played, while Petit- 
 Pierre turned the baron. If I were a painter, I 
 think I could make a picture out of the scene- 
 The vast kitchen, with its stone floor worn into 
 hollows here and there by centuries of treading; 
 the narrow barred windows, letting in the light in 
 long yellow rays which pierce rather than dispel 
 the gloom. The chief light comes from the huge 
 lire glowing on the hearth ; it leaps and crackles, 
 throwing great tongues of flame up the wide black 
 chimney-throat. The flickering light gleams here 
 and there in bright reflection, now thrown back 
 from copper vessels hanging in goodly array on 
 the walls, now from the bit of cracked looking- 
 glass in which Colette, the youngest kitchen-maid, 
 loves to steal a glance, to see if her cap be straight, 
 and her kerchief becomingly arrayed. In the full 
 glow of this great fire sit the two boys on their low 
 stools, their faces crimson with the glare, their caps 
 and aprons gleaming warm and white. One of 
 them, he with the small sharp eyes " lit with a 
 sombre fire," is playing, and has forgotten earth 
 and heaven ; the other, bending forward, turns and 
 turns the huge piece of beef, which is browning 
 slowly, and which sputters and hisses and sends 
 savory odors through the whole room. On and on 
 plays Jean Baptiste ; the violin sings under his 
 hand like a living thing, for he has not been 
 practising three years for nothing. Xow it wails 
 and laments, in melting tones that the nightingale
 
 46 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 might answer ; now it shrieks in elfin merriment, 
 the bow leaping over the strings like a dancing 
 sprite, all joy and mirth and lightness. Slower 
 and slower revolves the reeking baron on the spit ; 
 lower and lower droops the basting-spoon in Petit- 
 Pierre's hand. The boy listens spell-bound, till he 
 too forgets that the world holds anything save 
 Jean Baptiste and his fiddle ; the ladle drops to 
 the floor unnoticed, and the music and the fire 
 have it all their own way. 
 
 Suddenly a heavy hand is laid on the player's 
 shoulder. He starts violently, comes back to 
 earth, looks up terror-stricken, expecting to meet 
 the angry eyes of Gros-Jean, the cook. Instead of 
 which here is a fine gentleman, all in lace and 
 satin, who smiles kindly on the terrified boy, 
 and bids him follow him at once. So Jean Bap- 
 tiste leaves the kitchen, never to return ; for this 
 fine gentleman was the Comte de Nogent, one of 
 the princess's train. From his rooms he had 
 heard the sound of music, and had followed it 
 down and down, being of an inquiring turn of 
 mind, till he came to the kitchen, where he had 
 stood listening in amazement to this wonderful 
 scullion. He now carried Jean Baptiste straight 
 to the princess, who had not thought of her former 
 plaything for five good years, and commanded 
 him to play. Mademoiselle listened ; was amazed, 
 enchanted, carried away. " They gave me a 
 master," says Lully himself ; " I soon became skil-
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTE. 47 
 
 fill, and was a master in my turn." But you will 
 be very sorry to hear that the roast was entirely 
 spoiled, being burned as black as a coal on one side, 
 and nearly raw on the other. I do not know what 
 the princess had for dinner that day, but she 
 certainly had no baron of beef; and Petit-Pierre 
 was soundly flogged and chased out of the house by 
 the indignant cook, and was not heard of again for 
 many a long year. 
 
 Lully stayed four years more with Mademoiselle 
 de Montpensier. He was made a member of her 
 band, and soon distanced all the other violinists. 
 He might have stayed yet longer, but the spirit of 
 mischief was too strong in him. Seeing, as all 
 the world saw, the little absurdities of his great 
 mistress, Lully thought proper to " take them off " 
 in a satirical song, composed for the benefit of his 
 fellow-musicians. But it was too funny to be kept 
 quiet, or else there was some ill-disposed person 
 among the band. It came all too quickly to Made- 
 moiselle's ears, and the clever youth was instantly 
 dismissed. By this time, however, Lully was nine- 
 teen, and his name was already well known. The 
 King sent for him, and on hearing him play, en- 
 gaged him at once. Soon he found that the young 
 man could not only play divinely, but that the 
 most charming airs he played were of his own 
 composition. Here was a treasure for a music- 
 loving monarch. A new band was composed 
 especially for Lully, " Les petits violons," a small
 
 48 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 company of first-class players, so called to dis- 
 tinguisli them from the great band of forty. Our 
 Jean Baptiste now went on from one success to 
 another. At twenty-five lie was appointed composer 
 of the court ballets, those popular poetical jig- 
 gings in which Louis the Great loved to figure and 
 at once display his fine proportions and listen to the 
 praises of his glory. Will my readers kindly try 
 to imagine Queen Victoria, at any period of her 
 life, dancing in a ballet ? or Emperor William, or 
 Humbert the Good ? Fashions do change so ! 
 
 In thirteen years Lully composed thirty ballets 
 and a number of operas, twenty of the latter in all 
 having come from his pen. He was made super- 
 intendent of the royal chamber music, and then 
 Master of Music to the royal family itself ; finally, 
 he received letters of nobility from the king, and 
 called himself M. de Lully. In connection with 
 this honor, an amusing anecdote is told by M. 
 Adam, in his "Recollections of a Musician." 
 
 Some obliging busybody came to Lully one day 
 and caid to him, "It is very fortunate for you that 
 his Majesty has allowed you to dispense with the 
 customary formality of being appointed a royal 
 secretary, for several of the secretaries have 
 declared that they would not receive you among 
 them." This was enough for the ambitious and 
 insatiable Lully. He would be a secretary, or perish 
 in the attempt. The means he took to this end 
 were wholly characteristic. A representation of the
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTE. 49 
 
 " Bourgeois Gentilhomme " of Moliere was to be 
 given at court. Lully had composed the music 
 (of which a good deal is called for in the play), 
 and it had been played before with great success. 
 Lully himself was an admirable buffoon, though 
 only his friends knew it. Moliere had said to him 
 more than once, " Come, Lully ! come and make us 
 laugh." He resolved to turn this talent to profit 
 by exhibiting it before the king, who had no suspi- 
 cion of it. " His grotesque physiognomy," says M. 
 Adam, " seemed created expressly for burlesque." 
 He was short and rather stout, and very negligent 
 of his person ; indeed, AVC are told that it was not 
 uncommon, when he was playing, for his ruffles to 
 drop off, as they were seldom fastened to the 
 sleeves, sometimes, indeed, they dropped to pieces, 
 showing themselves to be mere rags of former 
 finery. The little red-rimmed eyes, which one 
 hardly saw, yet which burned with a sombre fire, 
 betokened at once humor and malignity. His 
 whole face was of a comic character, and a stranger 
 on first seeing him might have been inclined to 
 laugh at him, had not the keenness of his glance 
 shown that he was fully capable of turning the 
 laugh upon any one who should attempt to 
 ridicule him. Without telling any one, Lully had 
 resolved to take himself the character of the Mufti, 
 and to attract the attention of the King by his 
 extravagances. Unhappily for him, the King was 
 in a bad humor that day, and nothing could 
 
 4
 
 50 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 chase the gloom from his Olympian brow. The play 
 proceeded amid a frigid silence, for no one dared 
 to laugh when Majesty frowned, and not one of the 
 comedians could draw even an approving glance 
 from the Great King. Finally the scene in the 
 fourth act was reached, in which the unhappy M. 
 Jourdain, the butt of all who surround him, is to be 
 invested with the title of Mamamouchi, supposed 
 to be one of the highest honors in the gift of the 
 Grand Turk. The rascally Covielle, his son's 
 valet, in order to extract money from M. Jourdain, 
 tells him that his son has become betrothed to 
 the daughter of the Grand Turk, and that that 
 potentate desires to bestow upon him, Jourdain, 
 this exalted rank. 
 
 Accordingly, Lully, attired as the Mufti, ap- 
 peared, with his attendant Turks and dervishes, 
 and the ceremony of initiation began. He had 
 muffled his head in an enormous turban nearly five 
 feet high, so that his head appeared to be in the 
 middle of his body. His little eyes blinked and 
 winked in the most ridiculous manner, and alto- 
 gether his whole appearance was so irresistibly 
 comic that at sight of him a murmur of surprise 
 was heard, followed by a general desire to laugh, 
 which was, however, summarily checked when it 
 was seen that the king was not laughing. Lully 
 saw the danger of his position, and redoubled his 
 efforts. At the words "Dara Bastonara" it is 
 customary for the Mufti to give several blows to
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN DAPTISTE. 51 
 
 the unhappy neophyte (who is on his hands and 
 knees, a huge tome, representing the Koran, resting 
 on his back) with the flat edge of a sabre, howling 
 meanwhile in a most absurd gibberish. What was 
 the amazement of the actor playing the part of 
 Jourdain when the Mufti raised the great book 
 high in air, and brought it down with a tremendous 
 whack on his back! M. Jourdain bore the blow 
 manfully; but when a shower of thumps and bangs 
 descended on his back and head, he lost patience, 
 and whispered, " Stop this nonsense, or I '11 knock 
 you down!" "That is just what I want," replied 
 Lully, who from the corner of his eyes had espied 
 a dawning smile on the royal lips. " Beat me as 
 hard as you possibly can ! " The enraged actor 
 required no second bidding. Springing to his feet, 
 he rushed upon his tormentor, and aimed a tre- 
 mendous blow at him ; but Lully, quickly lower- 
 ing his head, received the blow on the end of his 
 enormous turban. Then followed a scene which 
 beggars description. Again and again the unhappy 
 Jourdain, foaming with rage, rushed forward; 
 again and again the Mufti, lowering his head like 
 a ram, received him on the turban, and butted him 
 to the other end of the stage. By this time the 
 whole audience was shrieking and screaming with 
 laughter, and the high and mighty monarch was 
 rocking from side to side, wiping the tears from his 
 eyes, and laughing as he had never laughed. before. 
 Finally the raging victim determined to try another
 
 52 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 move. Springing to one side as the battering tur- 
 ban advanced, he made a sudden rush at close 
 quarters, thinking to seize his adversary round the 
 body. But not for nothing had Jean Baptiste 
 wrestled with Petit-Pierre in the kitchen of Mont- 
 pensier. Flinging himself on the ground, Lully 
 tripped up poor Jourdain with such dexterity that 
 the latter found himself sitting astride of the tur- 
 ban, facing the screaming audience ; while our 
 hero, lightly extricating himself, staggered for- 
 ward, and pretending to fall, leaped over the stage 
 front down into the harpsichord which stood in the 
 midst of the orchestra. This was his crowning 
 feat. He played a thousand fantastic pranks in 
 his apparent frantic struggles to get out, and finally 
 smashing the poor instrument in pieces, he leaped 
 back with simian agility to the stage, and the cur- 
 tain descended amid thunders of applause. 
 
 When the play was over, the King, weary and 
 aching with laughter, was descending the stairs, 
 when lo ! there stood the incomparable Lully, with 
 a face a yard long, gazing at him with eyes of 
 tragic melancholy. " Alas ! Sire," he said, when 
 Louis overwhelmed him with praise, "am I indeed, 
 as your Majesty so graciously says, the funniest 
 man in France ? That is the very cause of my 
 sorrow. It has been the hope of my heart to 
 become one of your Majesty's secretaries ; but the 
 other secretaries will not receive me, because I am 
 a play-actor." And he heaved a sigh as deep as a
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTE. 53 
 
 draw-well ! " How ! " cried he of Olympus. " They 
 will not receive you, forsooth ! It will be too much 
 honor for them. Go to the chancellor at once, and 
 say I sent you. I give you the place from this 
 instant, and a pension of twelve hundred francs 
 besides ! " 
 
 ' What a fine thing," says M. Adam, " is an abso- 
 lute monarchy ! Twelve hundred, francs' pension, 
 for jumping into a harpsichord ! If pensions could 
 be had to-day at this price, all the manufactories 
 of Erard and Broadwood could not supply the 
 demand ! " 
 
 The next day Lully flew to Chancellor Le Tellier, 
 who, despite the royal commands, received him 
 with a very bad grace. Thence he went to Louvois, 
 who reproached him with his boldness, telling him 
 that the place of secretary was wholly unsuitable 
 for him, who had no other merit or recommenda- 
 tion than that of making people laugh. " Eh, tet e- 
 bleu ! " replied Lully, " you would do the same if 
 you knew how." The King, hearing of these diffi- 
 culties, issued a command that the Florentine was 
 to be received, if the sky fell; and after that no 
 murmurs were heard. On the day of his reception, 
 Lully gave a magnificent supper to the other secre- 
 taries, and afterwards " treated them " to the opera, 
 where his "Triumph of Love" was given with 
 great splendor. It was a singular sight : the 
 theatre filled with all manner of gilded human 
 frippery, and in the front row thirty or forty grave
 
 54 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 men in black cloaks and broad-brimmed hats, 
 listening with sombre gravity to the roulades and 
 cadenzas of the new royal secretary. A day or t\vo 
 after, Louvois met our hero at Versailles, and with 
 grave irony saluted him with " Bon jour, mon con- 
 frere ! " " Good day, my colleague ! " This was 
 instantly taken up as a witticism of the great min- 
 ister ; and poor Lully could not make his appear- 
 ance anywhere in fashionable society without a 
 chorus of "Bonjour, mon confrere!" assailing him 
 on every side. 
 
 After the revocation of the Edict of Nantes it 
 seemed for a time as if there might be an end to 
 the gayeties. At first all the gilded butterflies 
 turned up their eyes and held up their hands, and 
 blessed God for this great and pious deed; that 
 was when it seemed only to affect the people, who 
 were of no consequence whatever. The slaughter- 
 ing of a few thousand miserable heretics, the driv- 
 ing out of thousands more, what did that matter 
 at Versailles ? But if our gayeties were to be inter- 
 fered with by all this piety ; if we were all to be 
 turned into monks and nuns, with only masses and 
 vespers by way of entertainment, what was to be 
 done in such a case ? It was too horrible to think 
 of. The King was becoming every day moVe devout, 
 and who could wonder at it? Instead of good 
 easy Pere La Chaise to smooth down his con- 
 science and make things spiritually pleasant for 
 him, here was the" sombre, hideous face of Pere Le
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTS. 55 
 
 Tellier always at his elbow, whispering of sin and 
 hell and all sorts of horrid things that should never 
 be spoken of to kings. Here, too, instead of the 
 lovely, tender La Valliere, or the flashing, splendid 
 Montespan, was the veiled and hooded figure of 
 the uncrowned queen, crucifix in hand, with the 
 fire of fanaticism burning in her heart. What 
 a deplorable prospect for a butterfly court ! But 
 Franchise d'Aubigne, fanatic though she might be, 
 was no fool ; and when whispers of this sort came 
 to her ears, as come they did ask me not how ! 
 How do the whispers come anywhere ? "A bird of 
 the air shall carry it; the rushes by the brooks 
 shall whisper, ' Midas has ass's ears ! ' ' When, I 
 say, the divinity of Marly heard these whispers, 
 she saw at once that they portended evil. The 
 King must be drawn from his sombre thoughts; 
 he must smile once more, and the court must be 
 amused. It need not interfere with the great 
 work, the extirpation of heresy ; on the contrary, 
 it was important for that work that the upper 
 classes the people who might begin to think, if 
 they had no longer any dancing should be 
 amused. What should she do to set the gilded 
 ball rolling once more ? A lottery ? that cost so 
 much, and was so soon over. A comedy? Mo- 
 liere was dead, and Racine was not amusing enough. 
 Suddenly Madame remembered Lully ; remem- 
 bered, too, that she had heard the King say some- 
 thing about a new opera which Lully and Quinault
 
 56 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 were writing, and of which he himself had chosen 
 the subject. Happy thought! if this opera could 
 be finished out of hand, and produced within a 
 week, it would be the very thing. But in order to 
 this, it would be necessary for her to speak per- 
 sonally with one of these unhallowed persons, com- 
 poser or playwright. So be it ! She was ready to 
 sacrifice herself for the cause. She obtained abso- 
 lution, and resolved to send for Lully. 
 
 Jean Baptiste was supping with a party of 
 friends at a tavern, and enjoying himself very 
 much indeed, when a message came from his wife, 
 saying that he must come home at once, as a car- 
 riage from the court had come, and was waiting to 
 take him to Versailles. " Oh ! " he said to himself, 
 " it is only a trick of Madeleine to get me home, 
 because she thinks I have stayed long enough. I 
 will go and see, however, and if I find it is so, I 
 won't go home for a week, I vow." He went growl- 
 ing, and, I fear, reeling, home (for there had been 
 plenty of wine at the supper) ; and there, in very 
 truth, was a stately coach waiting for him. He 
 tumbled in, fell asleep, and did not wake till he 
 reached Versailles. Here he was met by a black- 
 robed abbe, with downcast eyes, who informed him 
 that he, the abbe, was charged to conduct him to 
 a lady who desired to speak with him in private. 
 Lully at once thought that some fair dame of qual- 
 ity had been smitten with his charms (which were 
 certainly singular). He cast a rueful glance at his
 
 THE STORY OF JEAX BAPTISTS. 57 
 
 shabby coat, his torn and soiled ruffles, ran his 
 fingers through his dishevelled wig, and assumed 
 ' an expression of rapture. 
 
 After winding in and out of endless passages, 
 in a part of the palace wholly unfamiliar to him, 
 he found himself at length in a room simply and 
 severely furnished, with many pictures of saints 
 adorning the walls. He wondered more and more 
 what this might mean. The door opened, and a 
 lady of imposing mien entered. Lully, not recog- 
 nizing her (thanks to his near-sightedness), threw 
 himself at her feet with a lover's ardor. But for- 
 tunately Madame de Maiutenou for it was the 
 great lady herself mistook his meaning; and 
 though somewhat surprised, found it still not un- 
 natural that a sinner like this man, who spent much 
 of his time with excommunicated persons, should 
 be overcome in the presence of such virtue as hers. 
 Such an occasion for rebuke was not to be lost. 
 
 " M. de Lully," she said, " I hear that you lead 
 a reprehensible life." 
 
 Lully started violently; there was no mistaking 
 the voice, which he knew perfectty well, and he 
 saw that he was making a fool of himself. "I, 
 Madame ? " he replied respectfully. " Xot at all ! 
 I lead the opera, that is all." 
 
 "I know," replied the great lady, "that your 
 position brings you necessarily in contact with 
 many persons of bad reputation ; but the King is 
 nevertheless much displeased with you, and you
 
 58 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 will not find it easy to reinstate yourself in his 
 good graces." 
 
 The musician was overwhelmed. What had he 
 done, what could he have done? It was per- 
 fectly true that the King, who had given him 
 everything, could take away everything with a 
 single word. He was speechless with dismay. 
 
 Seeing that she had made her point, Madame de 
 Maintenon continued: "Now, as to the means of 
 recovering the royal favor, it is absolutely neces- 
 sary that a new opera be given one week from 
 to-day. Give us the one which you are now com- 
 posing at the King's request, and I have little doubt 
 that your misdemeanors will be forgiven." 
 
 Lully started to his feet, all the musician afire 
 within him. " In eight days, my ' Armide ! ' " he 
 cried. " Oh, Madame, it is impossible ! I have a 
 whole act yet to compose, and Quinault finds it 
 impossible to keep up with the changes I am con- 
 stantly proposing to him." 
 
 " You must do the last act more quickly," said 
 Madame, "or else give us what you have ready 
 now, and omit the rest." 
 
 The great lady was evidently not a musician. " I 
 mutilate rny masterpiece, give it piecemeal ! " 
 cried poor Lully. "Oh, no, Madame ! His Majesty 
 may be angry if he will, but in a month I can 
 have the ' Armide ' ready. You do not know, 
 Madame, it is the finest thing I have ever done. 
 It contains "
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTS. 59 
 
 "Very well, Monsieur, let us speak of it no 
 more. I know that Lalande is writing an opera, 
 and little Marais has been tormenting me for a 
 long time to persuade the 'King to hear some of 
 his music. Either of them will only too gladly 
 be ready within the time specified." 
 
 " What, Madame ! other music than mine be 
 played before his Majesty ? Never ! You shall have 
 an opera, but it will not be the 'Armide.'" 
 
 "I care nothing whatever about your 'Armide.' 
 I want an opera, that is all." 
 
 "Very well, Madame! in eight days you shall 
 have an opera, ballet music by Lully, words by 
 Quinault. Will you graciously suggest a subject 
 for it?" 
 
 " Sir," said Virtuous Austerity, drawing herself 
 up with dignity, "you know well that I do not 
 meddle with such affairs." 
 
 " Pardon, Madame ! " replied the wily Florentine, 
 in wheedling tones. " The King has done this for 
 me ; it seems wholly appropriate that you should 
 do it also. 'Armide' will be the opera of the 
 King ; this would be the opera of the " He 
 paused, fearing he might have gone too far. 
 
 But there was no frown on the dignified face ; on 
 the contrary, the great lady smiled benevolently, 
 and replied, " So be it ; the opera shall be your 
 reconciliation, and it shall be called ' The Temple 
 of Peace.' " 
 
 The eight days were over. The opera was ready,
 
 60 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 the audience was assembled, the final moment had 
 arrived. Lully, who had worked like a galley- 
 slave, thought everything was in perfect order, 
 when suddenly, as he 'stood to take a final glance 
 at the stage setting, he saw that one blunder had 
 been made. Of course, in eight days one cannot 
 prepare very elaborate scenery ; that is easily 
 understood. There was an old piece a ''Temple 
 of Wisdom" which had been used in some former 
 opera. This, with a good deal of new paint and 
 gilding, answered very well for "The Temple of 
 Peace." But it Avas not till this moment that 
 Lully perceived that the most conspicuous orna- 
 ment on the front of the temple was an enormous 
 owl, the favorite bird of Minerva, but not at all 
 appropriate as an emblem of Glorious Majesty. It 
 must be a sun, not an owl ! Away with it ! Bring a 
 scene-painter, a brush am 1 paint-pot, some gilding, 
 quick ! Lully tore his hair, and rushed about like 
 a madman, dragging the astonished decorator in by 
 the collar, and almost kicking him up the ladder. 
 But quickly as he worked, it was all too slow. 
 Twice an officer of the guards came in and said, 
 " M. de Lully, the King waits ! " It was frightful : 
 such a thing had never happened. Once, indeed, 
 at some other entertainment, I know not what, 
 there had been a moment's delay, and his Majesty 
 said in awful tones, " I have almost waited ! " and 
 the whole court turned green with horror. But 
 now, now, he ivas waiting ; actually sitting
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTS. 61 
 
 there, with nothing to look at, and only confused 
 sounds of stamping and swearing from behind the 
 curtain to listen to. Does not the horror of the 
 scene oppress one even in reading of it ? But 
 Lully was really having a dreadful time there ; 
 and when the guard came for the second time, lo ! 
 the Italian pot was very hot, and boiled over in 
 right Italian fashion. " Eh, ventrebleu ! " cried 
 the manager, " what do you want me to do ? The 
 King can wait ! He is master here, and no one has 
 the right to prevent him from waiting as much as 
 he likes ! " It was not a very remarkable witti- 
 cism, but it was sufficiently impudent to make the 
 bystanders laugh, and to make his Majesty furious 
 when he heard it, as, of course, he did within five 
 minutes. The consequence was that poor Lully 
 received no compliment for all his work, and it was 
 announced that the opera of Lalande would be 
 given the next day. 
 
 Lully returned to Paris, vowing that he had done 
 with royalty and its fickleness. Henceforward he 
 would work for himself and glory, and for his good 
 Parisians, who loved him. He flung himself with 
 fury upon his " Armide," and worked like a mad- 
 inan till it was done ; then rehearsals proceeded, 
 and soon it was ready for the stage. It was his 
 masterpiece, and he knew it, and hoped everything 
 from its success. Everything, down to the mi- 
 nutest detail, had received his personal supervision. 
 
 " This theatre," says M. Adam, " Lully had
 
 62 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 created. All the actors were his pupils ; he alone 
 had formed them, not only in the art of singing, 
 but also in walking and gesticulating ; even the 
 dancers received excellent advice from him. He 
 had taught all the musicians of the orchestra, for, 
 before him, there had been no single passable instru- 
 mental performer in France, and no such thing as 
 an orchestra had existed. He was the first to intro- 
 duce flutes, hautboys, bassoons, and to combine 
 them with the violins ; and thanks to him, the 
 French violinists had become the first in Europe. 
 
 " All this being so, not a musician of the orchestra 
 dared murmur before him, let him be as harsh and 
 brutal as he would. Besides, they all knew that 
 his anger was of short duration. His ear was so 
 fine that he could hear a false note from the 
 farthest end of the theatre, and never failed to dis- 
 tinguish whence it came. On hearing one, he was 
 wont to fall into a violent rage, rush upon the 
 delinquent, snatch away his instrument, and some- 
 times break it over his head. By the time the 
 rehearsal was over, however, his anger was for- 
 gotten ; he begged the musician's pardon, took him 
 off to dine with him, and gave him money for a 
 new instrument if he had broken the old one. 
 Thus, he was adored by all his employees, who 
 loved his person as much as they admired his 
 talent." 
 
 No one was admitted to dress rehearsals save a 
 few of the court people, whom of course one could
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTS. 63 
 
 not refuse. This time, however, not one of them 
 made his appearance. The Koyal Sun had frowned 
 upon Lully, and who else should dare to smile ? 
 " So much the better," said the composer, with an 
 Italian shrng ; " I shall not be troubled with their 
 good advice." He did, however, receive one appli- 
 cation for admission. Some one wished to see 
 him, an attendant said, who would not give his 
 name. " Bah ! " said Lully, " I have no time to 
 see any one. Let him send in his name, however, 
 and we shall see." The attendant returned in a 
 few minutes, with a dirty, greasy scrap of paper, 
 on which was scrawled, " An old friend." " Bah ! " 
 said the composer again; "say that I have no 
 friends on dress-rehearsal days ! " and he went on 
 with his work. The next day, as he entered the 
 theatre, another dirty note was handed to him, 
 which read as follows : " Thou wouldst not see me 
 yesterday ; I shall wait for thee this evening at 
 the end of thy opera." Lully pondered a minute 
 over this, then tossed it away, and forgot it. This 
 was the day of the representation of the master- 
 piece, and he was naturally in great excitement. 
 As the hour approached, the theatre began to fill, 
 and soon the main body of the house was occupied ; 
 but, alas ! the front benches, where the court people 
 were wont to sit, the boxes from which the sun 
 and moon and stars were graciously pleased to 
 beam upon the thrice fortunate scene, were empty, 
 and remained so. Lully was in disgrace. The
 
 64 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 good burghers of Paris were much alarmed. What 
 should they do ? They loved Lully to enthusiasm ; 
 but how could they applaud his work, if lie lay under 
 the royal displeasure ? The prologue was all about 
 Louis and his glory. of course that they could 
 applaud, and did ; but after that the plaudits grew 
 more and more rare, fainter and fainter. Cheeks 
 glowed and hearts beat, as the splendid opera 
 went on : the famous Mademoiselle le Kochois, as 
 Armide, acted and sang as she had never done 
 before ; everything was perfect in every respect : 
 but the curtain fell amid a gloomy silence. The 
 people were afraid to show their enthusiasm, and 
 only in whispers, as they Avent home, did they tell 
 each other that this was the greatest and most 
 wonderful thing they had ever seen. 
 
 Poor Lully, with despair at his heart, was leav- 
 ing the theatre, when he felt himself pulled 
 gently by the sleeve. He turned, and saw a man, 
 very shabbily dressed, gazing earnestly upon him. 
 " Leave me ! " he said impatiently ; " I can do 
 nothing for you." 
 
 " Baptiste," said the stranger, " 1 wrote you that 
 I should meet you after the opera. Wait a mo- 
 ment ! do you not recognize me ? " 
 
 Lully paused, looked, looked again, and shook 
 his head. 
 
 " It is not strange ! " said the other. " It was 
 forty years ago. and I should never have known 
 you if I had not heard your name. We loved
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTS. 65 
 
 each other well, though, once upon a time. Do 
 3'ou remember Petit-Pierre ? " 
 
 " Petit-Pierre ! " cried Lnlly, starting as if from 
 a dream. " Are you can you be ? But no, it is 
 impossible ! Petit-Pierre is dead ; he would not 
 have left me for forty years without a word from 
 him. It cannot be." 
 
 " You still doubt me ? " said the stranger, smil- 
 ing. " Listen, then. We parted in 1647 ; I was 
 beaten and dismissed, for your sake. Have you 
 forgotten ? " 
 
 " Ah, no, no ; I remember it well ! " cried Lully. 
 " Yes, I know you now. Come, come with me ; we 
 will talk, we will tell each other everything that 
 has happened since our good time, the time when 
 we were fifteen ! Come, my poor Pierre, come ! " 
 
 Over a cup of good wine Petit-Pierre's story was 
 soon told. He had remained a cook, that was his 
 vocation, as music was Jean Baptiste's. He had 
 even been thought a very good one. For many 
 years he had served an English lord, who had lately 
 died in Italy, leaving him a small pension. Natu- 
 rally he had returned to France, to Paris. He 
 had heard of the famous Lully, and had wondered 
 if it could be his poor Baptiste ; had determined 
 to find out. Finally, here he was. Many embrac- 
 ings followed ; recollections of the old kitchen 
 days, of old pranks and jokes. 
 
 And then, " I was afraid you would be ashamed 
 of the old companion, Baptiste ! " 
 
 5
 
 66 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 " Ashamed ? Ha, you had forgotten my char- 
 acter. Tiensf I have an idea. You have just 
 returned from Italy, from the country of music ; 
 you must be a judge of it. You shall hear my 
 opera, my chef d'oeuvre, my ( Armide ! ' It shall be 
 given for you and me alone. You shall give me 
 your opinion of it, and, in turn, you shall cook me 
 a dish." 
 
 " With all my heart," cried Petit-Pierre. " I have 
 the whole French and Italian cuisine at my fingers' 
 ends." 
 
 " How ! The Italian ! " shrieked Lully. " Come 
 to my arms, friend of my heart ! Not one of these 
 confounded Parisian poisoners can make a macaroni 
 that has common-sense in it." 
 
 "Be tranquil!" said the cook. "You shall 
 have macaroni, ravioli, polenta, to your heart's 
 content." 
 
 "To-morrow," rejoined the delighted composer, 
 " we will dine together at the Cerceau-d'Or, go to 
 see my 'Armide,' and return here to eat the supper 
 that you shall cook." 
 
 The opera company was informed that a repre- 
 sentation would be given the next evening, to 
 which the public would not be admitted. Punctual 
 to the hour, Petit-Pierre appeared, and was pre- 
 sented to the actors as a great Italian nobleman, an 
 eminent patron of music. He and Lully took their 
 places in the middle of the house, and the opera 
 began. All did their very best to please their
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTS. 67 
 
 beloved master. Petit-Pierre was enchanted, and 
 applauded furiously ; the composer, delighted at 
 being so thoroughly appreciated by his old comrade, 
 and conscious of the great merit of his work, could 
 not refrain from applauding himself. " Bravo, 
 Lully ! " he would cry, at the end of every piece. 
 " You have never done anything so fine ; you are 
 a great man ! " He paid extravagant compli- 
 ments to the performers, who returned them with 
 interest. " It was," says M. Adam, "a real family 
 triumph." And Lully was prouder of having won 
 his own and his friend's approval than if the King 
 and court had covered him with laurels. 
 
 When the great performance was over, the two 
 friends went off arm in arm, as happy as kings, 
 and shut themselves up in a room where Lully had 
 provided everything ready for the preparation of a 
 genuine Italian supper. Petit-Pierre set to work, 
 " the one musician of France," as Boileau called 
 him, acting once more as kitchen-boy. Soon all 
 was ready, and the two sat down, and fell to eating 
 and drinking, talking and laughing, as if they were 
 fifteen again, instead of fifty-five. At the end of 
 an hour, I grieve to say, they were rather drunk. 
 They wept with tenderness, they swore never to 
 part, they exhausted themselves in praises of each 
 other. 
 
 " Ah, what admirable music ! " cried Petit-Pierre. 
 
 "What delicious macaroni!" responded Lully, 
 with his mouth full.
 
 68 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 " How beautiful it was ! " 
 
 " How ggpd it is ! " 
 
 "Monsieur de Lully, you are a very great 
 musician." 
 
 " Monsieur de Petit-Pierre, you are a most excel- 
 lent cook." 
 
 " We are two very great men ! " 
 
 " And well fitted to appreciate each other." 
 
 "And to drink each other's health. Pass the 
 bottle." 
 
 So delightfully were the two companions occupied 
 that they did not observe that for five minutes 
 some one had been knocking violently at the door. 
 
 At length Petit-Pierre said, " Do you think some 
 one may possibly be knocking ? It seems to me I 
 hear a noise. Shall we open the door ? " 
 
 " I don't care," replied Jean Baptiste. " They 
 can get in, anyhow, if they choose to break the 
 door down." 
 
 " Very well. Why should we trouble ourselves ? " 
 
 In a few minutes the door was broken in, and 
 half-a-dozen young noblemen, angry and amazed, 
 came rushing into the room, stumbling over the 
 saucepans and bottles which encumbered the floor. 
 
 " What does this mean, Lully ? " cried one of the 
 new-comers. "Is this the way you receive people 
 who bring you good news ? " 
 
 "I know no other good news," replied Lully, 
 with tipsy gravity, " than that of having found my 
 friend Petit-Pierre."
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTE, 69 
 
 " Who, then, is Petit-Pierre ? " 
 
 " He is a great Italian nobleman, who makes the 
 most wonderful macaroni, and he is going to teach 
 me cookery." ^ 
 
 " On condition that you teach me music," inter- 
 rupted the cook. 
 
 " Of course. You shall become a musician, and 
 I will become a cook. Pass the bottle." 
 
 The new-comers quickly perceived the condition 
 of the two revellers ; and one, thinking to sober 
 Lully, whispered in his ear, " We come from the 
 King." 
 
 " What do I care about the King ? " cried Lully, 
 undismayed. " He knows nothing whatever about 
 music. You would not find my friend Petit-Pierre, 
 for example, listening to an opera of Lalande." 
 
 "Pardon, Monsieur de Lully," said another 
 speaker, "the King does understand music per- 
 fectly, and that is why we are here. His Majesty 
 has heard that you have caused your ' Armide ' to be 
 played for yourself alone, and that you applauded 
 it with enthusiasm. He considers you the best 
 judge of music in the world, and is therefore con- 
 vinced that the work must be a noble one. He 
 sends you his compliments, and desires to see the 
 opera as soon as possible." 
 
 " Vive le roi ! " cried the composer, become sober 
 in the twinkling of an eye. " Pardon me, my 
 lords, if in my folly I said a word against the 
 greatest and most enlightened of monarchs. It
 
 70 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT, 
 
 was all the fault of that abominable Petit-Pierre. 
 I really must get rid of him. If any of your lord- 
 ships want a superior cook " 
 
 " I take him on your recommendation ! " cried 
 one of the courtiers. " Like the King, I rely on 
 your judgment, and I know you are as great a con- 
 noisseur in cookery as in music. But you will not 
 get drunk again with him ? " 
 
 " Never, I swear it ! " cried Jean Baptiste ; and 
 he added in a whisper to Petit-Pierre, " We will 
 begin again as soon as you please, only next time I 
 will come to your kitchen, where no one will look 
 for me." 
 
 The " Armide " was played the following evening 
 amid thunders of applause. Paris and Versailles 
 went mad over it ; and for eighty years it held the 
 stage, admired of all, till Gluck came out of Ger- 
 many and turned all the music upside down. But 
 that mattered little to Jean Baptiste, who had been 
 in his grave since 1687. 
 
 In that year, while conducting a Te Deum for 
 the "King's recovery from a grievous illness, the 
 fiery maestro managed, one hardly sees how, to 
 strike his foot violently with his baton. Neglected 
 at first, an abscess formed on the injured foot ; he 
 consulted a quack, who did not know what to do 
 for the poor little man ; and on the 22d of March 
 Paris found herself without her Lully. 
 
 I have given a few episodes only, drawn from 
 the " Souvenirs d'un Musicien," of the life of this
 
 THE STORY OF JEAN BAPTISTS. 71 
 
 singular little man. He was far from being a 
 paragon of virtue. He drank like a fish, he beat 
 his wife abominably, he was to be avoided when 
 in a bad humor; but he was the father of the 
 orchestra, and the founder of French opera ; and 
 lovers of music, though they no longer go to hear 
 his " Armide," still owe him a debt of thanks for 
 what he was and for what he did.
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 1 
 
 A SUITE of rooms at Versailles, glittering with 
 mirrors and gilding, the walls hung with damask 
 and brocade, the furniture quaint and graceful, 
 but planned for effect rather than comfort. Pass 
 through them with me, while the sleepy lackeys at 
 the door bow, and yawn and rub their eyes after 
 we have passed. It is late, late in the night, and 
 they are tired, poor wretches, and would fain go 
 to bed. Here in a bedroom at one side lies a lady 
 fast asleep in a great bed like a satin sarcophagus. 
 The curtains are parted, and we can see " a very 
 pleasing face, extremely noble and modest ; fair, 
 with a perfect complexion, and an air of virtue and 
 natural sweetness." This is evidently the lady of 
 the house, a duchess in rank, as we may see by 
 the coronets embroidered on curtain and coverlid. 
 But where is her lord ? Where is the master of the 
 house ? Is he still revelling at court, or is he far 
 away in Holland, with the armies of France ? 
 Neither one nor the other just at present, though 
 both scenes are familiar to him. Come with me 
 into this farthest room of the suite, empty and 
 
 1 This sketch has been drawn partly from Mr. Clifton W. 
 Collins's admirable little work on Saint-Simon.
 
 SAIXT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 73 
 
 echoing, like the rest. See, I draw this curtain 
 which hangs upon the wall at the farther end. 
 Ah, you had no idea there was a door here ? 
 Indeed, it is not generally known. The door slides 
 easily, noiselessly, into the wall; let us look 
 through the opening. 
 
 In a tiny room, a cabinet, as the French call it, 
 furnished merely with a chair and a table, sits a 
 man, writing. Candles burn on the table ; sheets 
 of paper are scattered over it. The man is writing 
 furiously. His pen drives over the paper as if 
 it were alive. Occasionally he pauses and looks 
 up, tossing his hair back, and gazing straight 
 before him, as if trying to call up some image 
 before his mental vision ; then plunges at the 
 papers again, in a very fury of scribbling. In one 
 of these upward glances we see a ' pair of piercing 
 dark eyes, with a gleam in them that is not of 
 gentleness ; irregular features, without beauty, but 
 bearing the stamp of keen intelligence. Who is 
 this gentleman, who wears the dress and ornaments 
 of a courtier, and yet is writing as if he were a 
 poor penny-a-liner scribbling for his bread ? This 
 is the Due de Saint-Simon; this is the master 
 of the house : and he is writing the Memoirs of his 
 own time, for his own private delectation. Shall 
 we look over his shoulder and see what amuses 
 him, for he smiles, now as he writes, a cruel 
 smile, and his flexible eyebrows move, knitting 
 and unknitting themselves. " It must be confessed
 
 74 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 that for him who knows the court to its inmost 
 corners, the first sight of spectacles of this kind 
 [the spectacle itself must be described on the pre- 
 ceding page], so interesting in so many different 
 points of view, gives an extreme satisfaction. 
 Each face recalls to you the cares, the intrigues, 
 the intense labor employed in the advancement 
 and formation of fortunes by the aid of cabals ; 
 the skill used to hold one's own ground and get 
 rid of others ; the means of all kinds employed to 
 that end; the intimacies, more or less advanced; 
 the estrangements, the coldnesses, the hatreds, the 
 ill turns, the intrigues, the overtures, the diplo- 
 macy, the meanness, the baseness of each; the 
 disconcertment of some when half-way on their 
 road, or in the midst, or at the height of their 
 expectations, all this medley of living objects 
 and of such important details gives to him who 
 knows how to receive it a pleasure which, hollow 
 as it may seem, is one of the greatest that you can 
 receive at court." 
 
 " To him who knoivs how to receive it." Ah, 
 there sounds the keynote. And in all the noisy 
 trumpet-flourishing, drum-beating, pipe-squeaking 
 of the gilded court of Louis XIV. there was no 
 man who better knew " how to receive it," how to 
 take his impressions, than "this little Duke with 
 the piercing eye," as Sainte-Beuve calls him, 
 "cruel, insatiable, always on the chase, ferreting 
 about, present everywhere, swooping on his prey,
 
 SAINT-SIMOX AT VERSAILLES. 75 
 
 and laying waste, on all sides." Here is no cool, 
 dispassionate philosopher, looking down from calm 
 heights upon the turbulent crowd, and moralizing 
 upon their absurdities : the spirit of the times runs 
 riot in his breast ; he thinks, feels intensely, is a 
 partisan for or against. Keen satire, bitter invec- 
 tive, animated description, heartfelt admiration, 
 flow with like impetuosity from his pen, and in 
 reading his words now that two hundred years 
 have passed since the restless pen was still, we 
 live over with him the scenes he describes ; we 
 breathe the heavy-scented air of Versailles ; we hear 
 the whispering and chattering, the clank of gilded 
 swords and the frou-frou of silk and lace ; we see 
 the glances of envy, of hatred, the courtly saluta- 
 tions, the "smiles and leers and crocodile tears," 
 as the nursery rhyme puts it: the whole solemn, 
 splendid mockery of a pageant glides past our eyes. 
 The Duke has been at court all day probably. 
 He has had a chat, perhaps, with Madame, the 
 King's sister-in-law, whom he loves and respects, 
 that honest German princess, with " the figure and 
 roughness of a Swiss guard," who pined in her 
 gilded cage, longing for her beloved Heidelberg 
 and for "a good plate of sauerkraut and smoked 
 sausages." Perhaps she has been pouring into the 
 sympathetic ear of Saint-Simon her troubles in 
 regard to her son (then Due de Chartres, after- 
 wards the infamous Regent Orleans), whom the 
 King insisted on marrying to his illegitimate
 
 76 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 daughter, Mademoiselle de Blois. Great was the 
 anger of Madame at the prospect of this mesalliance ; 
 but the King commanded, and she could but obey. 
 
 Perhaps, at this very moment, the faithful re- 
 corder is writing his account of the scene. Shall 
 we peep over his shoulder again ? 
 
 " I found all the world talking in little groups, 
 and great astonishment depicted on every face. 
 Madame kept walking up and down the gallery 
 with her favorite maid-of-honor, striding along 
 with great steps, her handkerchief in her hand, 
 talking and gesticulating in a loud tone, and acting 
 admirably the part of Ceres furiously searching 
 for her daughter Proserpine, and demanding her 
 back from Jupiter. Every one left the ground 
 clear for her, and only passed through the gallery 
 on the way to the drawing-room. Monseigneur and 
 Monsieur had sat down to lansquenet ; and never 
 was anything so shamefaced and utterly discon- 
 certed as Monsieur's countenance and whole appear- 
 ance. His son seemed in despair, and the bride- 
 elect in the greatest sorrow and embarrassment. 
 
 " At supper the King showed his usual ease of 
 manner ; Madame's eyes were full of tears, which 
 fell from time to time, though she dried them now 
 and then, as she looked round at every face, as if 
 to see what they thought of it all. Her son also 
 had his eyes very red, and neither of them could 
 eat anything. I noticed that the King offered 
 Madame nearly all the dishes in front of him, and
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 77 
 
 that she refused them all with a rudeness which 
 did not in the least diminish his air of respect and 
 politeness. It was also much remarked that after 
 leaving the table, and when the circle round his 
 Majesty was dispersing, the King made a very 
 marked and low reverence to Madame, during 
 which she performed such a complete pirouette 
 that the King, as he raised his head, found nothing 
 but her back towards him, only removed a step 
 nearer the door." 
 
 Yes, and the next day he will report how 
 " Madame was at the levee, and her son approached 
 her, as he did every day, to kiss her hand. But 
 just then Madame gave him such a sounding box 
 on the ear that it was heard some paces off; and, 
 delivered as it was in the presence of the whole 
 court, it covered the unfortunate prince with con- 
 fusion, and excited prodigious astonishment in the 
 crowd of lookers-on, of whom I was one." 
 
 But this is really not fair. I have no possible 
 right to take you into M. de Saint-Simon's secret 
 cabinet in the dead of night, and let you look over 
 his shoulder, without so much as introducing him 
 to you. Let me go back, and begin properly at the 
 beginning. 
 
 The Due de Saint-Simon was the son of Claude 
 Saint-Simon, who had been a page in the service 
 of Louis XIII., and who obtained his promotion in 
 rather a singular way. It is well known that 
 Louis' greatest passion was for the chase. So
 
 78 GLfMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT, 
 
 eagerly did he follow it that he bitterly begrudged 
 the necessity of stopping to change horses when 
 one steed was ridden to the point of exhaustion. 
 This difficulty young Saint-Simon, who was a quick- 
 witted fellow, managed to do away with, by placing 
 the tail of the fresh horse that he brought, parallel 
 to the head of the other. By this ingenious device, 
 his Majesty was enabled to slip easily from one 
 saddle to the other, without putting his ro} r al foot 
 to the ground. Great was the joy of King Louis ; 
 greater, the joy of the lucky page as he found 
 himself in succession Chief Squire, First Gen- 
 tleman of the Bedchamber, Grand Wolf-hunter, 
 Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost, Captain 
 of the Palace Guard at St. Germain's, and Governor 
 of the Castle of Blaye. 
 
 Strange to say, alas, that it should be so 
 strange ! Claude Saint-Simon seems to have been 
 worthy of this rapid promotion, and to have 
 remained unspoiled by the favors so showered 
 upon him. His son describes him as " one in 
 whom some spark of the feudal spirit still burned ; 
 a hero like those of a bygone age, and the devoted 
 servant of the best and greatest of kings ; " and 
 though we may think this portrait rather highly 
 colored (especially the background, where Louis 
 XIII. shines with all-too-serene splendor), there is 
 no doubt that the elder Saint-Simon did serve his 
 master with fidelity and devotion. Even Richelieu 
 loved and trusted him, if we may judge from the
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 79 
 
 following passage in the Memoirs : " When the 
 shades of misfortune were gathering around this 
 minister, my father was often suddenly waked at 
 midnight by his bed-curtains being drawn aside by 
 a valet with a candlestick in his hand, and there 
 would be Richelieu standing behind him. And the 
 Cardinal would then take the candlestick, and seat 
 himself at the foot of the bed, crying out that he 
 was lost, and had come to my father for advice 
 and assistance, repeating some orders he had 
 received, or some passage of arms that he had just 
 had with the King." In fact, it seems to have been 
 by the help of Claude Saint-Simon that Richelieu, 
 when on the very brink of disgrace and dismissal, 
 obtained that secret interview with Louis which 
 resulted in the Day of Dupes, and the complete 
 reinstatement of the great minister in his mon- 
 arch's favor. So well did Saint-Simon love this 
 King, who is not generally thought specially lov- 
 able or attractive, that when he was called upon 
 to attend his funeral, and, in virtue of his office 
 (whether that of Chief Squire, First Gentleman 
 of the Bedchamber, Grand Wolf-hunter, Knight 
 of the Order of the Holy Ghost, Captain of the 
 Palace-Guard, or Governor of Blaye, I cannot tell 
 you), was to throw the sword of state upon the 
 coffin as it lay in the open vault, he was for the 
 moment, as he often told his son, on the point of 
 throwing himself after it. 
 
 But here we must leave this good man, saluting
 
 80 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 him first as Duke of Saint-Simon, the last and 
 most enduring of his many titles, and turn to greet 
 his son, the Vidame de Chartres, whom we find in 
 the year 1691, at the age of seventeen, wearying 
 of books and tutors, being presented at court, and 
 receiving gracious permission from Louis XIV. to 
 join the regiment of the Gray Musketeers. The next 
 year he set out to join the army in Flanders, with 
 a train of thirty-five horses and sumpter-mules, a 
 tutor, and a squire. These two gentlemen had 
 been charged by the careful mother to keep watch 
 over her young soldier ; but in the first action the 
 tutor lost both hat and wig, and was finally carried 
 off, a la John Gilpin, by his horse, a beast probably 
 of Flemish descent, who fairly took the bit in his 
 teeth, and bolted into the enemy's lines ; while the 
 squire, fired with the laudable ambition to save 
 at least one precious life, remained prudently out 
 of reach of the firing, and only came up, when all 
 was over, to congratulate his master on the bril- 
 liant success of the day. " I was so surprised and 
 indignant at his effrontery," says Saint-Simon, 
 " that I never answered him a word then, and 
 have never spoken to him since." 
 
 A magnificent campaign was this of 1692, one 
 of the last in which Louis appeared in person in 
 the field. All the princes were there, two-thirds 
 of the princesses, in fact, the court itself ; with 
 baggage-trains, camp-followers, etc., ad infinitum. 
 On the plain near Mons, Louis held a grand review
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 81 
 
 to please the ladies. One hundred and twenty 
 thousand of the finest troops in the world were 
 drawn up in a line eight miles long ; and the 
 Great Monarch caracoled up and down the line, in 
 his glory and his wig, and after him rolled the 
 gilded coaches, with Montespan and Maintenon, 
 Monsieur and Madame, Condes and Contis, and 
 Heaven (or Heaven's opposite) knows who else. 
 Then Namur was invested by Vauban, "the soul 
 of sieges," ISTamur, the maiden fortress, the 
 strongest hold in the Netherlands. All went mer- 
 rily with the besiegers till the 8th of June, when 
 Saint Meclard, the French Saint Swithin, held his 
 festival, which saint having his own views about 
 the siege, sent a deluge of rain, and raised the 
 river, and flooded the roads, and played the mis- 
 chief generally. The soldiers made bonfires of 
 the images of Saint Medard wherever they could 
 lay their hands on them ; but that did not dry up 
 the mud, in which men and horses floundered up 
 to their knees. Carts and wagons were useless for 
 transport, and everything needed for the camp, 
 from grain to gunpowder, must be carried on horse- 
 back. All the troopers were pressed into the 
 service, and cheerfully loaded their saddles with 
 sacks of corn and oats ; but when the young noble- 
 men, mousquetaires and chasseurs, were called 
 upon to do likewise, an indignant murmur went 
 up. "What! we, the flower of France, carry that 
 other flour which is spelt without a ' w ' ? Mor- 
 6
 
 82 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 bleu! parbleu! we will die sooner." Thus the 
 Gardes du Corps, flinging down, indignant, the 
 sacks of grain which should keep them and their 
 horses alive. Seeing which, and seeing also his 
 own troop about to mutiny, down sprang from his 
 horse the young Vidame de Chartres, shouldered a 
 sack, swung it across the crupper of his horse, and 
 leaped into the saddle again, calling upon his 
 mates to follow his example. Merin, the brigadier, 
 who had been foaming with rage to see his com- 
 mand disobeyed, flew to him, clapped him on the 
 shoulder, and pointed him out to the rebellious 
 troops. " The eldest son of a duke," he cried, " is 
 proud to perform this act of honorable service ! 
 Who then dares to be ashamed of it ? " A V here- 
 upon, like valiant men and true, the Gardes du 
 Corps all took up their sacks without another word, 
 and the camp was victualled, in spite of Saint 
 Medard. The moral of which is that it is a very 
 fine thing to be the eldest son of a duke, if one is 
 otherwise made of the right stuff. The King heard 
 of this, of course, and made a point of saying 
 something civil to the young mousquetaire when- 
 ever an occasion offered. 
 
 Of the siege and fall of Namur it is not my 
 province here to speak. It fell, and the court 
 returned to Versailles covered with glory, the 
 last glory that Louis was to see in person ; very 
 neaily the last that was to crown the arms of 
 France for many a long day.
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 83 
 
 In the following year (1693) old Claude de Saint- 
 Simon died, and his son was hailed as duke in his 
 place, and succeeded to his property. Even during 
 a previous illness of the old Duke, certain zealous 
 courtiers had rushed headlong to the King and 
 begged for the reversion of his offices ; but Louis 
 replied, with some sternness, " Has he not a son ? " 
 and the hint was taken. Behold our hero, there- 
 fore, a duke at nineteen years, with a country-seat 
 (Le Ferte Vidame), and a house in Paris, fairly 
 launched into the great world. An aristocrat of 
 the aristocrats, considering the dukes of France 
 the only legitimate support of the throne, any 
 attempt upon the dignity of a peer of France he 
 regards as a personal affront to himself. Witness 
 the suit which he persuaded his brother peers to 
 bring against Luxembourg, the great marshal, the 
 successor of Conde and Turenne, now at the head 
 of the armies of France. Greatly did Saint-Simon 
 admire the genius of the commander, to which he 
 pays ample tribute ; but think now what a hor- 
 rible thing this brilliant commander had done ! 
 He had claimed the dormant title of the Duke of 
 Piney, a title dating from 1581, and giving pre- 
 cedence over every duke in France save one. In 
 order to make good this claim, he had "ferreted 
 out" the daughter and heiress of the last Duke 
 of Piney, a daughter by his second wife, mark 
 you! and had feloniously married her, in spite 
 of her being "hideously ugly, like some fright-
 
 84 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 fully fat fishwoman in her cask ; " and to make 
 assurance doubly sure, he had bribed the real 
 heirs an imbecile priest and a nun, children of 
 the Duke by his first wife to give up all claim 
 to title or estate. Finally, he had managed to 
 obtain new letters-patent, and fairly got himself 
 created Duke of Piney. One would think that if 
 he really wanted to be duke enough to take so 
 much trouble (" fishwoman " and all) upon him- 
 self, he ought to have been allowed that gratifica- 
 tion. But our ideas on such subjects are wofully 
 lax. In the eyes of Saint-Simon, this was a hid- 
 eous crime. The ancient title was extinct ; or if 
 any one was to bear it, it was the idiot priest in 
 the madhouse. Why, in the name of heraldry 
 and feudalism, why should Luxembourg have it ? 
 Rouse ye, Dukes of France, and prevent this out- 
 rage ! Support your order, which supports the 
 throne, which supports France, which supports 
 the world! 
 
 The Dukes roused themselves, rather lan- 
 guidly, it must be confessed. They joined Saint- 
 Simon in bringing a lawsuit against the marshal ; 
 but, alas ! it was a forlorn hope from the outset. 
 Luxembourg was the hero of the hour. He had 
 led the armies to victory, to glory. He was dux de 
 facto ; why should he not be duke de jure ? Thus 
 the ladies, and the rising generation, and the world 
 in general, except the Dukes. The trial dragged 
 on, with various delays and difficulties. Luxein-
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 85 
 
 bourg died; but that made no difference, for he 
 had a son. Finally, judgment was given in favor 
 of the son, and his descendants may call them- 
 selves Dukes of Piney to this day, for aught I 
 know to the contrary. Bitter was the wrath of 
 Saint-Simon, against the iniquitous processes of 
 the law in general; in particular against Haiiay, 
 the First President, to whose treachery and villany 
 he attributes the loss of the suit. One hardly 
 knows how much or how little to believe of our 
 writer's violent abuse of this eminent lawyer, 
 whose talent and learning he acknowledges, while 
 he assures us that he was " destitute of real honor, 
 secretly depraved in morals, with only a show of 
 honesty, without even humanity, in a word, a 
 perfect hypocrite ; without a faith, without a law, 
 without a God, and without a soul; a cruel hus- 
 band, a barbarous father, a tyrannical brother; 
 no one's friend but his own ; wicked by nature ; 
 taking delight in insulting, outraging, and crushing 
 others, and having never, during all his life, missed 
 a chance of doing so." Not content with this 
 sweeping denunciation, Saint-Simon goes on to 
 relate, in his inimitable manner, various stories 
 of the First President's keen and not too kindly 
 humor. Here is one of them: "The Duchess of 
 La Fertc went to him [Harlay] to ask an audience, 
 and, like every one else, had a taste of his temper. 
 As she was leaving, she complained to her man of 
 business, and called the First President 'an old
 
 86 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 baboon.' He was following her all the while, but 
 did not say a word. At last she saw him behind 
 her, but hoped that he had not overheard, and, 
 without giving any sign of having done so, he put 
 her in her carriage. 
 
 " Shortly afterwards her suit came on [before 
 Haiiay], and she unexpectedly gained her cause. 
 Off she ran to the First President's house, and 
 made all kinds of acknowledgments. He, all 
 humble and modest, made her a deep reverence ; 
 and then, looking her straight in the face, 'Ma- 
 dame,' said he, in a loud voice before everybody, 
 'I am very glad that an old baboon [un vieux 
 singe'] has been able to give some pleasure to an 
 old she-monkey' [une vieille guenon\. And then, 
 in his humblest manner, without saying another 
 Avord, he gave her his hand to conduct her to her 
 carriage. The Duchess would have liked to kill 
 him, or die herself." 
 
 While the famous suit was pending, Saint-Simon 
 married a daughter of Marshal de Lorges, a lovely 
 young girl, whom he loved devotedly, and who 
 made, he says, the happiness of his life. When 
 the next campaign opened, he naturally did not 
 care to serve again under Luxembourg, but man- 
 aged to get himself transferred to the Army of the 
 Rhine, under his father-in-law, De Lorges. He 
 tells us little about this campaign ; but we do learn 
 the astounding fact that the old marshal had a fit 
 of illness, and that his fond son-in-law saved his
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 87 
 
 life by giving him one hundred and thirty English 
 drops, which had "an astonishing effect." One 
 would think they might have, considering what 
 medicine was in those days. Also, he tells us 
 how, in Flanders, a great opportunity was lost, 
 through the poltroonery of the Duke of Maine, 
 the King's favorite son. Message after message 
 was sent to him from headquarters, urging him to 
 attack the enemy, whose army lay in exposed posi- 
 tion; but he "stammered out excuses," and finally 
 allowed the Flemings to slip away unmolested. 
 All the officers were in despair, but none dared 
 tell the King. Louis, however, suspected something 
 in the reports, and finally, by cross-questioning a 
 valet, learned the story of his darling son's dis- 
 grace. He was so angry, Saint-Simon tells us, 
 that he felt the necessity of giving vent to his 
 rage in some way; and happening, as he left the 
 table, to see an unlucky servant slip a biscuit into 
 his pocket, this Great King fell upon the culprit 
 and beat him about the shoulders till his cane 
 broke in two, while all the on-lookers trembled. 
 Thus did "this prince, outwardly so calm, and 
 such a master of his slighest movements, even 
 when events touched him most nearly, succumb 
 on this single occasion." (N. B. Chevreul tells 
 us that, not Maine, but Villeroy, was to blame for 
 this victory manque, and that only Saint- Simon's 
 vindictive hatred of the Bastard made him lay the 
 blame on his shoulders.)
 
 88 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 After the Peace of Ryswick, Saint-Simon threw 
 up his commission, being offended at the promotion 
 of five younger officers over his head. His letter 
 to the King, announcing his intention of quitting 
 the army, was couched in respectful and submis- 
 sive terms, and made ill-health the plea for his 
 defection ; but Louis saw through the device, and 
 was offended. " See, Monsieur ! " he exclaimed, 
 with emotion, to Chamillart, showing him the 
 letter, " here is another man leaving us." It was 
 with some trepidation that Saint-Simon, after wait- 
 ing eight days after sending his letter, and hearing 
 nothing from the King in reply, ventured to pre- 
 sent himself at Versailles. Himself shall tell 
 how he sped. 
 
 " I did not hear of anything else that fell from 
 him. This Shrove Tuesday I reappeared before 
 him for the first time since my letter, on his retir- 
 ing after his supper. I should be ashamed to tell 
 the trifle that I am about to narrate, if it did not 
 help to characterize him under the circumstances. 
 Although the place where he undressed was well 
 lighted, the almoner of the day, who held a lighted 
 candle at his evening prayer, gave it back after- 
 wards to the first valet-de-chambre, who carried it 
 before the King as he resumed his seat. He 
 glanced around, and named aloud one of those 
 present, to whom the valet gave the candle. It 
 was a distinction and a favor which had its value, 
 so adroit was the King in making something out of
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 89 
 
 nothings. He only gave it to those who were most 
 distinguished by dignity and birth, very rarely to 
 inferiors, in whom age and service sufficed. He 
 often gave it to me, rarely to ambassadors, except 
 to the nuncio, and in later times to the Spanish 
 ambassador. 
 
 " You took off your glove ; you came forward ; 
 you held the candle during the coucher, which was 
 very short ; you then gave it back to the first 
 valet-de-chambre, who, if he chose, gave it to some 
 one of the petit coucher. 
 
 " I had purposely kept back ; and I was much 
 surprised, as were the bystanders, to hear myself 
 named ; and on future occasions I had it almost as 
 often as before. It was not that there were not 
 in attendance many persons of mark to whom it 
 might have been given, but the King was sufficiently 
 piqued to wish that his being so should not be 
 perceived. 
 
 " This was also all I had of him for three years ; 
 during which he forgot no trifle, in default of more 
 important occasions, to make me feel how offended 
 he was." 
 
 The coldness of the King to Saint-Simon con- 
 tinued till 1703,. when he committed a second 
 offence, which, however, led to a reconciliation 
 between him and his sovereign. 
 
 On certain feast-days it was the custom, after 
 mass and vespers, for some lady of the court, 
 selected by the Queen or the Dauphiness, to go
 
 90 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 round the chapel and take up the collection for the 
 poor. Now, the ladies of the House of Lorraine, 
 who were very high and mighty, and claimed to 
 be on a level with princesses of the blood, thought 
 this duty beneath them, and evaded it in con- 
 sequence. Saint-Simon, who hated the House of 
 Lorraine on account of their tracasseries, scented 
 instantly an insult to his cherished order of dukes, 
 the support of the throne, etc. If it was not proper 
 for the ladies of Lorraine to carry the bag, it was not 
 proper for the other duchesses. To work he went, 
 got up a cabal among the great ladies, and induced 
 them all, or nearly all, to evade, in one way or 
 another, the degrading task ; so that the collection 
 became irregular, and seemed in a fair way to be 
 given up altogether. 
 
 But this was going a little too far. When the 
 matter reached the King's ears, he was much in- 
 censed, and vowed that the bag should be carried 
 round, if the Duchess of Burgundy herself (wife of 
 the Grand Dauphin) had to carry it. As for Saint- 
 Simon, his Majesty declared that " he had done 
 nothing since he quitted the service but study 
 degrees of rank and get into squabbles with every- 
 body ; that he was the originator of all this 
 (which was perfectly true) ; and that if he had his 
 deserts, he would be sent so far off as to give no 
 more trouble for a long time to come." 
 
 This was terrible indeed ; but Saint-Simon was 
 equal to the emergency. He begged for an audi-
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 91 
 
 ence, threw himself at the King's feet, deplored the 
 misunderstanding, and professed himself ready to 
 carry the bag himself at any moment, if his Majesty 
 wished it. He maintained his point, however, 
 arguing that if one carried it, all ought to do so, 
 and that princesses should be no more exempt 
 than duchesses. The freedom of his language, he 
 tells us, conciliated instead of offending the King ; 
 and the audience, prolonged as a mark of special 
 favor to the unusual length of half an hour, was so 
 successful that Monsieur the Duke put on many 
 airs after it, telling the other courtiers that it 
 would be better for them if they were as careful 
 of the interests and privileges of their order as 
 he was. 
 
 Still, this brilliant moth could not keep away 
 from the candle of court intrigue, and once and twice 
 again he singed his wings. Now he was protest- 
 ing against the insolence of Monsieur le Due (de 
 Conde, grandson of the great Conde), who ventured 
 to hold up a corner of the cloth at the King's 
 communion without the assistance of another 
 duke, a thing that no one save a prince of the 
 blood had a right to do ; now he was making a bet 
 that Vendome would lose, without a battle, the town 
 of Lille, which he had been sent to relieve. As 
 Vendome was then high in the royal favor, this was 
 not exactly a prudent thing to do; nor did the 
 fact of Saint-Simon's winning the wager make 
 matters better. A storm seemed to be gathering,
 
 92 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 and our hero took serious counsel with his wife 
 and friends as to the advisability of his retiring 
 altogether from the court, and living permanently 
 at his country-seat. But his counsellors said, 
 " No ! " and indeed it was the last thing the Duke 
 desired for his own part. Something must be done, 
 however ; so he ventured on the bold step of asking 
 another audience of offended Majesty. It was not 
 very easy to obtain this time, but he finally 
 succeeded, made the best apology he could for the 
 wager, and then proceeded to answer various 
 charges which he supposed to have been brought 
 against him. The King was gracious enough, but 
 told him plainly that if evil tongues had been busy 
 about him, he had only himself to thank. " This 
 shows you," added his Majesty, with a truly 
 paternal air, "on what footing you are in the 
 world ; and you must own that you in some measure 
 merit this reputation. If you had never been 
 engaged in affairs of ranks ; if at least you had not 
 appeared so excited about those that have arisen, 
 and about the ranks themselves, people would not 
 have had that to say of you." 
 
 Briefly, the audience was far above what the 
 Duke had ventured to hope, and not long after, on 
 Sunday, June 5th, 1710, the King informed the 
 enraptured nobleman that his wife was appointed 
 lady of honor to the future Duchesse de Berry, as 
 a mark of esteem for her virtue and merit. Then, 
 after saying "all sorts of obliging things," his
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 93 
 
 Majesty, " fixing Saint-Simon " with a look and 
 smile meant to be winning, added, " But you must 
 hold your tongue ! " 
 
 Henceforward, all went well with the Saint- 
 Simons. The salary and appointments were liberal, 
 and a delightful apartment was given them at 
 Versailles, Antin being turned out of his quarters 
 for that purpose. Do you know Antin, by the way ? 
 Saint-Simon, who took his room, shall tell you all 
 about him. The only legitimate son of Madame 
 de Montespan, and half-brother of the Dukes of 
 Maine and Toulouse, he was a figure of some impor- 
 tance ; moreover, he is the character which Saint- 
 Simon selects as the typical courtier, the courtier 
 par excellence. Gifted with almost every mental 
 and bodily accomplishment, handsome, learned, 
 witty, with perfect manners and thorough knowl- 
 edge of the world, he possessed one quality rarer 
 than all these, " never did he chance to speak 
 ill of any one." But with all these good points, we 
 are nevertheless not to have any good opinion of 
 him, says our writer ; for he was " an impudent 
 Gascon,'' base, false, avaricious, a gambler, a 
 cheat, and worst of all a coward. He had 
 showed his back to the foe, and accepted the 
 grossest insults without attempt at retaliation. It 
 was considered disgraceful to insult Antin, as if, 
 in our own day, one should strike a woman. 
 
 In spite of all this, the handsome silken courtier 
 was immensely popular. His witty sallies amused
 
 94 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 the weary King ; and what a godsend that was ! He 
 was always ready to gamble with Monseigneur the 
 exemplary Dauphin ; he cheated a good deal, but 
 Monseigneur did not mind that. "Pray, Mon- 
 seigneur," said the King to his son one day, "is it 
 true that while you were playing and gaining 
 heavily, you gave your hat to Antin to hold while 
 you threw your winnings into it, and that, turning 
 your head by chance, you saw Antin pocketing the 
 money?" Monsieur bowed in silence. " I under- 
 stand," said the King ; " I ask nothing more." And 
 thereupon they separated. Yes, and the valet who 
 overheard them ran and told the first squire, who 
 ran and told Saint-Simon, who scribbled it gleefully 
 in his note-book. Antin, however, does not seem 
 to have been successful in charming that " discreet 
 fairy," Madame de Maintenon. We are told that 
 when she and the King paid him a visit at Petit 
 Bourg, he wished to pay the great lady the most 
 delicate compliment possible : so he copied her 
 rooms at Versailles, down to the most minute 
 details; and when she was ushered into her bou- 
 doir, she found everything just as she had left it 
 at home, the same carpets, curtains, pictures, 
 ornaments, the same flowers in the jardinieres ; 
 nay, the same books on the table, left open at the 
 same places ! 
 
 But the great lady was not pleased, all the same. 
 Perhaps, indeed, she was tired of her own rooms, 
 and would rather have seen new hangings and
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 95 
 
 bric-a-brac, which shows that even silken courtiers 
 do not always understand a woman. 
 
 The King, however, was delighted with Petit 
 Bourg. " Everything was," says Saint-Simon, 
 " highly approved of, except an avenue of chestnut- 
 trees, which looked wonderfully well in the garden, 
 but which interfered somewhat with the view from 
 Majesty's window." Antin said nothing ; but next 
 morning, when Majesty embellished the world by 
 looking out upon it, the chestnut-trees were gone. 
 Xo sound had been heard in the night ; no axe- 
 stroke ringing through the silence had checked for 
 an instant the murmurous music of deep repose 
 which swelled from beneath the royal night-cap. 
 Smooth green turf stretched beneath the windows, 
 with no trace of disturbance, no sign to show that 
 a tree had ever been there. Such magic can 
 loving loyalty, backed by gold pieces judiciously 
 pocketed, work upon the base and material forces 
 of Nature. 
 
 But to go back to Saint-Simon, whom we left 
 comfortably established in the apartment for- 
 merly occupied by Antin at Versailles. Here he 
 and his fair and good wife lived in peace, and 
 here, in the little dark cabinet at the back of 
 the salon, were written the notes which were 
 to result in the famous Memoirs. All day the 
 Duke hovered about the court, a sharp-eyed little 
 bee with a particularly well-developed sting ; 
 every night he wrote in secret, dipping bis pen in
 
 98 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 mingled honey and venom, the record of the day. 
 A bee among the butterflies ! Is it wonderful that 
 he was not popular among the gilded courtiers ? 
 No one suspected what he was doing, or dreamed 
 of the unerring detective camera which his ruffled 
 bosom presented to their follies and foibles ; but 
 they knew that he watched them, that he criti- 
 cised them. Every sharp thing he said and he 
 said many was whispered about, embellished a 
 little or a great deal, and so brought to the ears 
 of the person of whom it was said. Ah, but 
 if they had known all he did not say, how the 
 whole butterfly court would have turned into a 
 hornet's nest about his ears ! Monseigneur the 
 Dauphin knew that Saint-Simon had called him 
 a great imbecile whom any one could lead by 
 the nose, and hated him in consequence. But 
 what would he have said, could he have read the 
 Avhole tremendous indictment of himself, as we 
 can read it ? " As to character, Monseigneur had 
 none. He was without vice or virtue, without 
 talent or any sort of knowledge, and radically in- 
 capable of acquiring any. Extremely lazy, with- 
 out imagination or originality, without refinement, 
 without taste, without discernment ; born to be 
 the prey of a weariness which he imparted to 
 others, and to be a stone set rolling haphazard 
 by another's impulsion ; obstinate and excessively 
 mean in everything ; easily prejudiced beyond 
 all conception, and ready to believe everything
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 97 
 
 he saw ; given over to the most mischievous 
 hands, and incapable of either extricating himself 
 or perceiving his position ; drowned in his fat and 
 his mental darkness, so that, without wishing 
 to do wrong, he would have made a most pernicious 
 king." This most undesirable prince died, as is 
 well known, in 1711, and one of the most mar- 
 vellous chapters in the Memoirs is that which 
 describes the scene at Versailles when the news of 
 his death arrived from Meuclon. The courtiers 
 gathered together in the Long Gallery, rushing 
 pell-mell, elbowing, jostling, struggling to get near 
 the messenger. Princes in their night-gear (for 
 it was near midnight when the tidings arrived), 
 with their wigs clapped on hastily, all awry ; 
 princesses and duchesses huddling on their clothes 
 as they came ; cries of wonder, of pity ; looks of 
 rage, of sorrow, or of ill-concealed joy as the faces 
 were those of the " Meudon faction " or of the 
 opposite one. The Duke of Burgundy, son of the 
 departed sinner, " was strongly moved, showing 
 natural sorrow ; " his charming wife was graceful 
 and compassionate, with a look of troubled gravity. 
 The majority of the courtiers, " that is, the fools, 
 dragged out their sighs with their nails, and with 
 dry and wandering eyes praised the departed 
 prince." As for Saint-Simon himself, he describes 
 his emotions with absolute frankness. " My first 
 movement was to inform myself more than once, 
 to withhold full belief in what I saw and heard ; 
 
 7
 
 98 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 then to fear too little cause for so much alarm ; 
 finally to fall back on myself by the consideration 
 of the suffering common to all men, and that I 
 should some day or other find myself at the gates 
 of death. Joy, however, pierced through the momen- 
 tary reflections of religion and humanity by which 
 I tried to check myself; my particular deliverance 
 seemed to me so great and so unhoped-for that it 
 seemed to me, with an evidence still more perfect 
 than the truth, that the State gained all by such 
 a loss. Amongst these thoughts, I felt in my 
 own despite a shade of fear that the dying man 
 might recover ; and I was extremely ashamed 
 of it." 
 
 The young Duke of Burgundy, now heir to the 
 throne, was Saint-Simon's idol, the hope of France, 
 the coming glory, as his admirer fondly hoped, of 
 the world. He had been a headstrong boy, but 
 Fenelon had worked a miracle upon him, and he 
 was now grave, earnest, deeply religious, taking as 
 the keynote of his future life a sentence which he 
 had dared to utter even in his father's drawing- 
 room : " Kings are made for the people, and not the 
 people for the king." Alas ! the bright promise 
 was not to be fulfilled. Nine months after Mon- 
 seigneur's death, the lovely young wife of the 
 Dauphin, a creature so blithesome and gracious 
 that the caustic pen of Saint-Simon seems dipped 
 in milk of roses when he writes of her, sickened of a 
 mysterious disease, a flame of fever which burned
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 99 
 
 the sweet young life out in a few short days. She 
 had taken some Spanish snuff, says Saint-Simon, 
 which the Due de Noailles had given her, and was 
 stricken down the same night. While she lay 
 dying, her husband was attacked by the same 
 symptoms. He lingered at her bedside till his 
 strength gave way utterly, and then was carried 
 to his own couch, never to leave it alive. For 
 only a few days these two young creatures, who 
 loved each other, were separated. Scarcely were 
 their sufferings at an end when their two little 
 children were attacked by measles. One died ; the 
 other, a feeble, puny little creature, lived to encum- 
 ber the throne of France as Louis XV. 
 
 Men shuddered and turned pale as one fatality 
 after another swept away the heirs to the throne. 
 Terrible things were whispered about concerning 
 the Duke of Orleans. He had committed many 
 crimes, had been suspected of many more ; and 
 now it was said that he had poisoned the Dauphin, 
 his wife and child, to clear a path for himself to 
 the throne. But there seems to be no real foun- 
 dation for the suspicion ; and even if there were, 
 with Philip of Orleans we have nothing now 
 to do. 
 
 Darker and darker, Kembrandt-like in their sin- 
 ister gloom, grow the pictures that Saint-Simon 
 shows us with his magic-lantern. Heartbroken at 
 the loss of his prince, he sees only ruin and despair 
 for France.
 
 100 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 The aged King, bereft of his children, shorn of 
 glory and honor, cowering silent in his dismal 
 chamber at Marly ; the wrinkled hag beside him, 
 " a living skeleton," also silent, revolving thoughts 
 of heaven (for herself) and hell (for others) ; 
 the weary court, forced to dance attendance on 
 these two living mummies, stifling their yawns, 
 and going on year by year with the dreary round 
 of empty ceremonies ; the nightmare of the Re- 
 gency, with its foul shapes and hideous orgies, 
 all these pass before our eyes, draAvn with the 
 same unsparing fidelity, the same keen perception 
 and insight. But here is enough for one sketch. 
 There are twenty volumes of these Memoirs, and I 
 may return to them again. Take we for the pres- 
 ent our leave of Saint-Simon, passing the last years 
 of his life quietly at his country-seat of La Ferte 
 Yidame, writing, correcting, polishing the work, 
 which was not to be published as a whole for nearly 
 a hundred and fifty years, but which when finally 
 produced, threw a flood of light on the times and 
 the people of the times such as no other writer 
 has ever given. In saying farewell to our Duke, 
 we say it also to France for a season. Farewell, 
 to Versailles and its gilded butterflies, farewell to 
 Paris, that vast cauldron, in which already are 
 beginning to seethe and ferment many strange 
 things, threatening ebullition hereafter; farewell 
 to the desolate and fainting country, racked and
 
 SAINT-SIMON AT VERSAILLES. 101 
 
 tortured till one wonders that there should be any 
 life left in her. 
 
 Farewell, in short, to a magnificent house of 
 cards, glittering, glorious, with Kings and Queens 
 and Knaves to heart's desire, a splendid house of 
 cards, securely and strongly built in the crater 
 of a volcano.
 
 AN ODD VOLUME. 
 
 IN preparing the foregoing sketch of Saint- 
 Simon, it is not to be supposed that I had read 
 the whole of the Memoirs ; far from it. There 
 are twenty volumes, large, solid octavos, in green- 
 gray paper covers. I do not even own them. But 
 once a year it is my good fortune to spend a week 
 or two in the house where the twenty volumes 
 live ; and there on sleepy afternoons, when the 
 sofa and the shady corner invite to repose, I take 
 one of my green-gray friends, and settle myself 
 comfortably among the pillows, and have a delight- 
 ful hour or two. Sometimes the volume is dull : 
 it may be almost taken up with pedigrees, and the 
 reasons why the Duke of Pompon had no right to 
 put forward his right foot instead of his left when 
 he presented the Soap-dish for the washing of the 
 Eoyal Hands. But if it is dull, I go to sleep, and 
 on waking get another volume instead. I have 
 never fallen upon two dull ones in succession. And 
 sometimes I find most delightful things, such 
 queer stories that I am fain to take paper and 
 pencil and write them down. 
 
 From one special volume I have made a good 
 many notes since I wrote my first sketch of the
 
 AN ODD VOLUME. 103 
 
 terrible little Duke, in fact, I have a bundle of 
 them now before me, and am minded to copy some 
 of them very much as they stand. 
 
 On the first scrap of paper I find an account of 
 the tragic end of La Varenne, Henry the Fourth's 
 body-servant, and "Mercury" of the pleasures of 
 that gallant and volatile monarch. La Varenne 
 began life as a scullion, and after a while rose to 
 be cook, and. a good cook too. Being an ambitious 
 fellow, with a quick eye, moreover, and a merry 
 tongue and ready wit, he managed to attract the 
 notice of the King, and bowed and smiled himself 
 up from one position to another, till he gained the 
 confidence of his royal master, who found him of 
 great assistance in his numerous love-affairs. 
 
 To be in favor with the King is to be idolized by 
 the court. Great people bowed to La Varenne ; 
 dukes had an affable word, and perhaps something 
 more than a word, for him ; stately marchionesses 
 nodded graciously to him, and made him pretty 
 little condescending speeches. By hook or by 
 crook (perhaps the latter word expresses his 
 methods better), La Varenne grew rich, even enor- 
 mously rich, and forgot that he had been a cook. 
 Grew pious also, and was largely instrumental in 
 re-establishing the Jesuits in France. Finally, 
 after the death of Henry IV., he retired to the 
 monastery of La Fleche, and prepared to make his 
 salvation, as they say in France. Between the 
 pangs of remorse he amused himself with hunting
 
 104 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 and hawking in the wooded country around the 
 monastery ; and so it chanced upon a day that he 
 was " flying a magpie" (I never knew that one did 
 fly magpies ; but that is neither here nor there), 
 when suddenly the bird perched on the branch of a 
 tree, and turning its head towards the pious sports- 
 man, cried out, "Mackerel!" La Varenne was 
 thunderstruck ; trembled in every limb, and felt 
 that a miracle had occurred. In vain his followers 
 tried to reassure him, saying that this bird had be- 
 longed to a man of the neighboring village, who 
 had taught it to speak. No ; La Varenne did not 
 believe a word of it. Balaam had been reproved 
 by an ass, why not he by a magpie ? His sins 
 were brought before him. " Mackerel ! " That is 
 to say, " This is the man that cooked the mackerel, 
 that bought the mackerel, that cheated his master in 
 regard to the mackerel. This is the cook, the cook, 
 the rascal cook, who is pranking it here as a great 
 man, and making his salvation, and singing psalms 
 1 entuned in his nose ful fetysly.' This is the cook, 
 the rascal cook, who is now found out, and shall 
 perish in his misdoings." Now, we never should 
 have imagined that " mackerel " meant all that ; 
 but it did mean it to poor La Varenne. " He left the 
 chase," says Saint-Simon, " went home, took to his 
 bed, sickened of a fever, and died in three days." 
 
 Let this be a warning to all cooks ! 
 
 What is the next note ? Oh, it is about Monsieur 
 the Duke of Chevreuse, that excellent man, who
 
 ;lxV ODD VOLUME. 105 
 
 was a little absent-minded. It appears that his 
 horses were often kept harnessed twelve or fifteen 
 hours at a time, his dukeship ordering them, and 
 straightway forgetting that he had done so. On 
 one such occasion the postilion became weary, and 
 went off, leaving the horses to their own devices. 
 The animals, after waiting as much longer as equine 
 patience is greater than human, determined to take 
 matters into their own hands, or rather feet. A 
 frightful noise was heard in the court-yard, and 
 every one ran out. There was the carriage, broken 
 into "smithereens." The gates were smashed, the 
 fences battered down, the whole place in the utmost 
 disorder, the exasperated horses dancing about on 
 their hind-legs amid the ruin they had wrought. 
 Every one was in confusion, we are told, except 
 the owner of the carriage, who, hearing no noise 
 whatever, continued to work tranquilly at his desk. 
 Another day the Duke's steward, Sconin by name, 
 came from the country to see him on matters of 
 business, and sending in his name, was requested 
 to walk for half-an-hour in the garden, and then 
 return. The half-hour passed, and many other 
 half-hours. M. de Chevreuse spent the day in 
 cheerful industry, and was told at seven o'clock in 
 the evening that his steward was waiting to see 
 him. Overwhelmed with self-reproach, the good 
 Duke sent for him to come instantly. 
 
 " Ah, my poor Sconin," he cried, as the patient 
 waiter entered, hat in hand, " I owe you many,
 
 106 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 many apologies for having made you lose your 
 whole day ! " 
 
 " Not at all, my Lord Duke," replied Sconin, 
 with deferential smiles. " I have had the honor of 
 knowing your lordship these many years ; and 
 perceiving this morning that the half-hour was 
 likely to be a long one, I went to Paris, where I 
 have spent the day attending to various affairs ; 
 and I am but just returned to place myself at your 
 lordship's service." 
 
 This reminds me of La Bruyere's famous " char- 
 acter" of the absent-minded man, in which he 
 describes, under the name of Menalcas, a certain 
 unhappy Brancas, the butt of the court: 
 
 " Menalcas comes downstairs, opens the door, 
 shuts it again : he perceives that his nightcap is 
 still on ; and examining himself a little better, 
 finds but one half of his face shaved, his sword on 
 his right side, and his stockings hanging about his 
 heels. If he walks into the street, he feels some- 
 thing strike him on the face or stomach ; he cannot 
 imagine what it is, till, opening his eyes and look- 
 ing, he finds himself before the shaft of a cart, or 
 behind a plank on a carpenter's shoulders. He has 
 been seen to run against a blind man, push him 
 backwards, and fall over him. He enters the 
 drawing-room, and passing under a sconce, his 
 periwig hitches, and is left hanging. The courtiers 
 stare and laugh ; Menalcas, too, joins in the laugh, 
 and looks about for the poor mortified Baldpate,
 
 AN ODD VOLUME. 107 
 
 who has lost his wig. In his walks he takes it into 
 his head that he is out of his way, is in a fret, 
 stands still, and asks such as pass by where he is. 
 They tell him, in the very street where he lives. 
 He enters his own house, runs out in haste, fancy- 
 ing himself mistaken. He comes out of the palace, 
 and finding a coach at the steps, takes it to be his 
 own, throws himself into it ; the coachman whips 
 on, thinking all the while he is driving his master 
 home. Menalcas leaps out, crosses the courtyard, 
 trips upstairs, runs into the apartment, where he 
 sits down and reposes himself as at his own house. 
 The master of the house coming in, he rises up to 
 receive him, treats him very ceremoniously, prays 
 him to sit, and believes he is paying the civilities 
 he uses to his visitants. He talks, muses, and 
 talks again. The master of the house is tired and 
 astonished, and Menalcas as much as he ; he will 
 not say what he thinks, but supposes the other to 
 be some very impertinent and idle person, who will 
 at last think fit to withdraw. He bears with this 
 odd person, yet it may be night before Menalcas 
 finds himself in the wrong place. This is he who, 
 coming into a church, and taking the blind man at 
 the door for a pillar, and his dish for the holy-water 
 pot, dips in his hand and crosses his forehead, 
 when on a sudden he hears the pillar speak and 
 beg his alms. He walks towards the choir, where, 
 fancying to see a desk, he throws himself on his 
 knees. The machine bends, pushes him, and strives
 
 108 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 to cry out; Menalcas is surprised to find himself 
 kneeling on the legs of a very little man, resting 
 against his back, his two arms over his shoulders, 
 and his joined hands taking him by the nose and 
 stopping his mouth. He retires confused, and 
 kneeling elsewhere, takes out of his pocket a 
 prayer-book, as he thinks ; but it is only a slipper 
 which he had inadvertently pocketed. While he 
 was playing at backgammon, he called for a glass 
 of lemonade : the cast was his, and having the box 
 in one hand, and the glass in the other, being very 
 thirsty, he gulps down the dice, and almost the 
 box, while the liquor is impetuously thrown on the 
 table, and half drowns his antagonist." And so 
 on, through six pages more of the dear little brown 
 book where wit and wisdom " compacted lie." 
 
 But let us return to Saint-Simon. On my next 
 slip of paper is an account of the Duke of Mazarin, 
 who " died in 1712, on his estates, to which he 
 retired some thirty years ago." " He was over 
 eighty years old," says Saint-Simon, " and was no 
 loss to any one, so much had a certain singularity 
 of mind perverted excellent natural gifts." He 
 then goes on to say that the contemporaries of 
 this so undesirable Duke remembered the time 
 when he was agreeable and witty, and the best 
 company in the world ; was well-instructed, mag- 
 nificent, possessing exquisite taste, a favorite with 
 the King, and enormously rich. But in his later 
 years a singular thing happened to him. He was
 
 AN ODD VOLUME. 109 
 
 attacked with piety as with a disease. Repenting 
 of his own sins, he conceived it to be his duty to 
 convert the Grand Monarque, and made many 
 attempts ; and finding himself become obnoxious to 
 his once loving sovereign, he retired to his splendid 
 country-seat, where he gave full rein to his pious 
 eccentricities, to what we should call to-day his 
 religious mania. In ordering his household, he 
 chose his officers by lot, "being assured that in 
 this way he should learn the exact will of God in 
 each particular case." Thus his scullion became his 
 steward, his steward was turned into the kitchen, 
 and ordered to assume the scullion's apron and 
 scour the soup-kettle ; the gardener mounted the 
 coach-box, while the coachman did dreadful things 
 with the cabbages and roses. Soon the Duke cast 
 eyes of pious horror on the long galleries in which 
 reposed the magnificent collection of objects of art 
 amassed during patient years of toil by his uncle 
 the Cardinal, and bequeathed by him "as a rich 
 legacy to his issue ; " namely, to our eccentric Duke. 
 Here were antique statues, priceless treasures of 
 Greek art ; here were Raphaels and Titians, and 
 I know not what other precious things. Yes, 
 but they were irreligious, perhaps immoral ; they 
 attracted the eye by their meretricious beauty, 
 they drew the mind away from the contemplation 
 of its sins. Away with them ! And the Duke took 
 a hammer, yes, he did, and smashed the finest 
 statues, and daubed red paint over the most
 
 110 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 beautiful pictures, and ramped and raged through 
 the noble gallery till it was a piteous scene of 
 wrack and ruin. 
 
 One night the castle great castle of Mazarin, 
 rich and splendid, with towers and fantastic 
 pinnacles and all manner of magnificence caught 
 fire. It was crammed from cellar to roof with 
 treasures, fruits of the Cardinal's long time of 
 cunning greed. The affrighted servants ran to the 
 rescue, and fought the fire like valiant Frenchmen, 
 with buckets of water, with hand-engines, finally, 
 with success. And the Duke stood screaming and 
 stamping the while, calling down curses upon the 
 impudent scoundrels who dared to oppose the good 
 pleasure of the Lord God. 
 
 It was a great joy to the Duke when any one 
 brought a lawsuit against him : if he lost it, he 
 ceased to possess something which did not belong 
 to him ; if he gained, he was absolutely sure that 
 it was his by right. He drove his servants to 
 desperation by incessant inquiries into the motives 
 of every action of their lives. His daughters 
 growing up comely and pleasant to look upon, he 
 resolved to have all their front teeth pulled out, 
 for fear they should become vain of their good 
 looks. Possessed at one time by a restless spirit, 
 he travelled about for several years from place to 
 place, carrying with him the body of his wife, who 
 had died in England. She was his cousin, the once 
 beautiful and always superb Hortense Mancini.
 
 JA r ODD VOLUME. Ill 
 
 She had led a wild, strange, wholly unprofitable 
 life since the days when her youthful beauty and 
 brilliance enchanted the French court, and a crowd 
 of illustrious suitors (among them Charles II. of 
 England himself, then a crownless exile) sued for 
 her lovely hand. Married to her cousin the Duke, 
 she soon found him unendurable, abandoned her 
 vast wealth, and fled to Rome, to Piedmont, where 
 not ? One has glimpses of her, now riding by 
 night " in a horse-boy's trim," now pranking it like 
 a peacock before the astonished eyes of Italian 
 dames and maidens ; but she finally grew weary, and 
 settled in England. She was in the King's gallery 
 at Whitehall the night before Charles was seized 
 with his last illness : you can read all about it in 
 your Macaulay. Now she was dead too, and her 
 lunatic husband sent for her body, and, as I said, 
 carried it about with him for years, here, there, and 
 everywhere. At last he came to the end of his 
 many millions, or nearly to the end ; he continued 
 to be governor of Alsace, and one wonders how it 
 was governed. He retired, as Saint-Simon told us 
 at first, to his country-seat, and there lived till lie 
 died. Saint-Simon saw him once, and thought 
 him wanting in wit. We may think that the S 
 should have been added. 
 
 Here is another pious person: it is good that 
 there were some of them, even if they were not 
 very wise. The Duchess of Charost died about 
 this time (1"18), after more than ten years of
 
 112 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 illness, during which time she was never moved 
 from her bed, saw no light, heard no noise. She 
 could neither hear nor speak more than a few 
 words at a time, and that only at rare intervals. 
 Twice or thrice in the year she had her linen 
 changed, and received extreme unction after each 
 exhausting toilet. The devotion of the Duke her 
 husband during all this time was, according to 
 Saint-Simon, alike praiseworthy and inconceivable ; 
 and she was sensible of it, for her mind remained 
 perfectly clear to the day of her death, and she 
 manifested a patience, a virtue, a piety, which 
 never failed, but rather increased from day to day. 
 In lively contrast with this saintly couple, here 
 on the next slip is an account of the Due de la 
 Rochefoucauld, grandson, we may suppose, of the 
 famous intriguer of the Fronde, the author of the 
 world-renowned Maxims. It was the custom of 
 the heads of this noble house to concentrate all 
 their attention, all their parental affection, on the 
 direct heir to the title. For younger sons and 
 daughters they cared not a whit, but packed them 
 off to nunneries, to the church, and to the island 
 of Malta as soon as they were old enough. In 
 this way the fortunate eldest could inherit all the 
 possessions of the house of La Rochefoucauld, and 
 nothing was scattered or divided. The judicious 
 thriftiness of this plan will be apparent to all. 
 The first Duke had ten children. Three of the four 
 sons were promptly devoted to celibacy, some as
 
 ^V ODD VOLUME. 113 
 
 priests, some as abbe's, one as a Knight of Malta. 
 Of the six daughters, five meekly took the veil as 
 they were bid ; the sixth had a will of her own, 
 and stoutly refused to enter the cloister, vowing 
 that she nmst and would have a husband. Great 
 was the consternation of the heads of the house. 
 A husband ? Why, that meant a dowry ! Who ever 
 heard of a girl behaving in this way ? Remon- 
 strances, threats, and entreaties were all in vain ; 
 and at length Fortune, or some mocking elf in 
 her semblance, came to the aid of the recalcitrant 
 maiden. A certain Monsieur de Sillery appeared, 
 whose family was under a cloud, for reasons with 
 which we have no concern. He, for the sake of an 
 alliance with so brilliant a house as that of La 
 Rochefoucauld, was willing to take Mademoiselle 
 without a dowry. 
 
 He was clasped to the family bosom ; the pair 
 were married, and ruined themselves, I quite 
 forget how, not long after. 
 
 But these obstacles in the frugal path of the first 
 Duke were nothing to those which beset the third, 
 the one with whom we have now to do, in this year 
 of our Lord and of Saint-Simon's journal 1712. 
 He had, it seems, only two sons; but he had 
 many grandchildren, and among them one far 
 more troublesome than the unruly damsel described 
 above. His eldest son was made Due de La 
 Rocheguyon, married Louvois' daughter, and had 
 eight sons and two daughters. With the daughters, 
 8
 
 114 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 who were mild and unresisting, we have no con- 
 cern. Of the sons, the first, second, and third died, 
 and hence arose all the trouble ; for the fourth 
 son had been made an abbe, and here was he now, 
 the heir of the family, loaded with clerical posses- 
 sions, and with the succession besides, and unable, 
 for his vows, to marry and produce in his turn an 
 heir. The thing for him to do, clearly, was to 
 take full orders, and relinquish title and succession 
 to his next brother, the Comte Durtal. But this 
 the Abbe had no mind to do. He had no vocation 
 for a religious life ; they had made him an abbe, 
 an abbe he would remain, and would be a duke too, 
 whenever messieurs his father and grandfather 
 should be called away by an overruling Providence 
 from the cares of life. Here was a pretty state of 
 things ! The two Dukes stormed, wept, entreated ; 
 the Abbe remained courteous, gentle, respectful, but 
 firm. They set priests upon him, bishops, monks, 
 and holy friars, the most eloquent and persuasive 
 in France ; the Abbe was immovable. Then, after 
 much counsel, a new step was determined upon. 
 The rebellious son and grandson was requested to 
 give up all semblance of churchmanhood, if I may 
 coin such a word, and to become a layman pure and 
 simple. But this, again, the young man declined. 
 His benefices yielded him sixty thousand livres of 
 rent : why should he give them up ? There was 
 no possible use in appealing to his tender feelings 
 of filial and grand-filial love, for he had no such
 
 AN ODD VOLUME. 115 
 
 feelings. All through his childhood and youth he 
 had been restricted, browbeaten, bullied ; he had 
 not even had enough to eat, such was the family 
 passion for economy and accumulation : now, he 
 was master of the situation. 
 
 Baffled at every turn, the Dukes tried yet another 
 venture, and this time a very bold one. The old 
 Duke, who was now blind, and had "entered the 
 chrysalis," as Saint-Simon puts it, caused himself to 
 be led to the cabinet of the King. In the ears of 
 royalty he rehearsed his piteous tale, and poured 
 out all the woes of his house, which was about to 
 be reduced to beggary by the obstinacy of his 
 grandson, who wished to eat out of two mangers at 
 once. He wept, he cried aloud, he tore his vener- 
 able locks. The King, who was really riot ill- 
 natured when there was no question of himself or 
 his own dignity, was much moved at seeing his 
 ancient servant in such distress. What could he 
 do for him ? Why, he could, by royal decree, 
 take the dukedom of La Rocheguyon away from 
 the ungrateful Abbs, and settle it on the Comte 
 Durtal and his descendants, thus grafting a new 
 branch, and establishing a new succession. Louis, 
 aghast at this unheard-of proposition, the bare 
 thought of which makes Saint-Simon turn rigid 
 with horror, demurred; whereupon fresh cries, tears, 
 rending of locks, in short, such violent hysterics 
 that the King, half through compassion for this old 
 man whom he had always loved, half through
 
 116 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 desire to end so painful a scene, yielded, and 
 granted the request. It was done ! Strange to say, 
 Europe did not become convulsed with emotion. 
 No earthquake followed, no tidal wave, no comet 
 darting baleful influences. People ate and drank 
 and went about their various business as if there 
 were no La Roche foucaulds in the world, which 
 shows how heartless humanity in general is. It is 
 melancholy to think that after all this trouble had 
 been taken, the Abbe died of small-pox, at thirty 
 years old. " Small-pox took him," says Saint- 
 Simon, "and delivered his father and brother of 
 him. Subsequent events in this family have not 
 led people to believe that God had blessed these 
 arrangements." 
 
 What next ? Old Brissac died in 1713, aged 
 eighty-five years. He was lieutenant-general, and 
 governor of Guise, and had been for many years 
 major of the royal body-guard. He was a gen- 
 tleman in a very small way (un tres petit gen- 
 tilhomme : it is impossible to -convey in English 
 the amount of contempt with which Saint-Simon 
 describes this rank), who had pleased the King 
 by his industry, his assiduity, his attention to 
 details, his absolute devotion to the royal person, 
 and his total disregard of all other persons. Thus 
 it came to pass that he became a very important 
 factor in court intrigues. Great lords and great 
 generals were anxious to gain his good will, and 
 no one ventured to displease him. He was rough,
 
 ,1.V ODD VOLUME. 117 
 
 brutal, very disagreeable, and excessively spoiled 
 by the King; but withal a man of honor and virtue, 
 of worth and probity, esteemed and hated by many 
 people, and justly regarded as very dangerous. 
 He had a peculiar sort of humor, which may be 
 judged of by the following incident : 
 
 Every evening there were public prayers in the 
 chapel of Versailles, followed by a benediction, 
 with the blessing of the Host every Sunday and 
 Thursday. Tn winter the benediction was at six 
 o'clock, in summer at five, so that people could go 
 to walk afterwards. The King never missed going 
 on Sunday, and very rarely on Thursday in winter. 
 At the end of the service, a "blue boy" (do not 
 ask me what a blue boy was, for my author gives 
 no explanation) ran to call the King, who arrived 
 a moment before the benediction ; but whether he 
 came or not, the benediction never waited for him. 
 (Saint-Simon mentions this as if it were something 
 quite remarkable.) The officers of the body-guard 
 stationed several guards in the tribune, from which 
 his Majesty always heard the benediction. The 
 pious ladies of the court seldom failed to decorate 
 the recesses of the tribune (garnir les travees) with 
 their presence, and in winter they drew attention 
 to themselves by little candles, which they carried, 
 ostensibly to light their breviaries, but in reality, 
 our spiteful little Duke hints, to light up their own 
 faces. Regularity at these services was a merit, 
 and every one, old and young, desired to obtain
 
 118 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 merit in the eyes of the King and Madame de 
 Maintenon. Brissac, tired of seeing at their devo- 
 tions women whom rumor did not represent as 
 troubling themselves much about their salvation in 
 every-day life, gave the word one day to the officer 
 of the guard. Accordingly, during the services 
 that officer appears in the recess usually occupied 
 by the King, strikes his stick on the ground, and 
 exclaims, in a tone of authority, " Guards of the 
 King, retire : the King does not come to the bene- 
 diction ! " The guards depart ; Brissac conceals 
 himself behind a pillar. A great murmur is heard 
 among the recesses, which are full of ladies; a 
 moment after, each fair one blows out her candle, 
 and departs, in such sort that no one remains save 
 Madame de Dangeau and two others of little con- 
 sequence (assez du commun). 
 
 This took place in the old chapel. The officers, 
 who had been forewarned, had concealed their men 
 on staircases and in corners ; and when Brissac had 
 allowed time enough for the ladies to get beyond 
 earshot, he gave the word to re-station the guards. 
 All was so exactly managed that no sooner were 
 the men at their posts than the King arrived, and 
 the benediction began. His Majesty, who always 
 took pleasure in surveying the rows of kneeling 
 ladies, and observing who was and who was not 
 there, was beyond measure astonished to see no one 
 in the entire chapel, save Madame de Dangeau and 
 the two other poor good souls whose names were
 
 .-1A T ODD VOLUME. 119 
 
 not worth mentioning. He spoke of it as he was 
 coming out, "avec un grand etonnement." The 
 malicious Brissac, who was walking by him, began 
 to laugh, and related the trick he had played on 
 the court devotees, of whom he was weary of seeing 
 his Majesty the dupe. The King laughed heartily 
 at the recital : the story spread like wild-fire. The 
 names of the unhappy maids and matrons were 
 buzzed about with gibe and laughter, and there 
 were many fair hands which would gladly have 
 scratched out the eyes of the lieutenant of the 
 body-guards. 
 
 One anecdote leads to another. On the next 
 page Saint-Simon is reminded (a propos des bottes) 
 of the Archbishop of Auch, Desmarets by name, 
 who spent his life (such part of it as fell under 
 our author's lynx-eyes) in a furnished aparment in 
 Paris, and in his dressing-gown, seeing no one, and 
 refusing to open any of the letters which he was 
 constantly receiving. The King, hearing of this, 
 thought it would be well for the Very Reverend to 
 retire to his archbishopric, and gave orders to that 
 effect. The carrying out of the orders, however, 
 proved difficult. The good prelate had long ago 
 spent all his money, and was reduced to borrowing, 
 in order to obtain the necessaries of life. Nobody 
 would lend him money to go home ; the King said 
 he must go. What was to be done? Finally his 
 secretary one cannot help wondering what the 
 secretary had been doing all this time proposed
 
 120 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 to him to attack the mountain of unopened letters 
 which encumbered his salon. Who could tell? 
 There might, among all these notes and packets, 
 be something which might be converted into cash. 
 The Archbishop, being at the end of his resources, 
 consented, with a bad grace. The secretary fell 
 upon the mass of documents, and found among 
 them one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, in 
 bills of exchange of various dates, within reach of 
 which his patron and himself had been dying of 
 hunger. Monsieur the Archbishop put on his coat, 
 and went home. He ought to have gone to a 
 lunatic asylum. 
 
 Here I turn over a number of leaves in my 
 odd volume. I do not care much about the 
 " inconceivable blackness " of a certain courtier 
 (Pontchartrain it was), who, by peeping from back 
 windows, ferreted out a secret of Saint- Simon's, 
 something about a command of militia which he 
 wished to get, and went straight to the King and 
 got the command himself. I am sorry to learn 
 that my fiery Duke swore solemnly to sacrifice all 
 his own fortune, greatness, and favor, all his goods, 
 and all that might be of advantage to him in life, 
 to the ruin and radical overthrow of Pontchartrain, 
 never allowing anything to prevent him from work- 
 ing ceaselessly at this ruin, never for an instant to 
 be turned away by any consideration whatever 
 from the furthering of this ruin. In vain did the 
 father and mother of the ruinee-elect, excellent
 
 ^1A T ODD VOLUME. 121 
 
 friends of our author's, throw themselves at his 
 inexorable knees, weep and implore and conjure. 
 He esteemed them, he loved them; but their son 
 should enjoy his stolen command, and he, Saint- 
 Simon, Avould enjoy the hope and pleasure of 
 working with all his soul and all that was in 
 him, and without relaxation, to uproot and over- 
 whelm the said son. This was certainly not wha* 
 my old nurse would have called "pretty -behaved; " 
 but, as I say, I do not care very much. Pont- 
 chartrain probably deserved punishment, and 
 probably got it. "We shall see farther on," 
 cries the Duke, "what his iniquity cost him!" 
 But the sequel is not in my volume. 
 
 But I turn over a number of pages, and soon 
 come to something of public interest. It was the 
 year 1713, the year of the Peace of Utrecht. 
 "The affair of the renunciations," says Saint- 
 Simon, "was ripe. The peace was made. The 
 King was urged by his own closest interests to 
 see it signed; and the court of England, to which 
 we owed it entirely, was no less anxious to con- 
 summate this great work, in order that it [the 
 court] might enjoy, together with the glory of 
 having imposed the peace on all the powers, that 
 domestic repose which had been so long broken by 
 the anti-peace party. This party, urged on by 
 enemies of the peace abroad, ceased not to give 
 trouble and disquiet to the ministers of the Queen 
 as long as the delay in signing the treaty gave
 
 122 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 them still hope of preventing the signature alto- 
 gether. The King of Spain had made his renun- 
 ciation of the French succession with all possible 
 solemnity; it only remained for the King of France 
 to imitate him. All has been said on this mat- 
 ter," he continues, "that can be said." And then 
 he proceeds to say a good deal more. It is not 
 xiow a question of vital interest whether, if the 
 little sickly creature who was to be Louis XV. had 
 died, as everybody supposed he would, the King 
 of Spain would have kept his promises. Xobody 
 in the least believed that he would keep them, 
 though everybody pretended to believe it. Sup- 
 pose it for our purpose that the promises were 
 made, and that those on the French side were now 
 to be solemnly announced to the Parliament of 
 Paris. . . . 
 
 " That supreme worship [it is Saint-Simon who 
 speaks] of his authority which his Majesty guarded 
 so jealously, because its solid establishment had 
 been the dearest and most constant work of all his 
 long life, must not, therefore, be infringed upon in 
 the smallest degree, either by the novelty of the 
 occasion, or by its supreme importance both at 
 home and abroad, or by the consideration of his 
 own family, or by the thought that at his age he 
 must of necessity soon leave this pomp and splen- 
 dor to which he had sacrificed everything, and ap- 
 pear naked before his God, even as the meanest of 
 his subjects. All that could be done to render this
 
 AN ODD VOLUME. 123 
 
 occasion specially solemn was to secure the assist- 
 ance of the peers. So great was his [the King's] 
 delicacy of feeling, that he would have contented 
 himself with saying in general that it was his 
 desire that the peers should be present when the 
 Parliament met to hear the renunciations. I knew 
 of this four days beforehand. I spoke to several 
 people, and I told the Duke of Orleans that if the 
 King contented himself with such an annoimce- 
 nient, he might be sure that no single peer would 
 attend the Parliament, and that it was for him, the 
 Duke of Orleans, to make some better arrange- 
 ment, as no peer would go, unless he were per- 
 sonally invited by the grand master of ceremonies, 
 according to custom. This firm advice . . . pre- 
 vailed. The Duke of Orleans and the Duke of 
 Berry spoke to the King, and insisted on the 
 point, so that Dreux [apparently the master of 
 ceremonies in question] went in person to all the 
 peers who had lodgings at Versailles, and if he 
 did not find them, left a note informing them, in 
 the King's name, that on such a day the Parliament 
 would deal with very important matters, and that 
 his Majesty desired their presence. . . . Finally, 
 this is what passed: The sitting was to be opened 
 by a compliment from the first president of Mesmes 
 to the Duke of Berry, who was to make a reply. 
 [The Duke of Berry, be it remembered, was the 
 second son of Monseigneur the Dauphin, and 
 brother of the lamented Duke of Burgundy, who
 
 124 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 had died the year before this.] The Duke was in 
 great trouble about his speech. He confided his 
 distress to Madame de Saint-Simon, and she man- 
 aged to obtain a copy of the president's speech, 
 and gave it to the Duke, that he might regulate 
 his reply by it. This work seemed to him too 
 difficult, and he confessed to Madame de Saint- 
 Simon that he could not do it. She proposed to 
 consult me, and he was enchanted with the idea. 
 I, accordingly, wrote a reply of a page and a half 
 of ordinary letter paper, written in a plain hand. 
 The Duke liked it very well, but found it too long 
 to commit to memory. I shortened it. He wished 
 it to be still shorter, so that finally it was no more 
 than three-quarters of a page in length. Behold 
 it, therefore, ready for him to learn. He accom- 
 plished the feat (il en vint a bout], and recited it 
 in his cabinet the evening before the session to 
 Madame de Saint-Simon, who encouraged him as 
 well as she could. On Wednesday, March 15, 
 I went at six o'clock in the morning to the Duke 
 of Berry's apartment, in full parliament dress, 
 and shortly after the Duke of Orleans arrived in 
 similar costume, with a great suite. About half- 
 past six these two princes entered the Due de 
 Berry's carriage, the Due de Saint- Aignan and 
 I taking the front places." 
 
 I spare my readers the details of the procession, 
 not a single chamberlain of which is omitted by 
 our devoted author; but I must not forget to say
 
 AX ODD VOLUME. 125 
 
 that the Due cle Berry was very silent on the 
 way. The two princes were received with all 
 possible honors. There were footcloths, and cano- 
 pies, and cushions, and compliments, and low mass 
 in the chapel. Finally the president and two coun- 
 cillors met them at the chapel door, and escorted 
 them to the great hall. How did they go? Why, 
 the Due de Berry walked first, with a president 
 on each side, and behind him walked the captain 
 of his guards with a baton (whether to keep the 
 princes or the presidents in order, is not stated). 
 Next came the Duke of Orleans, between the .two 
 councillors No, I am wrong! Fatal mistake! 
 The Duke of Orleans came first, preceded by 
 Saint-Simon, he in turn by Saint- Aignan. The 
 crowd of officers and fools of quality followed 
 confusedly. 
 
 The great hall was packed so full that not a pin 
 could have fallen to the ground, and aspiring sight- 
 seers had climbed up on every attainable coign of 
 vantage. The seance was complete when the Duke 
 of Berry appeared; that is to say, the princes of 
 the blood, the peers, and the Parliament were 
 assembled. Of course you are dying, dear reader, 
 to hear the names of all the peers of France, 
 present and absent; but I cannot indulge you. 
 The whole great assembly rose when the two 
 Great Ones appeared, and remained standing and 
 uncovered till they had taken their sublime 
 places.
 
 126 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 The supreme moment had come. Again I yield 
 the floor to Saint-Simon: "The Duke of Berry 
 being in place, there was some difficulty in obtain- 
 ing silence. As soon as he could be heard, the 
 first president made his compliments to the Duke 
 of Berry. When he had finished, it was the turn 
 of this prince to reply. He half raised his hat, 
 put it on again, looked at the first president, and 
 said, ' Monsieur ' After a moment's pause he 
 repeated, ' Monsieur ' He looked at the audience, 
 and said again, ' Monsieur ' He turned to the 
 Duke of Orleans, who, like himself, was redder 
 than fire, then to the first president, and finally 
 remained fixed, nothing further than ' Monsieur ' 
 having come out of his mouth. I was opposite 
 the fourth president, and saw in full view the dis- 
 order of the prince. I sweated for him, but there 
 was no remedy. He turned once more to the Duke 
 of Orleans, who bowed his head. Both were over- 
 whelmed. Finally, the president, seeing that there 
 was no other resource, finished this cruel scene by 
 taking off his cap to the Duke of Berry, and making 
 a low bow, as if the reply were finished ; and then 
 he told the King's officers to proceed with their 
 address." 
 
 Who can read this, who can picture to himself 
 the scene, without " sweating," like Saint-Simon, 
 for the wretched little prince? We can imagine 
 him sitting through the interminable seance, eating 
 his heart out with shame and rage. When it was
 
 AX ODD VOLUME. 127 
 
 over at last, instead of going to hide his head in 
 a corner, as he would fain have done, he was forced 
 to sit for more wearisome hours through a state 
 banquet, at which he appeared like a statue of 
 gloom, depressing the spirits and stilling the 
 tongues of all in his neighborhood. Xor, this 
 over in its turn, was the end yet for him. He 
 arrived at Versailles with the Duke of Orleans, 
 and found a message waiting for them both. The 
 Duchess of Tallard had been married the evening 
 before, and was now receiving visits on the bed 
 of the Duchess of Ventadour. Would the princes 
 graciously come at once? The reception was 
 nearly over, and the bride was only waiting for 
 them before she descended from the bed of state. 
 There was no escape, so the princes went directly 
 to pay their respects. At the reception they met, 
 among others, the Princess of Montauban, a noto- 
 rious flatterer, who, having heard no word of what 
 passed at Paris, began to cry out, as soon as she 
 saw the Duke of Berry, that she was charmed with 
 the grace and eloquence of his speech before the 
 Parliament, and rang every change upon this theme 
 that she could possibly make. The unhappy Duke 
 blushed furiously, and without replying, hastened 
 towards the bed whereon the bride was receiving; 
 the Princess followed him, redoubling her com- 
 pliments, and praising his modesty in glowing 
 terms. He made his bow to the bride, muttered 
 a few words, and retired, pursued to the very door
 
 128 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 by his unconscious tormentor, whose last words 
 informed him that all Paris was ringing with the 
 praise of his eloquence. 
 
 At last, at last, the poor wretch found himself 
 in his own cabinet, with the faithful Madame de 
 Saint-Simon, who had been summoned in haste, 
 Here he 41ung himself into an arm-chair, cried out 
 that he was dishonored, and burst into a tempest 
 of passion, crying aloud, "a hauts cris," and weep- 
 ing hot tears of shame and mortification. Amid 
 his sobs he told the miserable story to the sym- 
 pathetic lady-in-waiting, who was "dying of com- 
 passion," her husband tells us. After long and 
 bitter weeping, he suddenly broke into a fury, and 
 accused the Due de Beauvilliers and the King of 
 having purposely neglected his education. 
 
 "They have thought of nothing," he cried, " save 
 of abasing me, and stifling my natural abilities. I 
 was a younger son; I was opposed to my brother. 
 They feared the consequences, and they annihilated 
 me. I was taught how to hunt and gamble, and 
 nothing else; and they have succeeded in making 
 ine a fool and a beast, incapable of anything, and 
 who will never be fit for anything, but will be the 
 jest and laughing-stock of the world," 
 
 This strange tete-a-tete lasted two hours, until it 
 was time to go to the King's supper; and the next 
 day the transports of grief began again. 
 
 I wish we could think that the poor youth had 
 really learned one lesson, and that he profited by
 
 .-LV ODD VOLUME. 129 
 
 this bitter medicine; but I find no further mention 
 of the Duke of Berry in public life. If his wife 
 had been a different woman, there might have been 
 some chance for him; but she was the daughter of 
 Philip of Orleans, and was more of a devil than 
 a human being, by all accounts. So there is 
 nothing for us to do but pull off our caps,- like the 
 first president, and bow in compassionate silence 
 to the poor, neglected, ruined, "stickit" grandson 
 of the Grand Monarque.
 
 TL T RENNE. 
 
 "SEDAN. A fortress and frontier town of France, 
 in the Department of Ardennes. Pop. 13,501." 
 I quote from the encyclopaedia. The name of 
 Sedan is familiar to every child, the associations 
 with it being twofold. Our first thought is that 
 of the sedan-chair, which was invented in this 
 place about the middle of the seventeenth century. 
 We see the pretty toy of a conveyance, richly 
 ornamented and gilded, with its two bearers gor- 
 geous in gold lace and powder. As we look at it 
 with the eye of fancy, its door opens, and out 
 step lady and gallant and page, ancient dame and 
 blooming damsel, all be-wigged, be-flowered, be- 
 f urbelowed, most of them painted. Out they 
 step daintily in their high-heeled shoes and clocked 
 stockings, waving fans, and flourishing gold-headed 
 canes and snuff-boxes. Out they step, and away 
 they trip whither? Nay, that I cannot tell. 
 Ask his Eeverence yonder if he knows. A sedan- 
 chair now is a thing to be put in a museum and 
 looked at, if it is an ornamental one ; if it is plain 
 and unadorned, to be broken up for kindling wood. 
 The last one used in England was in Cranford, and 
 all the beloved old ladies went out to tea in it, as
 
 TURENNE. 131 
 
 you may read in Mrs. Gaskell's book. One other 
 did exist, to my certain knowledge, in Constanti- 
 nople, some seventeen years ago. My bones still 
 remember an awful hour when two genies out of 
 the Arabian .Nights, turbaned, swarthy, barefooted; 
 seized the poles of the Thing in which I trembling 
 sat, and rushed madly through the uneven streets 
 of the Golden City. " There was a crooked man, 
 and he went a crooked mile," says the nursery 
 ditty ; certainly, if 1 was not a permanently crooked 
 woman after my wild ride, it was owing to what 
 Jules St. Ange calls a "specious providence." 
 
 So much for our first association with the name 
 of Sedan. The second is not so cheerful is, in 
 fact, sinister to a degree. Looking once more at 
 the pretty town on the banks of the Meuse, we see 
 it surrounded by hostile armies: on every side 
 the Prussian eagles, the Prussian helmets ; Kaiser 
 Wilhelm and Unser Fritz leading, directing, com- 
 manding ; thousands of voices singing the " Wacht 
 am Rhein; " thousands of hearts burning to avenge 
 the century-old wrongs of the Fatherland against 
 the false Franks; the memory of the Palatinate, the 
 garden of Germany, laid waste by our own Grand 
 Monarque and his Luxembourg, kept alive from 
 father to son, burning in a thousand bosoms. 
 This, outside the walls ; inside, a vast army cooped 
 up, with no adequate leader, no discipline, no 
 knowledge. Plenty of heroism ; but these are not 
 the days of Bayard and the Cid, and heroism alone
 
 132 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 does not win battles to-day. Nominally at the 
 head of the confused mass, the pinchbeck Majesty 
 we all remember, the unclean vulture who had 
 disported himself so long in eagle's feathers, and 
 was now to be plucked bare of his borrowed plumage. 
 On Sept. 1, 1870, after a terrific contest, the whole 
 French army surrendered: Emperor, thirty-nine 
 generals, two hundred and thirty staff-officers, 
 twenty-six hundred officers, and eighty-three thou- 
 sand men, all in one day prisoners of war. 
 
 So much for Sedan; for, after all, the town is not 
 the subject of my paper. In the town, however, 
 chanced to be born, in 1611, HKNRI DE LA TOUR 
 D'AUVERGNE. 
 
 He was the seaond son of his parents, and took 
 the title of viscount, his elder brother calling him- 
 self Sovereign of Sedan. Not very long had the 
 town and its surrounding lands belonged to the 
 family of La Tour d'Auvergne; for it was only in 
 the time of Henry IV. that Henri de La Tour 
 d'Auvergne, Viscount Turenne, had married the 
 last heiress of the famous name of De la Marck, 
 who brought him Sedan and the duchy of Bouillon 
 as her marriage portion. I should like to pause a 
 while over the De la Marcks, a wild, fierce race, 
 who for two centuries held their own against the 
 Bishop of Liege and the Dukes of Burgundy and 
 Lorraine. But time presses, and have we not 
 Quentin Durward to tell us quite as much as we 
 care to know about the De la Marck of his time,
 
 TUREX^'E. 133 
 
 otherwise known as the Wild Boar of Ardennes? 
 When the bridegroom of Mademoiselle de la Marck 
 (let us hope she was not tusked, like her ancestor) 
 called himself Sovereign of Sedan, and set up for 
 an independent sovereign, Henry IV. promptly 
 besieged the city, and took it in three days. He 
 seems, however, to have made friends with La 
 Tour d'Auvergne, and allowed him to keep his 
 sovereignty under conditions. This Sovereign of 
 Sedan was the father of our hero. His eldest son 
 took, as we have seen, the title; but being of a 
 conspiring turn of mind, he was constantly in 
 trouble, and finally, on being found to have taken 
 part in the conspiracy of Cinq-Mars, he was 
 deprived of his principality, which was attached 
 by the Crown. Viscount Henri, our hero, was a 
 delicate boy, not strong enough, it was thought, 
 for a soldier; yet on the profession of arms his 
 heart was absolutely set. He is said to have baen 
 slow in learning, and his lessons were largely 
 whipped into him, poor lad! Yet he was fond of 
 history and biography, and read over and over 
 again the life of Alexander the Great, while Caasar 
 and Quintus Curtius were his constant study. 
 Considering steadfastly his Alexander, he set 
 himself to tame a Bucephalus; and showed, we 
 are told, remarkable skill, courage, and persever- 
 ance in breaking horses. In 1624, being then 
 thirteen years old, he persuaded his mother (for 
 his father had died the year before) to let him pay
 
 134 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 a visit to his uncle Maurice of Nassau; for his 
 mother was Elizabeth of Nassau, daughter of the 
 great William of Orange. Gruff Maurice smiled 
 at the boy soldier when he begged to be allowed to 
 see some service, smiled from under that remark- 
 able felt hat which we all remember, with a rope of 
 diamonds twisted round it, and wishing to test 
 his spirit and endurance, told him he might enter 
 the army as a simple soldier. But the future 
 Grand Marshal was not to be frightened iu that 
 way, and had served three months in the ranks, 
 with right good will, when Uncle Maurice died. 
 Uncle Frederick Henry, being made of less stern 
 stuff, made the boy a captain of infantry, in 1626 ; 
 and the next year he was fighting against Spinola, 
 under his uncle's command. 
 
 For five years young Turenne remained in the 
 Dutch service, gaining experience principally in 
 the attack and defence of strong places; he then 
 returned to France. 
 
 In 1634 Louis XIII. gave him command of a 
 regiment of infantry, and we find him assisting at 
 the siege of La Motte, a fortress in Lorraine. The 
 Marechal de la Force conducted the siege; and 
 having made a breach in one of the bastions, he 
 sent a storming party against it, led by his own 
 nephew. The nephew and his party were repulsed, 
 and it was the young Turenne who, an hour later, 
 captured the bnstion. and planted the royal flag on 
 its summit. This exploit won golden opinions for
 
 TURENXE. 135 
 
 the young soldier, and he was made field-marshal 
 at twenty-three years of age. 
 
 About this time De Grammont tells us an anec- 
 dote which is more characteristic of the times than 
 of Turenne in particular. The young Viscount had 
 received a wound in the shoulder while command- 
 ing the French troops in the service of the Duchess 
 of Savoy ; and this little incident may have occurred 
 while he was withdrawn from active service. Being 
 in a company of young officers, he. or some one else, 
 suggested a game of cards to while away the time. 
 All were enchanted with the idea, but, alas! their 
 pockets were empty. "He was by nature a man 
 of merriment, and rejoined that although he was 
 averse to deep play, it should never be said that 
 they did not know how to amuse themselves.'' He 
 therefore proposed that each officer should stake 
 his horse. De Grammont was one of the party, and 
 won fifteen or eighteen horses (whether fairly or 
 not, he omits to mention; though sometimes the 
 Chevalier boasts most cheerfully of his successful 
 cheating), and Turenne, though he was one of the 
 heaviest losers, was delighted with the popularity 
 of his game. This is one of the few foolish things 
 the great man did in his life. 
 
 Now followed many, many years of hard fight- 
 ing. In Germany first, against Mercy, against 
 John de "Werth; now superseded without reason 
 by Conde (always his rival in a way), and obeying 
 the command of King Louvois without a murmur.
 
 136 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 "The grand example," says his biographer, Gen- 
 eral Cust, himself a soldier and a commander, 
 "should not be lost on military men: submission 
 is as much the duty of the highest as of the private 
 soldier in the ranks." This lesson, by the way, 
 Conde himself never learned. 
 
 Now joining forces with Swedish Wrangel, we 
 find him observing with amazement, in common 
 with the rest of Europe, the strange and mole-like 
 proceedings of the Archduke Leopold, who, having 
 buried himself (and his army) under accumulated 
 earthworks, refused to move for king or kaiser. 
 Finding it impossible to dislodge this archducal 
 burrower, Turenne and Wrangel contented them- 
 selves with burning the great magazine which was 
 to furnish the mole-army with food, and went their 
 way. Then he took Treves, and in order to do it, 
 swam across the Rhine with his whole army, the 
 horse carrying the foot-soldiers on their cruppers. 
 Of course the city could not resist so very marked 
 an attention as this, and it yielded very promptly. 
 Then But stop! that was before he burned the 
 Archduke's magazine, not after. Let me beware, 
 and give heed to niy steps, treading, as Sir Thomas 
 Browne has it, "softly and circumspectly in this 
 funambulatory track and narrow path." Before 
 UK- lies a huge morass, a black and bottomless 
 bog, topped by a wilderness of matted and twisted 
 growth. Its name is the Thirty Years' War, and 
 I was once wellnigh drowned in it, escaping hardly
 
 TUREXNE. 137 
 
 with my life and wits. Follow you into its depths, 
 my Marshal? Not if I know it! Come out, like the 
 honest fellow you are, and leave Wrangel and 
 Piccolomini to wrangle and pick hollow many at 
 their ease or discretion. 
 
 Ah, but you burned the Palatinate, Marshal! 
 Let that be a blot upon your white shield, now and 
 forever. "True!" you may answer, "I did lay 
 waste that fair garden, at my Master's command; 
 my business being to do what he bids me. Yet 
 he was not content, and forty years later he con- 
 demned it to such a devastation as made all that I 
 did, seem the sport of a child." 
 
 Turenne's cruelties, when he was forced to com- 
 mit them, were done in sadness. Hear how other 
 men played the infernal game. Hear how Luxem- 
 bourg writes to Conde, after he has burned two 
 large villages in Holland one morning: "There 
 was a grill of all the Hollanders who were in those 
 burghs, not one of whom was let out of the houses. 
 This morning we were visited by two of the enemy's 
 drummers, who came to claim a colonel of great 
 note among them (I have him in cinders at this 
 moment), as well as several officers whom we have 
 not, and who are demanded of us. They were 
 killed, I suppose, at the approaches to the villages, 
 where I saw several rather pretty little heaps." 
 What a light and graceful touch ; what a charming 
 vein of humor! And I think it probable that the 
 hero of Hocroi was highly diverted by the letter.
 
 138 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 After this, Turenne was ordered to Flanders, and 
 then ordered back again ; and and But we are 
 at the brink of the dismal swamp again. Back to 
 France, Marshal, writer, and readers! 
 
 Have yon ever heard of the little fish who found 
 the frying-pan uncomfortably warm, and jumped 
 out of it? What is this that awaits us in France ? 
 To change our metaphor. We have left Charybdis, 
 howling, on our left, and here before us, baring 
 her white teeth, and gnashing the same ominously, 
 glares Scylla. 
 
 La Fronde: Ladies and gentlemen, permit me 
 to introduce you. What! you have met before ? 
 You know this lady, shall I call her ? See, she 
 is all flashing with jewels; her costume is regu- 
 lated I should say wigulated by the latest 
 fashions. She simpers, and courtesies, and cuts 
 your throat with a pearl-handled knife, or smoth- 
 ers you with a feather fan, singing and laughing 
 all the while in the most engaging manner pos- 
 sible. And she can toss you up a barricade in 
 the twinkling of an eye : and smash your windows 
 with one hand, while she waves you a kiss with the 
 other. 
 
 And what will this lady nay, let us give her 
 right name, and call her Gorgon, Harpy, She- 
 Griffin, Basilisk! what will she do with M. 
 de Turenne, marshal, soldier, and honest man? 
 Why, she will throw dust in his eyes, and con- 
 fuse and bewilder him as thoroughly as ever
 
 TURENXE. 139 
 
 honest man was confounded and bewildered. "In 
 August, 1648," says General Gust, "the people of 
 the French capital were occupied at the same 
 moment in singing a Te Deum for a victory, and 
 in overturning the Government, and besieging the 
 Queen Regent in her palace." Yes, we knew that 
 before. Why? Apparently because Cardinal de 
 Retz had given them arms, and told them to erect 
 barricades. Voltaire says: "Cardinal de Retz 
 boasts of having armed, unaided, the whole popu- 
 lation of Paris in the so-called ' Day of the Barri- 
 cades.' He was a man who breathed faction and 
 plot ; he had been the soul of a conspiracy against 
 the life of Richelieu; he was the originator of the 
 barricades ; he threw the Parliament into cabals, 
 and the people into seditions, all in order that 
 he might be talked about." 
 
 Well, the Queen-Regent, with many tears, im- 
 plored Conde to protect the young King. The 
 hero, breathing fire and fury, besieged the city. 
 The Parliament, driven to arms in their defence, 
 appointed the Prince de Conti. brother of Conde, 
 generalissimo of their forces, and the Due de 
 Bouillon, brother of Turenne, and formerly Sov- 
 ereign of Sedan, second in command. Mazarin, 
 the wily, saw at once the danger of the younger 
 brother taking the side on which the elder had 
 declared himself, and sent a messenger post-haste 
 to Germany, where Turenne still was. The mes- 
 senger carried most agreeable letters from both
 
 140 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 Queen-Regent and Cardinal. The Marshal was to 
 be made Governor of Alsace, was to have some 
 additional plum as equivalent for the Principality 
 of Sedan (which was not his, and might never 
 have been his), and moreover, if it pleased him, 
 to marry the Cardinal's niece. Was not this a 
 dainty dish to set before the Marshal? Turenne's 
 reply was frank and bold, as became a soldier. 
 He declined to receive any favor during a time of 
 political trouble. As to Mademoiselle de Mancini, 
 he thanked the Cardinal for the offer of her hand, 
 but declined it, on the score of a difference in 
 religion. (Turenne had been brought up in the 
 Protestant faith, and it was not until some years 
 after this that he joined the Catholic Church. In 
 any case, however, one can well understand that 
 he did not wish one of the fair Mancinis for his 
 wife. One is really sorry for these three beau- 
 tifiil and brilliant young women, who were used as 
 tools and decoy-ducks by their uncle on so many 
 occasions. They were not particularly virtuous. 
 Indeed, two of them, Hortense and Marie, were 
 very much the reverse; but one feels as if they 
 had hardly had a fair chance.) Moreover (I return 
 to Turenne's letter), the Marshal disapproved of 
 a blockade of Paris, as improper during the 
 minority of the Sovereign. Finally, he was about 
 to bring his army across the Rhine and back into 
 France, in accordance with his instructions, but he 
 should take no part in the contest, and should
 
 TURENNE. 141 
 
 declare neither for Regent nor for Parliament. 
 This was straightforward enough, but it would 
 not do for the Cardinal. "He who is not with 
 me is against me," thought that astute statesman. 
 " I will have no neutral commanders, with armies 
 at their backs which they can set against me when- 
 ever they happen to change their mind." Accord- 
 ingly, he sent money to pay the troops, and orders 
 to disband them. And Turenne, after quietly 
 obeying the orders, withdrew into Holland, with 
 fifteen or twenty followers, and waited the course 
 of events. By and by came a lull, the Treaty of 
 Kuel they called it; it was in 1648. Both parties 
 rested on their arms, and Turenne came home. 
 He went to pay his court to the Queen, and was 
 politely received by the Cardinal, who, however, 
 showed him plainly that he was not trusted. For 
 his own part, he did not know what to make of the 
 state of affairs. De Ketz said happily enough of 
 him, "He was thought more capable of being at 
 the head of an army than at that of a party." 
 Certainly, the bluff soldier seems to have been, as 
 I said before, easily bewildered, and entangled in 
 the cobwebs of faction; and Messieurs Mazarin 
 and De Retz were too much for him. When the 
 clouds thickened again, and swords began to clash, 
 he naturally inclined to the side of Conde, a soldier 
 and his old comrade in arms, though there was no 
 special love between them. But he had made no 
 open declaration, when one morning the startling
 
 142 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 news came that the Cardinal had arrested the 
 Prince of Conde, and sent him to prison at Vin- 
 cennes. "But Conde had just been commanding 
 the army of Queen and Cardinal ! " cries some 
 bewildered reader. Yes, I know that. But this 
 is the Fronde, I must ask you to remember. The 
 Prince had sided with royalty in the beginning, 
 because he thought his position as first prince of 
 the blood demanded it. But he despised and 
 detested Mazarin, took no pains to hide his feel- 
 ings, and on the very day of the Treaty of Kuel 
 had declared that he had done all he could to 
 uphold the government, but would not be bound 
 for the future by the past. Mazarin offered him 
 the command of the army of Flanders, with thirty 
 thousand men ; but he refused, out of sheer disgust 
 at the giver. Utterly ungoverned, unreasonable, 
 and inconsiderate, it really seemed sometimes, as 
 a French writer says, as if the Prince had no other 
 idea in his head than that of sowing trouble around 
 him, and making himself disliked. 
 
 When the little King entered Paris, on August 
 18, 1G50, Prince and Cardinal were in the same 
 carriage together. Finding himself well received 
 by the city, Mazarin determined to repay the'inso- 
 lence of Conde; he therefore promptly refused 
 thelatter's request of a position for his brother-in- 
 law, the Due de Longueville. This the haughty 
 Prince took as a declaration of war, and he thought 
 proper to chuck the Cardinal- Minister very rudely
 
 TURENNE. 143 
 
 under the chin, exclaiming, " Farewell but ! " 
 This hint was rightly interpreted by Mazarin to 
 mean fire and hailstones. He adroitly managed to 
 make Conde quarrel with the Parliament, while he 
 himself was making friends with them; this done, 
 he and De Retz, and Queen and Parliament, joined 
 hands; Conde, Conti, and De Longueville were 
 arrested as they were entering the Council at the 
 Palais Iloyal, and presto! off they were whisked 
 to Vincennes. And the people of Paris lighted 
 bonfires, and set off fireworks, because the hero 
 and defender of France was put into a dungeon ! 
 
 Xow, this was extremely puzzling to M. de 
 Turenne, who was, it must be confessed, a little 
 dense when not in the field. He did not appar- 
 ently realize that to break with the Cardinal was 
 to set himself against the King. His relations 
 with Conde were not in the least such as would 
 warrant his upholding him in rebellion against 
 their sovereign; but he was indignant at the way 
 in which the Prince had been treated, and without 
 stopping to weigh the consequences, he refused a 
 second offer of Mademoiselle de Mancini's hand, 
 with other good things, and left Paris for Steuay, 
 which was held by friends of the Prince. Here 
 came also at this time the Duchess de Longue- 
 ville, Conde 's sister, and a very fascinating woman. 
 To what extent this siren bewitched our Marshal, 
 it is difficult to tell; but we find him shortly selling 
 his plate, raising and borrowing money wherever
 
 144 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 he could, and working with might and main for 
 the cause of Coale and the Duchess. Worse, 
 alas! and this is an ineffaceable blot on his 
 honest and loyal character, we find him negotiat- 
 ing with the Comte de Fuensaldana, and making, 
 together with the Duchess, a formal treaty with 
 Philip IVc of Spain, in which that potentate agreed 
 to stand by them till Coude should be released from 
 prison. 
 
 This particular turn of the kaleidoscope, then, 
 shows Turenne in command of Spanish troops, 
 joined with his old opponent, Archduke Leopold (of 
 burrowing fame), righting against king and coun- 
 try to release from prison a man whom he cared 
 personally nothing about. Truly, a singular 
 combination ! 
 
 The war was waged with varying success, now 
 on this side, now on that. On the whole, the 
 Royalists had the advantage ; and at the battle of 
 Retch, Turenne suffered a total defeat at the hands 
 of the detested Cardinal, who commanded in person, 
 and (in spite of an attack which he in turn received 
 from General Gout, a free-lance of great reputation) 
 charged himself at the head of the Koyal Guard. 
 This was a great mortification ; but Turenne bore 
 it like a soldier. When asked by one of the people 
 who do ask such questions, how he had lost the 
 battle, "Through my own fault," he replied; "but 
 when a man has made no blunders in war, it is 
 because he has not yet seen much service."
 
 TURENNE. 145 
 
 On the 13th of February, 1651, the Prince was 
 set at liberty, and returned in triumph to Paris, 
 the people once more lighting bonfires and fire- 
 works, because he was free, as they had done when 
 he was imprisoned. 
 
 Turenne was offered a free pardon by the King; 
 but considering himself bound in some manner to 
 Spain, he held back until a treaty should be estab- 
 lished between the two countries. Negotiations 
 were opened, but proved fruitless; and Turenne, 
 after two months' honest endeavor to bring about 
 a peace, thought himself absolved from his engage- 
 ments, and repaired to Paris. Here he was received 
 with open arms by the Condes and De Longuevilles, 
 and very coldly by the Queen, who was in a bad 
 temper on account of the exile of Mazarin. Never- 
 theless, when Conde began at once, as usual, to 
 quarrel with every one, and when he and his charm- 
 ing sister used all their persuasions to induce 
 Turenne to join them again, he refused point- 
 blank; he had done quite enough. At heart he 
 was truly loyal to his King; he had been drawn 
 once to swerve from his allegiance, but once was 
 enough. The Prince used every argument to win 
 over his great comrade. It is an interesting scene 
 to call up: the two great soldiers walking up and 
 down, up and down, under the great trees in the 
 park of St. Maur, the one impassioned, fiery, 
 bearing down all opposition; the other quiet, self- 
 contained, saying little, perhaps, but holding his 
 
 10
 
 146 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 own, and confronting the fiery waves of Conde's 
 eloquence with a silence of adamant. 
 
 He remained with the King; and when Conde 
 once more unfurled the standard of revolt, on 
 Jan. 30, 1652, he knew that he took the field to 
 face Turenne. Another turn of the kaleidoscope. 
 On one side Queen, Cardinal (newly restored to 
 favor), Parliament, and Turenne; on the other, 
 Conde, aided by his sister, and the Dukes of 
 Nemours and Beaufort. The first thing Turenne 
 did was to save the royal party Queen, Cardinal, 
 and little King from capture, by his timely pro- 
 tection at the bridge of Gergeau, where a party of 
 the enemy was coming down upon them. He arid 
 his colleague, D'Hocquincourt, had divided the 
 army into two portions, for better ease of main- 
 tenance, D'Hocquincourt establishing himself at 
 Ehenau, and Turenne at Briare. But now came 
 news that the Prince (the distinctive title of Conde) 
 was advancing by forced marches, night and day, 
 towards them. Turenne went over to D'Hocquin- 
 court as soon as he heard the tidings, to urge the ne- 
 cessity of concentrating their forces to meet their 
 great foe. He returned to make his own prepara- 
 tions; but that very night an animated whirlwind 
 swept down on the army at Rhenau, a whirlwind 
 whose fury of attack brooked no resistance, but 
 scattered officers and men like toy soldiers. 
 
 Some fugitives flew to Turenne with the tidings. 
 " The Prince has arrived ! " said the Marshal
 
 TURENNE. 147 
 
 instantly. " It is he who commands that army ; I 
 know his attack ! " and he immediately, says my 
 biographer, "carried his wing to the assistance of 
 his colleague." He found affairs in a bad way. 
 The Prince in the midst of the soldiers' quarters, 
 of which he had already pillaged and burned five, 
 enjoying himself immensely; D'Hocquincourt shut 
 up in Khenau, waiting to see what would happen. 
 Here was a pleasant situation for Turenne. If he 
 drew back, his interesting colleague would lay all 
 the blame on him, and it might also be supposed 
 that he had a secret understanding with the Prince, 
 on whose side he had so lately fought ; on the other 
 hand, he had but four thousand men, against four- 
 teen thousand of Conde's. He was counselled to 
 fall back on Gien, where the royal party was ; but 
 "No," he said; "we must conquer or die here!" 
 And now, see what a fine thing it is to be a mili- 
 tary man! He took his four thousand men, and 
 drew them up on a level ground, resting his right 
 on a wood, and his left on a marsh, while his front 
 was only approachable by a narrow footpath which 
 must be traversed in file. Now, you and I would 
 not have known enough to do that. In this strong 
 position he sent word to Gien that his Majesty 
 might sleep in peace that night. At daybreak the 
 Prince, having burned and pillaged enough, came 
 to find Turenne, found him, and did not like his 
 looks at all ; hesitated so long about attacking him 
 that the Marshal, fearing the Prince might take a
 
 148 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 fancy to send some troops round to his rear, made 
 a feint of withdrawing, leaving his guns in battery 
 to command the narrow causeway. Concle, elated 
 with his easy victory of the day before, fell into 
 the trap, and rushed blindly forward. The guns 
 opened fire with deadly effect. Seeing his mis- 
 take, he withdrew his troops for the day ; but by 
 the next day the fugitive troops were all collected 
 and drawn up, with other troops from Gien; and 
 Turenne showed such an imposing front that the 
 Prince took his army off to Chatillon, and then 
 took himself off to Paris, where he sulked for some 
 little time. 
 
 The court overwhelmed Turenne with honors 
 and compliments. The Queen-Mother assured him 
 that he had a second time placed the crown on the 
 head of her son; while the unlucky D'Hocquin- 
 court was so violently berated that Turenne, always 
 just and generous, had to interfere, and beg pardon 
 for him. 
 
 You see, dear readers, I give you a sample here 
 and there, from which you must judge of the web. 
 The side-notes in the biography read as follows: 
 "Turenne skilfully interposes the royal army 
 between Paris and the rebel forces." "Turenne 
 routs Tavannes [the Prince's "Local Demon"] at 
 Etampes, May 4th." "The Duke of York joins 
 Turenne as a volunteer." That is our amiable 
 friend James II. of England, of course. "The 
 Duke of Lorraine compels Turenne to raise the
 
 TURENXE. 149 
 
 siege of Etampes." "Matters are accommodated 
 between the Lorraines and the Koyalists through 
 the intervention of Charles II. of England." This 
 is curious ! The year is 1652, eight years before the 
 glorious Restoration. It is really quite edifying 
 to find Master Charles so well employed as in 
 making peace between two armies; but we know 
 what winning ways he had. He took Jermyn and 
 Rochester and Crofts with him ; and a blessed set 
 of peacemakers they were ! 
 
 And now we approach the crowning scene, per- 
 haps, of the whole absurd, wicked, unreasonable 
 war. It may be familiar to many, but it will do 
 no harm to recall it once more. The position was 
 this: Paris was furious at the recall of Mazarin, 
 and Conde thought he could gain possession of the 
 city, popular sympathy being with him at this 
 time. The Parliament, however, refused to coun- 
 tenance him or give him money to fight against 
 the King, even though it was against Mazarin too. 
 He assembled his troops about Paris. The court, 
 established at St Germain's, sent in hot haste for 
 Turenne. Turenne came, and also Marechal de la 
 Ferte, each with an army ; they joined forces, and 
 took up their quarters at St. Denis. Conde deter- 
 mined to move his principal camp from St. Cloud 
 to Charenton, where he had recently prepared 
 intrenchments. On the night of July 1 he "broke 
 up his camp, and marched in profound silence past 
 the walls of sleeping Paris towards Charenton.
 
 150 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 But though Paris slept, Turenne did not; and at 
 seven in the morning, Conde, leading his advance 
 in person, was suddenly attacked, with a violence 
 worthy of his own impetuosity, overcome, and 
 routed, near the bridge of St. Antoine. He imme- 
 diately, with consummate skill, concentrated his 
 forces, threw up barricades where three streets 
 met, and prepared to defend himself. Turenne, 
 seeing the strength of his position, wished to delay 
 further action till La Ferte should bring up his 
 guns; but no delay was to be allowed him. The 
 whole court was waiting on tip-toe to see the fight. 
 The young King, now fifteen years old, was sta- 
 tioned on the heights of Charonne, from which, as 
 in an amphitheatre, he could command the whole 
 scene of action. With him was Cardinal, Queen 
 no! I am wrong. The Queen was on her knees 
 in the chapel of the Carmelites, awaiting the issue 
 of the combat. But the Cardinal was on the 
 heights, and all the court, princes, princesses, 
 dukes and duchesses, wigs and wigesses, all thirst- 
 ing for blood to be shed by proxy. Wave the 
 green scarf, and down with the yellow Isabelle! 
 On, M. de Turenne! what can you be waiting for ? 
 The enemy is ready, and so are we. En avant! 
 Stout Turenne obeyed his orders. The forces met 
 with equal fury of onset, and soon round the gate 
 of St. Antoine raged as fierce a fight as wigs or 
 wigesses could wish to see. Conde's soldiers 
 wore wisps of straw in their caps; seeing which,
 
 TURENNE. 151 
 
 Turenne adorned his men with scraps of white 
 paper as their distinguishing badge. The brave 
 Frenchmen hacked and hewed and fired away at 
 each other with as good will as if there had really 
 been something for them to fight about. At noon 
 the heat became so intense that they stopped to 
 rest and cool off, like boys at a football match; 
 then to it they fell again. The two commanders 
 were here, there, everywhere; the Prince espe- 
 cially flashed like a baleful meteor to and fro. 
 " I did not see one Prince of Conde, I saw a dozen ! " 
 said Turenne, in speaking of it afterwards. Mean- 
 while the people of Paris, the respectable ones, that 
 is, shut themselves up in their houses to await 
 the event, while the mob paraded the streets and 
 shouted "Vive M. le Prince! a bas Mazarin ! " to 
 their hearts' content. Look into the kaleidoscope! 
 Queen praying, mob shouting, King, Cardinal, wigs 
 and wigesses, gazing, Conds and Turenne fighting. 
 But the end seems to be approaching. The King's 
 soldiers have forced their way into some of the 
 houses, thus turning the barricades. La Ferte 
 has arrived, and his cannon are sweeping the Rue 
 St. Antoine. Breathless, disheartened, covered 
 with blood and dust, Conde is retreating into the 
 city, when what is this ? what thunder, answer- 
 ing the royal cannon, shakes the solid earth, and 
 startles the combatants on both sides ? It is the 
 cannon of the Bastille! Roar upon roar, volley 
 upon volley, the huge fortress pours out her deadly
 
 152 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 fire upon the troops of the King. We know who 
 is behind those guns ; we can see Mademoiselle de 
 Montpensier, her fair hair floating, her blue eyes 
 flashing, her finery for once forgot, as she flings 
 loyalty, prudence, ambition, and everything else 
 to the winds, to save her cousin. And now, cov- 
 ered by that flashing thundercloud, the gates open, 
 and out comes a crowd of armed citizens, who with 
 shouts and acclamations surround the soldiers of 
 the Fronde, and protect their retreat into the city. 
 Clang! the gates close again. Brave Turenne sees 
 his enemy disappear as if by magic; sees his men 
 cut down and swept away by the murderous fire 
 from the Bastille ; is forced to withdraw in as good 
 order as he may; and the day is lost and won. 
 
 More battles, but none so thrilling as that of St. 
 Antoine. Mazarin dismissed, Mazarin recalled; 
 death of the Duke of Bouillon (who seems to have 
 been very weak broth indeed). Turenne marches 
 here, Conde establishes himself there. Turenne 
 takes Bar-le-Duc, and then Ligny. The campaign 
 ends gloriously, Bordeaux submits, the Fronde is 
 over. The King grants a general amnesty, from 
 which Conde alone is excepted, he being con- 
 demned to death, and retiring to Brussels. This 
 on Sept. 16, 1653. 
 
 In 1654 Louis XIV. was solemnly crowned at 
 Rheims, proceeded to take matters into his own 
 hands, and reigned thereafter. War continued 
 with Spain just now, Turenne in chief command.
 
 TL'REXNE. 153 
 
 Our Marshal had found time to be married, just 
 before the last campaign, to Charlotte Caumont, 
 daughter of a Protestant peer, the Due de la Force, 
 who had somehow escaped the St. Bartholomew. 
 She is disposed of, in two lines, as delicate, modest, 
 simple, and sweet. 
 
 Behold the Spaniards, with the ubiquitous Conde" 
 at their head. Turenne compels Conde to raise the 
 siege of Arras. Turenne takes Landrecies, takes 
 Conde (the town, not the Prince). During this 
 last siege it chanced that a standard of the royal 
 regiment fell into the hands of the Prince, who 
 sent it to the King " by a trumpet." His Majesty, 
 however, refused to accept any courtesy at the 
 hands of his rebel subject, so the regiment went 
 standardless through the campaign. During this 
 campaign occurred an incident, slight in itself, 
 which divided the two great leaders more than 
 a hundred pitched battles could have done. M. de 
 Castenau, one of Turenne's officers, had suffered 
 defeat by the Spaniards. Turenne, in recounting 
 the circumstance to the Cardinal, said in his letter 
 that Conde had been compelled to quit his post, and 
 that some of his men had been obliged to swim the 
 Scheldt. The letter was intercepted, and being 
 read by Conde, made him furious. He instantly 
 sent a trumpeter to the King's army with a fiery 
 letter, denying the action attributed to him, and 
 adding that if Turenne had been at his post, as he 
 had been at his own, he would have known the
 
 154 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 truth. The letter was delivered to Turenne in the 
 midst of a large circle of officers; but he contented 
 himself with telling the trumpeter quietly that 
 if he brought any more such letters he should 
 be punished. The two ancient comrades never 
 resumed friendly relations to each other, and 
 there were no more trumpet letters between 
 them. 
 
 The campaign of 1656 was marked by several 
 changes. Mazarin concluded a treaty with Crom- 
 well, in accordance with which Charles and James 
 Stuart were obliged to leave the kingdom, and 
 quit the service of the French armies. In June 
 Turenne laid siege to Valenciennes, a very impor- 
 tant post. You do not want to hear about the 
 siege, and you shall not: that he was obliged to 
 raise it, leaving the advantage with Conde, seems 
 to have been entirely the fault of La Ferte, the 
 second in command of the royal army, "this 
 vexatious man," my biographer calls him; and he 
 seems indeed to have been specially qualified by 
 Nature for invariably doing the wrong thing. The 
 siege raised, Conde and every one else expected 
 to see the royal troops in full retreat. Turenne 's 
 own officers looked for instant orders to retire 
 across the frontier; but they reckoned without 
 their Marshal. He saw that to withdraw his 
 army at this perilous juncture would frighten his 
 own party, and unduly encourage the enemy. He 
 even refused to allow his army to cover themselves
 
 TCRENNE. 155 
 
 with intrencbinents, but camped according to rigid 
 rules of castramentation, arranged his outposts 
 with absolute regularity, and calmly awaited the 
 next move of his adversary. Up came the Prince, 
 accompanied by Spanish Don John and many 
 troops. Turenne went forth with his best regi- 
 ments to meet them, and then defiled in perfect 
 order before them, until he brought them within 
 sight of his camp. His soldiers, however, were 
 not so cool as their leader, and began to get 
 together the bagagge, in order to march away at 
 sight of the foe. In an instant, with a flash like 
 that of Conde himself, Turenne was among them, 
 pistol in hand. "If a man stirs," he said simply, 
 " I blow his brains out ! " No one moved, and 
 order was restored. The royal army stood like 
 a rock. Prince and Don, puzzled at this firm front 
 where they expected to find a disorganized army 
 in full retreat, paused, consulted together for two 
 days, during which time many of La Ferte's men 
 came back to the ranks, and the slender force 
 of Turenne swelled to a very respectable body. 
 Finally, Prince and Don deemed it expedient to 
 march away, and lay siege to the town of Conde. 
 This was justly thought a great stroke on the part of 
 the Marshal. "To act thus," says Bussy-Rabutin 
 in his Memoirs, " one must be a master of war; for 
 this is indeed a master-stroke." And Le Tellier, 
 Secretary of State, writes : " By your prudence, my 
 Lord, and your vigorous action, you have re-estab-
 
 J56 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 lished the reputation of the royal arms. Truly 
 nothing could be finer than your encamping near 
 Quesnoy after the disaster of Valenciennes, your 
 making head against most formidable enemies, even 
 in their own country, and forcing them to retire 
 while still flushed with victory. This is a stroke 
 which belongs only to the great masters of the art 
 of war." Yes, great masters! such these two men 
 were, playing their terrible game of chess with 
 consummate skill. Voltaire, writing fifty years 
 later, says: "Thus these two men, opposed to each 
 other, displayed the resource of their genius. 
 They were admirable in their retreats as in their 
 victories, in their good conduct and even in their 
 errors, which they always knew how to repair. 
 Their talents, turn by turn, held in check the 
 progress of one and the other kingdom." 
 
 In 1658 came the important siege of Dunkirk, 
 Cromwell, in his treaty, having expressly stipulated 
 that this stronghold should be taken, and delivered 
 to England. Alas! that time fails me to give an 
 account of the siege, which was most interesting. 
 Six weeks it lasted, and the city fell at last before 
 the united efforts of Turenne and the English 
 troops. On June 24, Louis XIV. entered Dunkirk 
 in triumph at the head of the English troops, to 
 whom he made over the place according to agree- 
 ment. Four years later, as we know, Charles sold 
 the place to Louis, and added another patch to his 
 many-colored garment of disgrace.
 
 TURENNE. 157 
 
 In 1666 Turenne lost his wife, and then, or soon 
 after, he joined the Catholic Church. The next 
 year came the campaign called the Promenade 
 JMilitaire, when Turenne and the King took pos- 
 session of the greater part of the Spanish Nether- 
 lands, which yielded with hardly a struggle. Then 
 came the Triple Alliance, the Treaty of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, and a general peace. 
 
 What did Turenne do in time of peace ? Why, 
 he read a good deal, we are told, and attended 
 mass very regularly; but he disliked confession 
 extremely. He returned to his study of Caesar 
 and Quintus Curtius with unfeigned zest, and 
 threatened on one occasion to fight a man who 
 said that the biographer of Alexander the Great 
 was a mere romancer. He never thought that he 
 had sufficiently studied the science of war, and 
 plunged into history and geography with the vigor 
 and enthusiasm of youth. He read German and 
 Flemish easily, but, alas! he could not write 
 even French correctly; and in this connection 
 gave Cardinal de Retz the opportunity of saying 
 " that the obscurity of his language was only made 
 intelligible by his glory." He was not fond of 
 society, this honest Marshal; he liked study at 
 all times better than conversation, and he detested 
 wits and witticisms. Still, he could make jokes 
 himself, and was of a placid, serene, even cheerful 
 temper. 
 
 Five years of rest he had, and when he took the
 
 158 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 field again, at the command of his rapacious master, 
 his method of warfare was seen to be changed. 
 He was now in his sixty-third year, his genius 
 matured and tempered. He now, to quote General 
 Gust, "aspired to a higher practice of the military 
 art; and his skill and genius, aided by his expe- 
 rience, gave birth to strategy, which hereafter 
 became an institution of war." It is from this 
 point of view that Turenne is justly called the 
 father of modern warfare. Conde* Avas as brave, 
 more brilliant, nearly as often successful; but he 
 had not the brain of the other man, and his war- 
 fare remained that of the past generation, while 
 Turenne advanced to lead on that of the future. 
 I hardly venture to intrude any more wars upon 
 the reader's patience. We know something of the 
 heroic resistance of the Dutch, and how, after 
 the murder of the De Witts, all Europe became 
 alarmed at the overweening pride of France, and 
 the Elector of Brandenburg and the other German 
 Princes crossed the Rhine to assist persecuted 
 Holland. It is in the next campaign that I find 
 an anecdote so characteristic of our hero that I 
 must pause to give it here : " The spring this year 
 was exceedingly backward, and the campaign was 
 carried on through all the discomforts of a rigorous 
 season. In one of these marches the Viscount, 
 now sixty-three years old, bivouacked with his 
 men, without any regard to his age, and altogether 
 indifferent to the discomfort of falling snow, with-
 
 TURENXE. 159 
 
 out cover. Down he lay on the ground, and slept 
 like a child, wrapped in his cloak. His soldiers, 
 however, less indifferent than he, could not bear 
 to see their chief risking his life in this manner; 
 and while he slept, they built a hut of boughs 
 above his head to keep the snow off. While they 
 were thus at work, their chief awoke, and wished 
 to know why they were amusing themselves instead 
 of preparing for the march. ' We wish,' said the 
 soldiers, ' to take care of our father ; for if we lose 
 him, who will take us back to our own country ? ' ' 
 Many anecdotes are also told of Turenne's integ- 
 rity and disinterestedness, qualities not too 
 common in the soldiers of his time. One of his 
 generals pointed out to him, in remote Westphalia, 
 where they were making war, an opportunity of 
 obtaining a considerable prize for himself, of which 
 the distant court would never hear. "I am obliged 
 to you," replied the Viscount; "I have often found 
 similar occasions, and having never turned them 
 to my own advantage before, I shall not begin at 
 my age." 
 
 Another time one of the great towns offered him 
 one hundred thousand crowns if he would not bring 
 his army through their streets ; whereupon he sent 
 them word that as their town did not lie in his line 
 of march, he could not accept the money they 
 offered him. It was not Turenne's fault that all 
 Europe rose against the insatiable greed and ambi- 
 tion of his master, Louis; it was not his fault that
 
 160 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 Louvois hampered him by absurd directions, nor 
 that his own forces, enfeebled by long and hard 
 services, could not cope with the springing armies 
 of Montecuculi and William of Orange. The tide 
 liad turned against the Grand Monarque, and 
 neither steadfast Turenne nor fiery Conde could 
 stem it. 
 
 It was in July, 1675, that our hero met his 
 death. He and Montecuculi had been pitted 
 against each other for some time, each striving 
 to out-manceuvre the other. It was check and 
 counter-check, one skilful move after another; 
 but at last Turenne gained the advantage of so 
 strong a position that his skilful adversary saw 
 his best wisdom in retreat. Turenne was in high 
 spirits, foreseeing a decided victory. " It is done ! " 
 he cried. " I hold them, they cannot escape me ; and 
 I shall reap the fruit of this tedious campaign." 
 
 He mounted his horse, and, with six or eight 
 officers in attendance, rode to reconnoitre the 
 ground. It was much broken, and difficult of 
 observation. A small battery of the enemy, at 
 a little distance, kept up an incessant fire; and 
 Turenne, as he rode along, repeated several times, 
 "I do not at all wish to be killed to-day." 
 
 M. de St. Hilaire rode up to meet him, and as 
 they paused to speak, a ball, passing over the 
 quarters of St. Hilaire's horse, carried away the 
 rider's left arm and the horse's neck, and struck 
 Turenne in the side. He rode forward about
 
 TURENNE. 161 
 
 twenty paces, and fell dead. "I ran to my father," 
 says St. Hilaire the younger in his Memoirs, 
 "and raised him up. ' No need to weep for me,' 
 he said; ' weep for the death of that great man. 
 You may perhaps lose your father, but neither 
 your country nor you will ever see a general like 
 that again.'' Count Hamilton threw a cloak 
 over the body, in the hope of concealing from 
 the soldiers the knowledge of his death; but the 
 well-known piebald charger, rushing riderless over 
 the field, told the news only too well. A great 
 and bitter cry arose: "Our father, our father is 
 dead! we are lost! Lead us to battle, that we may 
 avenge his death." Montecuculi heard the cry, 
 and halted in his march, uncovering respectfully. 
 "A man has fallen," he said, "who did honor to 
 all mankind." And then, being a soldier, he took 
 his advantage, and won the victory which was to 
 have been the dead man's. 
 
 France mourned deeply over her fallen hero; the 
 court was plunged in tears. But here I shall drop 
 my pen, and let a far more eloquent one tell the 
 story of mourning. 
 
 Madame de Sevigne, writing to her son-in-law, 
 M. de Grignan, on July 31, 1675, about the sad 
 event, says: "The King has been afflicted in a 
 manner suitable to the loss of the greatest general 
 and the best man in the world. The whole court 
 were in tears at this disastrous news. M. de 
 Condom was near fainting. Everything was 
 11
 
 162 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 ready for setting out on a party of pleasure to 
 Fontainebleau, but this immediately broke it off, 
 Never was man more sincerely, more universally 
 regretted. All degrees of people were in the 
 greatest consternation and trouble. Every one 
 was making inquiries, and the streets were filled 
 with those who gathered in crowds to lament the 
 loss of their hero." 
 
 Again, writing a few days later, she says, 
 " I was the other day at M. de la Rochefoucauld's. 
 M. le Premier came thither, Madame de Laverdin, 
 M. de Marillac, and Madame de la Fayette. The 
 conversation, which lasted two hours, turned wholly 
 on the divine qualities of this true hero. The eyes 
 of every one were bathed in tears ; and you cannot 
 believe how deep the grief of the loss of him is 
 engraven on all their hearts. . . . We remarked 
 one thing, which was, that not only at his death 
 was he admired. The largeness of his heart, the 
 vast extent of his knowledge, the elevation of 
 his mind, all this the world was full of during 
 his life. How much higher the admiration of 
 it was made to rise by his death you may easily 
 imagine. In a word, my dear, do not think that 
 the death of this great man is regarded here like 
 that of others. As for his soul, it is a miracle, 
 which can proceed from nothing but the perfect 
 esteem every one had for him, that none of the 
 devotees have yet taken it into their heads to 
 doubt whether it be in a good state. It is not
 
 TURENNE. 163 
 
 possible to comprehend that sin or guilt could find 
 a place in his heart. His conversion, so sincere, 
 appeared to me like a baptism. Every one speaks 
 of the innocence of his manners, the purity of his 
 intentions, his humility free from all manner of 
 affectation, the sentiments of solid glory his heart 
 was filled with; without haughtiness or ostenta- 
 tion, loving virtue for its own sake, without regard- 
 ing the approbation of men, and, to crown all, a 
 generous and Christian charity. Did I not tell 
 you of the regiment that he clothed ? It cost him 
 fourteen thousand francs, and left him almost with- 
 out money. The English told M. de Lorgne that 
 they would continue to serve this campaign to 
 revenge his death; but that after this they would 
 retire, not being able to serve under any other 
 general after M. de Turenne. When some of the 
 new troops grew a little impatient in the morasses, 
 where they were almost up to their knees in water, 
 the old soldiers animated them in this manner: 
 ' What is it you complain of ? It is plain you do 
 not yet know M. de Turenne. He is more grieved 
 than we ourselves are when we are in any difficulty ; 
 he is thinking of nothing at this moment but of 
 removing us hence. He wakes while we sleep ; he 
 is a father to us : it is easy to see that you are but 
 young soldiers.' Thus they encouraged them. I 
 return to the state of his soul. It is really a 
 remarkable thing that no zealot has yet thought 
 fit to make a doubt whether it has pleased God to
 
 164 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 receive with open arms one of the best and noblest 
 souls He has created. Reflect a little upon the 
 general assurance of his salvation, and you will 
 find it is a kind of miracle scarcely ever known but 
 in his case. In a word, no one has yet presumed 
 to doubt of his everlasting rest."
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 
 
 WE know more or less perhaps a good deal 
 about the mariners of England. We know, in a 
 general way, that they sweep through the deep, 
 while the stormy winds do blow. We know some- 
 thing of Drake, and a little of Blake, and the name, 
 at least, ever-delightful, of Sir Cloudesley Shovel. 
 But what do we know about the mariners of 
 France ? 
 
 That Richelieu practically founded the modern 
 French navy, that Mazarin suffered it almost to 
 die of neglect, and that Colbert restored it, is 
 not this about the sum of what many of us know ? 
 Admitting such to be the case, my readers will also 
 admit that it is high time we knew something more ; 
 and I hope, briefly, to throw a little light on these 
 hitherto dark and unexplored waters. 
 
 We will begin, if you please, with the Crusades. 
 In the earlier Crusades the long journey to the 
 Holy Sepulchre was made by land; but later on, 
 t'ne efflux of people, growing greater and greater, 
 led to a gradual development of the maritime 
 power of the countries bordering the Mediterra- 
 nean. "The Italians [I quote from Mr. Norman's 
 interesting work, "The Corsairs of France," which
 
 166 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 forms the groundwork of all I have to say], the 
 Italians were the first to profit by this. Venice 
 shortly monopolized the trade of the East, and 
 other cities, such as Genoa and Pisa, entered into 
 rivalry with her. It was in ships belonging to 
 these republics that Philip Augustus (1189) trans- 
 ported his crusaders to Palestine. Louis IX. made 
 strenuous efforts to convey his own contingent in 
 his own vessels, and a goodly number of craft were 
 hired from the merchants of Provence and Lan- 
 guedoc ; but he too was obliged to have recourse to 
 the ports of Italy. To Louis IX., however, is due 
 the birth of the French navy; for under him 
 De Varenne was created First Admiral of France. 
 The Crusades over, French merchants, whose ships 
 had visited Eastern ports, determined on sharing 
 with Venice and Genoa the risks and profits of 
 Oriental trade, and Marseilles soon became one of 
 the principal ports of the Mediterranean. 
 
 " Under Philippe le Bel commenced the long, long 
 story of the struggle for naval supremacy between 
 France and England. There were, however, no 
 King's ships at the King's command, and the 
 sovereign was compelled to turn to his shipowners 
 and merchants for assistance. St. Malo, Eouen, 
 Caen, Honfleur, Havre, Dieppe, Etretat, Cher- 
 bourg, and Dunkirk each furnished a contingent, 
 and the admirals of Brittany and Normandy (for 
 each province had its own admiral) lowered their 
 flags in homage to the Admiral of France, who,
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 167 
 
 by the King's order, assumed command of the 
 whole." 
 
 Under Charles V. the French fleet had grown 
 strong enough to gain a brilliant victory over the 
 English off Rochelle ; and his successor, Charles VI., 
 could summon thirteen hundred vessels of all sizes 
 and all nationalities to sail, under the white flag of 
 France, for a descent upon the English shore. This 
 was in 1386, when Richard II. was making his 
 poor miserable attempt to reign in England; and 
 the descent was to be a very great thing, and to 
 annihilate perfidious Albion. Oliver de Clissou 
 had built a whole wooden town, which was to be 
 transported to England in pieces, for all the world 
 like Johnny's toy village, and then set up "in such 
 sort," says Froissart, "that the lords might lodge 
 therein, and retire at night so as to be in safety 
 from sudden awakening, and sleep in greater 
 security." (Why is it that there is, almost inva- 
 riably, this element of the comic in the doings of 
 the French? Celtic blood, I suppose!) Great care 
 was also taken to supply the lords with food, lest 
 peradventure sterile Albion should produce none. 
 And then consider the length of the voyage! 
 "Whoever had been at that time at Bruges, or 
 the Dam, or the Sluts, would have seen how ships 
 and vessels were being laden by torchlight with 
 hay in casks, biscuits in casks, onions, peas, beans, 
 barley, oats, candles, gaiters, shoes, boots, spurs, 
 iron, nails, culinary utensils, and all things that
 
 168 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 can be used for the service of men." And all these 
 things were paid for at very high prices, because 
 the Dutch, being thrifty, said that if they were not 
 paid what they asked in cash, they would take 
 their ships home and play neutral. The magnifi- 
 cence of it all, too! "On the masts was nothing 
 to be seen but painting and gilding; everything 
 was emblazoned and covered with armorial bear- 
 ings " (such an invaluable assistance, you will 
 understand, for a sea-fight!). "But nothing came 
 up to the Duke of Burgundy's ship. It was painted 
 all over outside with blue and gold, and there were 
 five huge banners, with the arms of Burgundy and 
 the countships of Flanders, Artois, Bethel, and 
 Burgundy, and everywhere the Duke's motto, 'I 
 drive!'" 
 
 The young King was eager to set off; and there 
 was as much glorification as on the night before 
 Agincourt. But they had to wait three months for 
 the King's uncle, the Due de Berry, who was in 
 no such hurry to go to England; and when they 
 finally did start, the stormy winds did blow, and 
 blew them straight back where they came from. 
 Master Charles, deeply disgusted, went back to 
 Paris, leaving some men-of-war to unload the fleet, 
 and bestow it in a place of safety as soon as might 
 be. But they were saved all this trouble ; for the 
 English, for whom the wind was exactly right, 
 came over, and burned or took in tow most of the 
 ships, and carried off all the provisions, onions,
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 169 
 
 candles, gaiters, spurs, town and all, besides two 
 thousand casks of wine, which kept perfidious 
 Albion warm and merry all winter. 
 
 Truly, it seems idle to doubt that "there's a 
 sweet little cherub that sits up aloft," to keep the 
 shores of the " right little, tight little island " clear 
 of invaders. Since the days of the 
 
 *' Very great war- man 
 Called Billy the Norman," 
 
 has any invasion of England prospered ? Many 
 have threatened, from the Invincible Armada to 
 the time when the terror of " Bony " hung for years 
 like a black cloud over English soil; but I can call 
 to mind none that has succeeded. To return to 
 our ships. 
 
 One reign and another passed by, and still France 
 had no navy of her own. Louis XII. built one 
 large ship-of-war, the "Charente;" Duchess Anne 
 of Brittany launched a monster named "La Belle 
 Cordeliere," and Francis I. a large two-decked ship, 
 the "Caraquon." But one was sunk by an Eng- 
 lish squadron as soon as she put out of port, and 
 the other was burned at her moorings in Havre.. 
 Francis, warlike and wide-awake, began to take 
 notice of the state of affairs. To meet the gallant 
 ships of England and Holland, he must have some- 
 thing else besides the small merchant vessels of 
 Normandy and Brittany. In short, he must have 
 a navy, a number of powerful armed vessels.
 
 170 GLLVPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 Again, in order to have these, he must have ports for 
 them to come and go from. He found that with a 
 seaboard of many thousand miles, he had no ports 
 to speak of, no ports, that is, to admit vessels 
 of any considerable draught. He occupied himself 
 with the improvement of Havre, and from a mere 
 fishing village made it a stately town, with towers 
 and basins and everything that a harbor town 
 might want. Not content with this, he next gave 
 his attention to the Mediterranean, collected a fleet 
 there, and for the first time in history a French 
 squadron, passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, 
 defeated an English fleet off Brest, and then, mov- 
 ing round to the eastward, drove off the blockading 
 squadron of Henry VIII. from Boulogne. Unfor- 
 tunately, the successors of Francis made no effort 
 to carry out his views as to the necessity of a 
 powerful navy. His ships lay and rotted quietly 
 at their moorings, and no new ones took their 
 places, " in fact, during the sixty years that 
 elapsed between his death and the accession of 
 Louis XIII., the navy of France may be said to 
 have ceased to exist." Then came a man with 
 eyes in his head and a brain behind them, came 
 Richelieu, like a strong keen wind, thrilling through 
 all the waste places, searching out every weak spot 
 in the body politic. 
 
 Richelieu, in 1626, wishing to close Rochelle to 
 the English, demanded ships. Behold, there were 
 no ships ! and his Eminence was compelled to hire
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 171 
 
 twenty vessels from the Dutch. This fact made 
 a profound impression upon him; and he at once 
 threw all his energies and all his abilities into the 
 grave question of making a navy. First, he per- 
 suaded the King to abolish the useless sinecure of 
 a High Admiral of France, and to appoint him, the 
 Cardinal, Grand Master of the Navy, and Super- 
 intendent-General of Navigation and Commerce. 
 Next, he insisted on a certain annual sum being 
 set apart in the budget for the construction of 
 ships-of-war, and the purchase of material to keep 
 those already existent in proper repair. This 
 done, he raged like a whirlwind along the sea- 
 board of France ; built ships, built galleys, opened 
 the harbors of Brest and Toulon, and established 
 maritime arsenals. Up to this time, be it said, 
 the few vessels which belonged to the King were 
 paid off at the end of a war, the captain of each 
 one still remaining responsible for her being kept 
 fit for commission. Having no funds for the 
 purpose, it can readily be imagined that by the 
 majority of captains this duty was very negli- 
 gently performed, if performed at all; and it 
 almost invariably happened that when a vessel 
 was brought forward for re-commission, she was 
 found to be in such a condition that much time and 
 money must be spent before she was fit for sea. 
 Havre, Brest, Brouage, and Toulon were the ports 
 selected as the first arsenals of France, and all 
 ships-of-war were paid off at one of these places,
 
 172 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 the official in command being held responsible not 
 only for the stores within the arsenal walls, but 
 for the condition of the ships lying in harbor. 
 
 All this good work was not slow in bearing fruit. 
 At the death of Louis XIII., the French flag flew 
 in every sea. The mercantile marine, as well as 
 the navy, had been successfully fostered by the 
 great statesman, and France possessed naval sta- 
 tions in the West Indies, in Florida, Canada, on 
 the west coast , of Africa, and in Madagascar. 
 
 Unhappily Richelieu died, and Mazarin let navy 
 and marine go to pieces as fast as they would. In 
 the Fronde days, when some ships were wanted, 
 only eight, and three convict galleys, were available 
 for service. "Here we go up, up, up," you per- 
 ceive, "and here we go down, down, downy." But 
 this decadence was not for long. Colbert came, 
 with his great maxim, " Commerce is the source of 
 wealth, and wealth the nerves of war." Colbert 
 rose, and navy and marine were raised once more. 
 "Under his fostering care the two great trading 
 companies, the French East India and West India 
 Companies, sprang into existence and rose to wealth. 
 In order to foster these enterprises, which he fore- 
 saw would bring the riches of the unknown world 
 to the markets of France, Colbert promised liberal 
 advantages to the importers of merchandise, and 
 escorts for the merchant fleets in time of war. 
 These escorts necessitated a vast increase of the 
 navy. Colbert at once set to work to resuscitate
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 173 
 
 the dying glories of Richelieu's policy. Ship- 
 builders were engaged from England and Holland, 
 cargoes of wood brought from Norway and Russia. 
 The arsenals of Brest and Toulon rang with the 
 music of thousands of hammers, and every nerve 
 was strained to raise France to the position of a 
 first-class maritime power." 
 
 It was not very long before France had two 
 hundred large ships on her navy list, and, thanks 
 to Colbert's "Maritime Inscription," could call at 
 any moment fifty thousand hardy sailors into ser- 
 vice. A brief word about this Maritime Inscrip- 
 tion, by means of which the great minister utilized 
 the service of the seafaring population of the 
 whole coast-line. To fishermen, merchantmen, 
 boatmen, he said, "Your life is one of peril, your 
 calling is one which, more than any other, brings 
 you face to face with death; and in no other pro- 
 fessions have the families of the bread-winners 
 more frequent need of charitable help than yours. 
 Every year the storms which sweep our coasts 
 leave your wives desolate, and your children father- 
 less. You shall have the protection of the State ; 
 but in return you shall hold your services at the 
 command of the State when it has need of you. 
 Your own calling will be little interfered with, 
 for the time when your Sovereign has need of you 
 will be just the time when you will be unable to 
 pursue your own avocations in peace ; and in return 
 for these services the State will give you a pension
 
 174 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 when you are no longer able to work, and at your 
 death it will support your families, and provide 
 employment for your sons." Thus all men and 
 boys employed in any sort of navigation were 
 enrolled in the Maritime Inscription, were insured 
 protection and a pension, and were forbidden to 
 serve on ships flying a foreign flag, or on a ship 
 carrying letters of marque without the special 
 permission of the naval commandant at the port 
 of register. 
 
 But the Maritime Inscription was not enough 
 to make France as powerful on the seas as she 
 wished to become; and side by side with the 
 regular navy sprang up the corsairs, " ships fitted 
 out by private enterprise to reinforce the fleets 
 of the State, and to undertake duties which the 
 King's ships were not numerous enough to per- 
 form." These vessels carried letters of marque, 
 were heavily armed, and manned by bold and expe- 
 rienced sailors. Their principal object was to 
 pursue and capture the merchant-vessels which, 
 laden with commodities more or less precious, were 
 constantly sailing from one port or another. 
 
 Very often the merchants made common cause, 
 and would set sail together, half-a-dozen or more 
 vessels, under convoy of a man-of-war; but even 
 in this case it was no uncommon thing for a 
 corsair to swoop down on the convoy, and carry 
 off part of it under the very nose of the war-ship. 
 
 The success of these corsairs was unparalleled.
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 175 
 
 Scouring the seas with swift, light vessels, they 
 came and went like meteors, carrying desolation 
 in their path. In the year 1689 alone, the cor- 
 sairs of France captured forty -two hundred English 
 and Dutch craft; and in Dunkirk alone, during 
 forty years of war, forty-three hundred and forty- 
 four prizes were sold by the admiralty courts for 
 the sum of 6,327,000, and thirty- four thousand 
 seven hundred and fifty prisoners detained for 
 various terms in the town. 
 
 Of one of these corsairs, a son of Dunkirk, Jean 
 Bart by name, I propose to give a brief sketch. 
 This hero was born in 1650, and, one may say, 
 was born a corsair, his father having been eminent 
 in the profession, and his maternal grandfather 
 being no other than Michel Jacobson, the famous 
 Sea-Fox, most renowned of all that sailed those 
 waters. Thus, with the wild blood rioting in his 
 veins, little Jean grew up a sturdy and venture- 
 some youngster. He was but eight years old when 
 the allied French and English armies besieged 
 Dunkirk; and the little lad ran about amid the 
 roar and smoke of the bombardment, and took to 
 himself the cannon-balls for playthings when they 
 had done their work, and thought a bombardment 
 a glorious thing, with plenty of first-class noise. 
 Xot a whit was he daunted when his father 
 received a wound which ended his fighting days ; 
 for then the old corsair sat in his room, looking 
 out over the sea, and told stories all day long of
 
 176 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 chase and capture and hairbreadth escape. The 
 best story of all was that of the death of the Sea- 
 Fox. His vessel had been crippled by the fire of 
 a whole Dutch squadron, and after a desperate 
 struggle had been boarded by the enemy. The 
 Dutchman "found the crew, mon gar$on, all dead 
 or wounded, flat, you observe, like this crutch, 
 on the deck. But thy grandfather, do they find 
 him? A-a-ah! [with a back-handed shake of the 
 forefinger], believe it not! Where is he? Search 
 then, rny little Dutchman, in the rigging, in the 
 cabin, que diable! Search always, my little ones; 
 forward then ! But "A long and dramatic pause. 
 "Approach thou, Jean Bart, grandson of a hero! 
 Regard, under this table: it is the hold of the 
 vessel. What is this that creeps, creeps, silent as 
 the night, among the powder-casks? Hush! look! 
 His sword in his right hand, the corsair dies not 
 without it, in his left, what? A torch, that 
 flames, that hisses, that flickers. C'est le Renard ! 
 it is the Fox ! The vessel may be taken, it is 
 a thing of wood; but he, never! He is a good 
 Catholic, observe: he confessed but the night 
 before. He is absolved; Mary awaits him with a 
 crown of glory. He prays : it is enough. A smile 
 upon his lips, he applies the fire to the powder: 
 eric! cracf bourn! The affair is finished. Ship, 
 Dutchmen, dead and wounded, where are they? 
 Glory, my son, glory alone remains. Thus dies 
 a corsair of France."
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 177 
 
 Is it wonderful that with such instructions the 
 little Jean determined to be a corsair, and to rival 
 the deeds of father and grandfather ? His mother, 
 it is true, wept, prayed, implored against it. Ah, 
 these poor mothers ! When did one whom the sea 
 claimed as her own ever pay heed to them ? In 
 his twelfth year Jean Bart embarked as ship's boy 
 on a Dunkirk smuggler, commanded by a well- 
 known corsair, Jerome Valbue. This man, though 
 a thorough seaman and a brave commander, seems 
 to have been primarily a brute; and though he 
 was a friend of Cornil Bart, still matters might 
 have gone hardly with the boy, had it not been 
 for Antoine Sauret, his father's old boatswain, 
 who shipped with the boy for pure love, and not 
 only shielded him from the brutality of the 
 skipper, but taught him all the mysteries of sea- 
 craft. Like the "Pinafore's" captain, he could 
 "hand, reef, and steer, and ship a salvagee;" 
 and before his four years' apprenticeship was 
 over, he was counted the smartest lad in all 
 Dunkirk, and had won Colbert's prize for marks- 
 manship in the annual artillery competition on 
 the Downs. 
 
 Passing from boyhood to youth, Jean, while still 
 a lad, was in 1666 appointed mate of a crack brig- 
 antine, the "Cochon Gras," with Valbue over him 
 as captain. He anticipated much pleasure from 
 this cruise; but it was brought to an abrupt close. 
 The incident which caused the rupture between 
 
 12
 
 178 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 Bart and his captain is so characteristic of the 
 time and the man that I cannot forbear quoting 
 it in full from Mr. Norman's work. It shows at 
 once the religious intolerance of the day, and the 
 need, which Colbert pointed out, of limiting and 
 defining the powers of a corsair captain. 
 
 "In this very year [1666] Colbert, in submitting 
 to Louis XIV. the list of ships-of-war ready to 
 be used against England, took the opportunity of 
 pointing out to the Grand Monarch the necessity 
 for drawing up a code of laws which should put 
 an end to existing abuses. There was at this time 
 a perpetual conflict between the captains of ships- 
 of-war lying in harbor, and the admiralty officials 
 commanding on shore. At sea the captain was an 
 absolute autocrat, the judge of all matters, arbiter 
 of life and death, and dispenser of an irregular 
 code which was revolting in the cruelty of its 
 edicts, and which, dating from the days of Eichard 
 Co3ur de Lion, embraced a series of antiquated laws, 
 then known under the title of the Judgments of 
 Oleron. The old Mosaic doctrine, 'An eye for an 
 eye, a tooth for a tooth,' was the basis of this 
 code. Thus, if a man drew a knife on another, he 
 was pinned to the mast by a knife through the 
 offending hand; if he wounded a messmate in the 
 arm, his own arm paid the forfeit; if he committed 
 murder, he was tied to the corpse of the murdered 
 man, and cast into the sea. There was a charming 
 simplicity about the Judgments of Oleron, which
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 179 
 
 rendered the study of naval law easy enough, and 
 enabled the masters of ships to maintain discipline 
 among the most refractory crew; and in the days 
 when master and seamen in many crafts lived in 
 terms of the most perfect equality, and ate and 
 drank and played together, perhaps summary 
 justice was necessary. 
 
 "On board the 'Cochon Gras ' there sailed 
 a Huguenot seaman, Martin Lanoix by name. 
 Although a brave man, and second to no man on 
 board in sailor-like qualities, his religion drew 
 down upon him the scoffing of his messmates 
 and the most brutal pleasantries of his captain. 
 Of all the crew Jean Bart and Sauret were the 
 only members who showed the Huguenot sym- 
 pathy, or who treated him as a messmate. One 
 afternoon Valbue, more than half-seas over, had 
 been recounting to his open-mouthed crew the 
 miraculous aid offered to a sinking Breton fisher- 
 boat by a bishop, who appeared walking on the 
 water, and, quietly stepping over the side, infused 
 fresh life and vigor into the worn-out crew, and 
 who, with more than superhuman power, remained 
 at the pumps until the craft was safe in harbor. 
 Having finished his tale, Valbue took the oppor- 
 tunity to level some injurious epithets at his 
 Huguenot seaman, finishing up his abuse by hurling 
 a half-empty tin drinking-can at Lanoix's head. 
 
 " The Huguenot, with provoking calmness, wiped 
 the dripping cider from his face and beard, and
 
 180 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 replied, 'Master, the Judgments of Oleron lay 
 down that the captain should be moderate in his 
 language, and just in his dealings to his crew, if 
 you please.' 
 
 "Exasperated at the tone of Lanoix's reply, 
 Valbue advanced upon him with uplifted hand and 
 threatening words. The Huguenot, falling back, 
 in the same provoking tone continued, 'The Judg- 
 ments of Oleron, which bind you as well as me, lay 
 down that the captain is not to punish the sailor 
 until his anger has cooled down.' 
 
 " 'What! ' shouted the enraged Valbue, 'you, 
 who blaspheme the Blessed Virgin, dare to quote 
 the law to me? Take that! ' and lifting high a 
 capstan-bar which lay on the open hatch, he aimed 
 a blow at Lanoix's head, which, grazing the face, 
 fell full on the sailor's shoulder. 
 
 " Sauret, the eldest member of the crew, rose, and 
 wished to interpose; but Valbue", turning on him, 
 threatened to strike him also; and the old salt ? 
 knowing the absolute authority of the captain, 
 wisely held his peace. 
 
 "'Captain,' said Lauoix, 'I have now received 
 your first blow, as the law enjoins; but now,' 
 lightly jumping over the iron rail which ran across 
 the fore part of the ship, and which marked the 
 quarters of the crew, 'now, if you strike me, you 
 exceed your rights, and I can resume mine, for I 
 have passed the chain.' 
 
 " ' Comment ! ' shrieked Valbue, beside himself
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 181 
 
 with rage, 'you, Huguenot, over-weighted with 
 the load of never-to-be-forgiven sins, you, whose 
 blasphemies have placed you forever beyond the 
 law, you dare to talk to me of laws ? Dog of a 
 heretic, wait, just wait a moment, and I will show 
 you what laws are applicable to swine, to Jews, 
 and to Huguenots.' Then, seeing Lanoix still 
 stood on his guard behind the chain, Valbue sprang 
 forward, and struck him two violent blows in the 
 face. In an instant the knife of the Huguenot 
 flashed in the air, and descended on the captain's 
 right arm. The gleam of the steel was seen by 
 the crew; and though disgusted at their captain's 
 brutality, the sense of discipline was strong within 
 them, and rushing forward to Valbue's aid, Lanoix 
 was borne down and pinioned in a trice, but not 
 before, turning on the first man who approached 
 him (the coward Valbue stood hounding on his 
 crew), he had stabbed him to the heart. 
 
 "Pale, and trembling with fright and anger, 
 Valbue turned to the cabin-boy, saying, 'Go into my 
 cabin; there in a box on the locker you will see a 
 book bound in white parchment. Bring it to me.' 
 
 " The boy disappeared, returning again in a few 
 moments with the book, whose fatal decrees all 
 knew so well. Jean Bart, who had been at the 
 tiller whilst this scene was being enacted, stood 
 motionless. Anon his eye would be thrown on the 
 compass to see that the craft still held her course, 
 and then with grim determination cast on the group
 
 182 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 at the break of the forecastle. A glance of intel- 
 ligence passed between him and Sauret, who, walk- 
 ing aft, sat on the weather-rail by Jean Bart's 
 side. The significance of the movement was not 
 lost upon Valbue, who, turning round, shouted, in 
 tones of ill-suppressed anger, 'You know how to 
 read, Sauret; read this,' at the same time holding 
 towards the scarred and weather-beaten salt the 
 little-used volume. 
 
 "'I will not read it,' replied Sauret. 
 
 '"Then I will do so myself,' said Valbue. 
 
 "'Valbue,' interrupted Sauret, 'you are not act- 
 ing according to law. That unfortunate, ' pointing 
 to Lanoix, who, bruised and bleeding, lay bound 
 on the deck, 'should be allowed three meals at 
 which he may acknowledge his fault, nay, more, 
 he should be permitted the oaths on bread, on 
 wine, and on salt, that he may swear to respect 
 your authority in the future.' 
 
 "'Silence!' thundered Valbue; 'his blasphemies 
 deprive him of all right of purging his offence. 
 The chain of refuge, the oaths of excuse, the meals 
 of repentance, are not for dogs like him. It is not 
 I who judge him, it is the law; I am merely the 
 accuser. Listen ! I, Maitre Valbue, swear by the 
 Holy Apostles that what I read is the law : " The 
 sailor who strikes or raises his hand against his 
 captain will be fastened to the mast by means of 
 a sharp knife, and compelled to withdraw his hand 
 in such a manner that one-half at least of the
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 183 
 
 erring hand shall remain affixed to the mast." ' 
 Then, half -closing the book, Valbue said, 'Accord- 
 ing to the Judgments of Oleron, any sailor blas- 
 pheming the Pope shall have his tongue pierced 
 by a hot iron. Lanoix had so blasphemed our 
 Holy Father, and it was my intention to have 
 carried out the letter of the law for the offence; 
 and in attempting to arrest him he drew his knife 
 upon me, me, his captain, and wounded me in 
 the arm. Now, each man answer in his turn! 
 Did Martin Lanoix blaspheme the name of his 
 Holiness, and, furthermore, did he strike his cap- 
 tain ? ' Then, rolling up his coat-sleeve, Valbue, 
 holding up his arm, displayed a flesh wound, fresh 
 and bleeding, in his right arm. 'Answer,' shouted 
 Valbue, 'Yes, or no! ' 
 
 " The crew grouped round the captain murmured 
 'Oui;' but from the stern of the ship, in old 
 Sauret's well-known voice, came the words, 'Cap- 
 tain, you had passed the chain, and ' 
 
 " Stamping his foot on the deck, Valbue cried, 
 'That is no answer to my question, son of a dog. 
 Did Martin Lanoix inflict this wound on me, or 
 not?' 
 
 "'But ' interposed Sauret. 
 
 " ' Was it Martin Lanoix ? Yes, or no ! ' shrieked 
 Valbue. 
 
 "'Very well, No! ' responded Sauret. 
 
 '"No! ' chimed in Jean Bart. 
 
 "Valbue, trembling with rage, said, 'Six of the
 
 184 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 crew affirm that Martin Lanoix did wound his 
 captain; two of the crew say he did not: the 
 majority are right. Boy, fetch my cutlass.' 
 
 " And the boy, diving below, reappeared, with a 
 long, straight Spanish sword, the edge as keen as 
 a Sikh trooper's tulwar. 
 
 " Stooping forward, Valbua lashed it to the wind- 
 lass, edge uppermost; and then, directing the crew 
 to raise Lanoix, he lashed the prisoner's arm to 
 the trenchant blade. 
 
 "'Martin Lanoix, withdraw your arm, as the law 
 directs ! ' 
 
 "The Huguenot hesitated. Then the brutal 
 Valbue, seizing the helpless prisoner by the throat, 
 dashed him backwards; and as he fell, the sword, 
 severing flesh and muscle, laid the quivering arm 
 bare from wrist to elbow. 
 
 "'Unlash the prisoner !' continued Valbue ; and, 
 faint with loss of blood, Lanoix sank bleeding on 
 the deck. 'Bring aft the body of Simon Lai-ret!' 
 said the captain, moving to the stern of the vessel, 
 where Sauret and Jean Bart remained mute spec- 
 tators of the direful scene. Two men, carrying 
 the corpse, laid it at the feet of the still senseless 
 Lanoix. 
 
 '"I swear by the Holy Apostles that what I read 
 is true,' continued Valbue, once more opening the 
 book. '"If any sailor kills a messmate, or so 
 wounds him that he dies from the effect of the 
 wound, the living man shall be lashed to the dead,
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 185 
 
 and both shall be cast into the sea. If the murder 
 takes place on shore, the murderer shall be executed 
 as the law provides." 
 
 "'Yes, or no: did Martin Lanoix kill Simon 
 Larret? ' interrogated Valbue. 
 
 "'Yes,' answered the six, as before. 
 
 "'Xo,' replied Sauret and Jean Bart. 
 
 " 'Six recognize the murder; two refuse to do so : 
 the majority are in the right. Carry out the law ! ' 
 and Martin Lanoix, victim to the ungovernable 
 hatred of a brutal captain, still living, though 
 bound and helpless, was lashed to the yet warm 
 corpse, and cast into the sea. 
 
 "That evening the 'Cochon Gras' entered Calais, 
 and Sauret and his young master bade farewell 
 forever to the brutal skipper, whose inhuman 
 conduct, however, bore good fruit. In accordance 
 with the laws, Valbue reported the occurrence to 
 the Intendant at Calais; and this official, the 
 Sieur de Imfreville, penned an able memorandum 
 ou the inequalities of naval laws. This memo- 
 randum was submitted by Colbert to Louis XIV., 
 with a scheme for the codification of the existing 
 laws; and so from the murder of the poor Huguenot 
 sprang the present Code Maritime of France." 
 
 We may hope, though we are not told so, that 
 Valbue received some sort of punishment for his 
 crimes. Jean Bart, however, was to be speedily 
 rewarded for the gallant part he had played. The
 
 186 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 Intendant, well pleased with what he heard of the 
 youth, sent for him a few days after, and offered 
 him the honorable but dangerous task of putting 
 some French cavaliers on board De Ruyter's fleet, 
 then blockading the English in the Thames. Bart 
 sprang at the chance; and as the sun went down, 
 he slipped out of Calais harbor in a good half- 
 decked boat, the faithful Sauret and two Calais 
 boatmen as his crew, while in the stern-sheets 
 cowered the Marquis d'Harcourt and the Counts 
 de Coislen and de Cavoye, gallant gentlemen, at 
 home in the saddle and the open field, but unused 
 to midnight cruises in an open boat. The night 
 was cool and keen, and the boat danced merrily 
 over the heaving waves, to the intense discomfort 
 of the passengers; but little thought Jean Bart of 
 their petty land-lubber miseries. He was going 
 to see an Admiral, a real live Admiral! the most 
 glorious thing on earth, next to the Archangel 
 St. Michael himself. A King, or an Intendant of 
 Marine, might be very well in his way; but an 
 Admiral! As for these unhappy silken apologies, 
 in their laces and satin cloaks and curling wigs, 
 Jean Bart was really sorry for them. To be such 
 objects of pity must be indeed sad. As for him, 
 he was in the seventh heaven, for an idea had 
 struck him. The glorious Admiral would per- 
 haps be glad to know the exact position of the 
 enemy. It was known that Monk was only wait- 
 ing a favorable wind to come out of the Thames
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 187 
 
 and try his fate. Why should not he, Jean Bart, 
 go and have a look at the enemy, and report to the 
 Admiral what he saw ? Already the white cliffs 
 of Albion were in sight. A whispered consulta- 
 tion with Sauret, gray, faithful old sea-dog, a 
 few quick orders to the men, and his boat was flying 
 up the Thames on a flood tide, with a breeze fair 
 from the southeast. By midday (the wretched 
 noblemen always curled up in the stern-sheets, 
 too sick to move, and with no idea of what was 
 going on) he found himself within easy view of 
 Monk's fleet, counted the vessels, noted their posi- 
 tion, and then dropped back with the ebb, bore off 
 past Southend, round the Essex coast, and ran up 
 to the Dutch fleet at 8 A. M. the following morning. 
 Rocking under the lee of the lofty flag-ship, the 
 " Seven Provinces," the captain roused his unhappy 
 passengers with a cheery "At last, Messieurs, be- 
 hold us!" Cramped with long lying curled up, 
 drenched with the water the little vessel had 
 shipped in bucketfuls, their ruffles draggled, their 
 wigs frightfully out of curl, the poor Marquis and 
 the two suffering Counts made their way up the side 
 of the great vessel, and presented themselves before 
 the Admiral. After them sprang an active figure, 
 lithe and graceful as a wild creature, trim and neat 
 in his sailor's rig, with glowing eyes, and cheeks of 
 ruddy brown. Jean Bart also made his salute; and 
 then, overcome by the awful majesty of the all-but- 
 divine being before him, the Admiral himself, ia
 
 188 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 the flesh, he dropped on his knees, and stammered 
 out broken words of homage and devotion. 
 
 De Ruyter was delighted with the information 
 brought by the young Triton, and at his earnest 
 request took both him and old Sauret on board 
 the "Seven Provinces" as able seamen. So that 
 by one of the curious chances of that changing 
 time, the future corsair, whose proudest victories 
 were to be won over the ships of Holland, saw his 
 first five years of warfare fighting under Dutch 
 colors, and was ready to die at any moment for 
 the Dutch Admiral. 
 
 Bravely he served during these five years, which 
 were years of education and practice invaluable 
 to the future commander. But he was first of all 
 a Frenchman; and when, in 1672, France declared 
 war against Holland, he refused all offers of pro- 
 motion in the Dutch service, and returned to take 
 his station under the white flag of France. 
 
 Early in 1674 Jean Bart received command of 
 his first vessel, the "King David," a coasting- 
 lugger carrying two guns and a crew of thirty-six 
 men, not a very formidable craft, one would 
 think; yet his first prize, a Dutch brigantine, was 
 taken within a week. This was in March. In 
 April he took a Dutch brig mounting ten guns; 
 in May two prizes were his; in June two more. 
 Briefly, in the first year he captured ten vessels, 
 large and small. People in Dunkirk began to toss 
 their heads, and say, " Yes, Jean Bart ! He is of
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 189 
 
 our city. We knew him when he was a little one 
 so high. He is of the true blood, and will soon 
 rival his grandfather, the Sea-Fox. Dunkirk is 
 the home of the true corsairs." Also the pretty 
 maidens began to open their eyes, and to think that 
 Jean Bart was not only bravest of the brave, but 
 uncommonly handsome. Plenty of people were 
 always on the quay when the "King David" came 
 gayly into port, with a captive vessel towing 
 behind. One put on one's best cap, and the gold 
 beads which grandmother was always glad to lend, 
 and the long gold earrings. But foremost on the 
 quay was always old sea-dog Sauret, now too old 
 for service, but living in the exploits of his young 
 master. If you wanted to know more about the 
 young corsair, here was the man to ask. If he 
 had had a glass of wine at the cabaret as he came 
 along, or possibly two, you would hear wonderful 
 things; and it would be clear to any reasonable 
 mortal that Jean Bart, single-handed,, had beaten 
 off Monk's fleet on the 6th of August, and had 
 sunk and burned the English ships in the Thames. 
 Among the bright eyes that watched on the pier 
 for the young corsair's return was one pair that 
 seemed to him brighter than all the rest. A fair 
 child of sixteen won the young man's heart; and 
 he remembered that his father and grandfather 
 had both married young, and that a true sailor 
 should never be without a sweetheart. He was 
 married, and actually stayed on shore four months
 
 190 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 with his sweet little bride. A gallant couple they 
 must have made! Do you want to know, my 
 reader, what our Jean looked like ? You have 
 a fixed idea of a corsair in your mind, I know, as 
 I have. You know at just what page to open your 
 Byron, and read, 
 
 " That man of loneliness and mystery, 
 Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh, 
 Whose name appals the fiercest of his crew, 
 And tints each swarthy cheek with sallower hue." 
 
 And so on. I always thought Medora must have 
 had a wretched time with her blackavised adorer. 
 
 But in picturing to yourself our lad of Dunkirk, 
 you are to imagine no such gloomy desperado. 
 The portrait of him that I have seen shows a 
 frank, open countenance: a broad brow, with 
 dark hair curling round it; a firm mouth, which 
 looks, however, as if it could laugh merrily enough ; 
 and a pair of eyes so keen, so brilliant, and so 
 kindly that they seem fairly to dance in the pic- 
 ture; a bronzed cheek, in which the hot Breton 
 blood mantles readily; a curling moustache; a 
 figure spare and sinewy, yet graceful and well- 
 proportioned, thus Jean Bart stands before us. 
 eternally young and blithe, though it is two hun- 
 dred years since he set hand to earthly helm. 
 
 To sea again, now in "La Koyale," a smart 
 brigantine carrying ten guns, little Madame 
 waving her blue handkerchief, and crying on the
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 191 
 
 pier, but drying her eyes to think with pride 
 unspeakable of the greatness and glory of her 
 Jean, her own, and the pride of Dunkirk and 
 the world. 
 
 Now he takes the Dutch ship "Anne of Ham- 
 burg," and finds her full of gold-dust and elephant 
 tusks, and all manner of good things, a prize, 
 this, worth having, and outweighing a whole fleet 
 of fishing-smacks. However, even fishing-smacks 
 are not to be despised. So, when he finds two more 
 Dutch ships convoying a fleet of fifteen smacks into 
 harbor, why, he falls upon them with right good 
 will, and captures all seventeen of them. (N. B. 
 He allowed four of the fisher-captains to ransom 
 their craft, and thereby got himself into hot 
 water, such action being contrary to rules; but, 
 as he said, if he had tried to bring seventeen ves- 
 sels back to Dunkirk, he would very likely have lost 
 them all before he got there.) But greater things 
 were in store for the young privateersman. The 
 desire of his heart had always been some day to 
 command a frigate; and a frigate was now given 
 him, the " Palme," mounting twenty-four guns, 
 with a crew of one hundred and fifty men. Ah, 
 this was worth waiting for! If Grandpapa Renard 
 could have seen this! And now, the first heart's 
 desire being accomplished, the second came as a 
 corollary to it, to capture a man-of-war. " If 
 thou canst do this, Jean Bart, thou art sure of a 
 name that will last forever." Patience a little,
 
 192 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 though, my captain! there is other work to be 
 done first. 
 
 Cruising about, two days out of Dunkirk, he 
 fell in with two other French corsairs, and joined 
 company with them. A fortunate meeting it 
 proved; for soon after, several sail were descried in 
 that deeply mysterious and melodramatic locality, 
 "the offing." On nearer approach these proved to 
 be a squadron of eight armed whalers, escorted by 
 three corsairs, one of the latter flying the Dutch 
 colors, the other two the flag of Burgundy. Bart 
 and his consorts instantly bore down upon them, 
 and a severe fight ensued, during which the Dutch 
 corsairs fought gallantly to defend the convoy 
 with which they had been intrusted. After three 
 hours, however, Jean Bart succeeded in boarding 
 the "Tertoole," the principal vessel; and after a 
 sharp hand-to-hand combat, her captain surren- 
 dered, and the white flag was run up above the 
 tricolor of Holland. Seeing this, the other two 
 hostile corsairs made off, abandoning the whale- 
 ships, which Bart and his companions found an 
 easy prey. Here was a rich prize to take back to 
 Dunkirk. Yes, very well, very well; but the 
 desire of one's heart is not yet fulfilled. Again? 
 patience, my Captain! the time is at hand. On 
 the 7th of September in this year (1676), the 
 " Palme " was once more standing out to sea, hav- 
 ing just taken another prize into Dunkirk, a fat 
 Dutch smack this time, laden with knitted goods
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 193 
 
 from England. The little Dutch boys would have 
 no mittens or comforters from that consignment. 
 All are on the alert; all, from captain to cabin- 
 boy, are wishing and hoping for the same thing. 
 Suddenly the lookout cries, " Sail ho ! " (or what- 
 ever "sail ho!" is in seventeenth-century French). 
 " Where away? " is the time-honored reply. " Dead 
 ahead, M. le Capitaine ! " A fleet of fishing-smacks, 
 and convoying them, Honor! O Glory! a man- 
 of-war! At last! Make ready everything, alow 
 and aloft! Load the pistols, look to the cutlasses, 
 train up the guns in the way they should go. 
 
 Crowding on all sail, Jean Bart proudly sweeps 
 into the midst of the convoy. Bang! A shot fired 
 across the enemy's bows summons her to heave to 
 and submit to be searched; and at the same instant 
 the white flag of France is run up to the mainmast 
 of the frigate. By way of reply, the strange man- 
 of-war displays the Dutch colors, and salutes with 
 a broadside that whistles through the sails and 
 rigging of the "Palme," and warns her captain 
 that he has no child's play in hand this time. 
 Yes, Jean Bart, thou hast met thy match at last. 
 This ship is the gallant "Neptune," carrying 
 thirty-two guns, her commander, Liemard Cuiper, 
 as brave and determined a sailor as any that sailed 
 under the brave Dutch flag. Nothing daunted, 
 Jean Bart fires his own broadside. Again and 
 again the "Neptune" replies. Like two sea-mon- 
 sters, the vessels lie there, belching out smoke and 
 
 13
 
 194 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 flame. On this side and on that crashes the round- 
 shot. It is an artillery duel, roar, crash, smash, 
 roar again; so on for three hours and a half. 
 Always the Frenchman is manoeuvring to bring 
 his vessel alongside the enemy, that he may carry 
 her by boarding. Always the wily Dutchman 
 answers him by a counter-move that checks him. 
 Jean Bart's clear brow darkens; he has had enough 
 of this. "Fire high!" he bids his men. They 
 comply; and the guns cease to batter the enemy's 
 hull, while aloft the balls go singing and scream- 
 ing. "Crash!" what is that? The "Neptune's" 
 mainmast is cut through. It falls with its tower 
 of canvas, a vast mass of ruin. The vessel, refus- 
 ing to answer the helm, falls away. Now, Jean 
 Bart, 3'our hour is come ! Instantly he is up on 
 the Dutchman's weather quarter; his rigging is 
 full of men, and as the vessels come together they 
 lash their own fore-rigging to the after-shrouds of 
 the Dutchman. 
 
 Jean Bart, cutlass in hand, leaps into the rigging 
 with one hundred and twenty Dunkirk lads at 
 his back. They spring, rush, scramble, like wild- 
 cats aboard the fated Dutchman. Cuiper, badly 
 wounded, rallies his men bravely for all that; sets 
 his back against the mast, like the gallant Hol- 
 lander he is, and prepares to die, sword in hand. 
 But his men are weary; three hours' cannonading 
 has damped their ardor. The decks are slippery 
 with blood, and heaped with the bodies of dead
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 195 
 
 and dying comrades. So when at last brave Cuiper 
 falls, they yield, those who are left. The hacking 
 and butchering cease. Again the white flag flut- 
 ters up, up, above the conquered tricolor. Again 
 Jean Bart stands victor on the deck of his prize. 
 
 This time the Dunkirk people nearly went mad 
 over their hero. The bells rang, the bonfires blazed, 
 the people sang, danced, shouted, and screamed for 
 joy and pride. Think of the scene of his return! 
 the gray old pier thronged, choked, with folk 
 in holiday attire. In spite of the throng, however, 
 French courtesy and delicacy have left a little 
 vacant space around three figures which stand at 
 the very water's edge, gazing at the approaching 
 vessels with eyes half-blinded by joyful tears, 
 two women, leaning close on each other, one 
 young and fair as a summer morning; the other 
 white-haired and wrinkled, but still erect and dig- 
 nified, as befits the daughter of the Sea-Fox. And 
 behind them, bent almost double over his stick, 
 an old fellow with a face like a walnut, tooth- 
 less, crippled, but the happiest man, he thinks, in 
 France this day. "Aha, mon brave. f ah, the gal- 
 lant little child! Old Sauret is here to receive 
 thee, my little one. Holy Virgin, he is there ! I 
 cannot see him yet, but I feel him; he is in the 
 air. Vive Jean Bart! vive le corsairef" So mut- 
 ters and chuckles the old man, whose ninety years 
 seem to him to have passed solely that they might 
 lead to this supreme moment. At last! at last
 
 196 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 they round the pier; they are here. The stately 
 "Palme," all decked with bunting, fluttering from 
 stern to stem with streamers and pennons, towed 
 behind her the "Neptune," shattered and crippled, 
 showing in pierced hull and splintered masts how 
 brave a fight she has made. Still further astern, 
 the fleet of fishing-vessels which this conquered 
 sea god had sworn to protect. But who is this 
 who stands cap in hand on the prow of the vic- 
 torious vessel ? He waves the red cap. It is he! 
 it is our Jean! Shout, ye people! wave in return 
 caps, handkerchiefs, crutches, stools, everything 
 that can be caught up and waved. "Houra ! " (the 
 English have taught them that gallant cry, and 
 they are proud of their knowledge) " Vive Jean 
 Bart! vive le corsaire! vive la France!" and I 
 do believe that if the Grand Monarque himself 
 in all his glory had come through Dunkirk town 
 at that moment, there would not have been so 
 much as a head turned to look at him. 
 
 The Magnificent, however, heard of this exploit, 
 news of which overflowed from Dunkirk, and spread 
 all over the country; and Magnificence was highly 
 delighted, and sent through Minister Colbert a fine 
 gold chain to the successful privateersman as a 
 special token of royal favor. Do you think Jean 
 Bart wore the chain himself? Ah, no; there was 
 a grand dance, most likely, the very next night, 
 in honor of the hero; and if that chain did not 
 adorn the whitest and prettiest neck in Dunkirk,
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 197 
 
 then I know nothing of the nature of a French 
 privateersman. 
 
 Well, what next ? After all, one sea-fight is 
 not unlike another, and our story is almost one 
 unbroken line of conquests. The name of Jean 
 Bart was as a fire, striking terror to the hearts 
 of all traders and merchantmen. At sight of his 
 sail, those who were not heavily armed hauled 
 down their flags without more ado, and submitted 
 to the inevitable. When the more powerful ones 
 attempted resistance, it really made very little 
 difference. A cloud of canvas bore the swift black 
 hull down upon them like lightning. Crash went 
 the corsair into their side ; and at the instant the 
 boarders swarmed over the bulwarks, armed to the 
 teeth, their captain always at their head. There 
 was no resisting the fury of his onset. Briefly, he 
 was a sea-Conde, and there was no Turenne to set 
 against him. 
 
 For a long time Colbert had had his eyes upon 
 the corsair of Dunkirk, and had determined to 
 enlist him in the regular service, if possible; but 
 bitter opposition was made by the curled and 
 perfumed officers of the navy to the admission of a 
 real sailor, tarry and weatherbeaten, into the ranks. 
 It was not till 1679 that Jean Bart received his 
 commission as lieutenant in the French navy. He 
 was now no more a corsair, the free child of sea 
 and sky, but a King's man, under orders, with 
 officers over him whose whole mental and bodily
 
 198 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 outfit was not worth his little finger. It was 
 honorable, of course ; it was promotion, in a way : 
 but it must have been very tiresome. He Avho 
 could command so well, however, knew also how 
 to submit. He had but to wait, if it were true 
 that merit rose steadily in these ranks. So pres- 
 ently he was sent with two small ships to chase 
 the Barbary pirates, the terror of all the southern 
 seas ; and he gave them such a whipping that for 
 years afterwards the French flag was not meddled 
 with in the Mediterranean. 
 
 In 1689 came trouble with England again; and 
 when the two smartest frigates in Dunkirk harbor 
 were sent out to sweep the Channel, and settle 
 matters in true corsair fashion, with the meteor 
 flag of England, who but Jean Bart was in charge 
 of them? He was commander now, to the rage 
 and chagrin of many a court sailor. Many things 
 are possible when real danger threatens; and 
 Seignelay, Colbert's son, was now Minister of 
 Marine. The "Railleuse" and the "Serpente," 
 carrying respectively twenty-four and sixteen 
 guns, gallant vessels both, were fitted out by 
 Seignelay and Louvois themselves. Now, Jean 
 Bart had never fought an Englishman yet. Dutch- 
 men by the score, Moors, Spaniards, all manner of 
 people, but never yet had he fired upon the English 
 flag, if we except that time in his early youth 
 when he fought under De Euyter in the "Seven 
 Provinces."
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 199 
 
 So he met and fought his first Briton, after a 
 tremendous combat with a Hollander. It was 
 really a fine battle ! I should truly enjoy describ- 
 ing it, if I had not already described the combat 
 with the "Neptune." But, as I said before, one 
 sea-fight is very like another; and Jean beat the 
 English as he had beaten the Dutch, and hauled 
 down the meteor flag, and ruffled it about the deck 
 of the "Hollow Oak" in a manner which must 
 have been very trying to the Mariners of England. 
 
 It might have been in this engagement that Jean's 
 son received what Louis Napoleon would call his 
 "baptism of fire." He was only fourteen, poor 
 lad! It was his first battle. Perhaps he had more 
 of his gentle mother in him than of his sea-born 
 father. However it came about, it chanced that 
 Papa Jean, whirling, meteor-like, hither and 
 thither, cutlass in hand, glanced at the boy, to see 
 how he was enjoying himself. Alas! he was very 
 white; he was trembling visibly. The man who 
 had just fallen at his feet was bleeding horribly. 
 He was stunned by the roar of the great guns, the 
 crash of the balls, the shouts and shrieks and oaths. 
 He wished 
 
 " Sacre bleu ! " cries Papa Jean, at sight of the 
 white face. "Thou art afraid! thou! Hola, 
 there! Bring me a rope you, on the instant!" 
 
 With his own hands he lashes the poor laddie to 
 the mast, stands over him, glowering, pistol in 
 one hand, red-dripping sword in the other. " Seest
 
 200 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 them, my child, thou art to love this music, not to 
 shrink from it. Hark! eric! cracf Is it beautiful? 
 Listen to it, sing to it; amuse thyself till I come 
 again ! " 
 
 And the boy actually stood there, uninjured, 
 through the engagement; but I do not know 
 whether he sang or not. He learned his lesson, 
 however; for in after years Jean Bart had no reason 
 to blush for his gallant boy. 
 
 I cannot tell you about the great fight of June 28, 
 1694, when our hero, though immensely outnum- 
 bered, recaptured from the Dutch a convoy of sixty 
 French merchantmen laden with grain, which they 
 had taken. It was a very great fight, I must ask 
 you to believe; and the winning of it was thought 
 to have preserved the kingdom from famine, for 
 this grain was to feed the hungry French millions. 
 So great was the joy over the victory that Louis 
 XIV. caused a medal to be struck in commemora- 
 tion of it, and gave one to every officer who had 
 taken part in the engagement. One of these 
 medals, preserved in the museum of Dunkirk, 
 shows on one side the effigy of the Grand Mo- 
 narque, with the words, "Ludovicus Magnus, Rex 
 Christissimus; " on the other, the Goddess Ceres 
 standing on the seashore, with outstretched hands, 
 holding ears of corn, and welcoming an approach- 
 ing vessel, the inscription reading, "Annone 
 augusta: Fugatis unt Captis Bat : nev. MDCXCIX." 
 In addition to this very rare distinction, Louis gave
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 201 
 
 Jean Bart the order of St. Louis and a patent of 
 nobility, and 2,000 a year; and made his son, 
 young Cornil, who had learned effectively to love 
 the music his father made, an ensign in the navy. 
 
 One more picture, and I have done. I want you, 
 my readers, to see our Jean at court; for he is a 
 gentleman now, and can go to court as well as any 
 one. Call up once more to your minds, if you are 
 not too weary of it, the familiar scene of Versailles, 
 in these later days of the famous reign of Louis 
 XIV. The King is holding his levee. He is old 
 and weary, though he has a good many years yet 
 to live. He looks round on the throng of silken 
 simperers; he sees the snowy shoulders, the daz- 
 zling complexions which came out of a little glass 
 box, the towers and showers and bowers of curling 
 hair, most of which is put away at night with the 
 gown and the necklace. He does not care for them 
 any more. He speaks to this marquis in peach- 
 colored satin, and nods Jove-like when that count 
 in silver brocade and the other duke in cloth-of- 
 gold bend the knee before him and speak in hushed 
 whispers, calling him great and awful and god- 
 like. He knows he is all this, but somehow it 
 does not interest him as it used; he is very weary. 
 Behold, all, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. 
 To him, thus languishing on his throne, enters 
 suddenly a man, not a courtier, though his plain 
 dress is that of a gentleman; not a being of the 
 same world, one would think, as these. His dark
 
 202 GLIMPSES OF THE FRENCH COURT. 
 
 locks are threaded with silver now, the bronzed 
 face is seamed and lined with wrinkles of care and 
 thought, while here and there a scar tells of sword- 
 cut or bullet. But the keen, dark eyes sparkle 
 with all the joyous brilliance of five-and-twenty 
 years ago; and Jean Bart at fifty is the youngest 
 man in this room to-day, if it is the heart that 
 gives the age. He kneels to kiss the royal hand, 
 poor old hand! We know how much mischief 
 it has done, and yet we are sorry to soe it shake 
 so; and then, standing erect, he looks around in 
 wonder on the jewelled court. They look at him, 
 too, with equal wonder, the dames and damsels 
 admiring, the counts and marquises sneering. "A 
 common seaman ! " they whisper. " His parents 
 vulgar fishing-folk of a dirty sea-port village. 
 What are things coming to, mon cher, when such 
 a person as this is decorated, is ennobled ? " 
 
 But the weary old King gazes, with a feeling of 
 interest that he had almost forgotten, on the stal- 
 wart figure before him. He sighs. "Ah, Jean 
 Bart," he says, and not in a whisper either, 
 " Ah, Jean Bart, I would to God I had ten thou- 
 sand men like you ! " And the sailor, who had 
 never been taught to speak anything save the truth, 
 answered simply, "Sire, I can well believe it. 
 Je le crois bien ! " 
 
 One wishes this man could have died at sea. It 
 is what he himself would have wished, some 
 fiery apotheosis like that which bore the old Sea-
 
 A CORSAIR OF FRANCE. 203 
 
 Fox aloft, with his enemies around him, or some 
 swift shot carrying glory in its sting; but this was 
 not to be. A commodore at fifty-two, he was pre- 
 paring, with the rest of warlike France, to meet 
 the forces of the Grand Alliance, in 1702. He 
 was commissioned to prepare a squadron for his old 
 work of sweeping the Channel. A fine seventy- 
 four-gun frigate was sent to him for his flagship. 
 Working night and day, trudging about the dock- 
 yards, encouraging the workmen by word, by help- 
 ing hand, the commodore never considered that he 
 was no longer five-and-twenty. Besides, this land 
 was a strange place, not fit for a sailor. If he 
 could have kept at sea, he might have lived to a 
 hundred. As it was, wet, exposure, carelessness, 
 brought on an attack of pleurisy. With the 
 wisdom of the day, he was bled and blistered, 
 blistered and bled, till his strength was gone, 
 fought five days against the last enemy, and then 
 passed peacefully away, in the little house in which 
 he was born. Adieu, Jean Bart ! 
 
 You may see his tomb to-day, at the foot of the 
 high altar, in the old church of St. Eloi, in his 
 own Dunkirk. The museum of the town is full of 
 memorials of him. His name lives in the heart 
 of every Breton. Let us too remember him as a 
 brave and honest man. 
 
 THE END.
 
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