CHAPTER VII.
REFLECTIONS.--A SOIREE.--THE APPEARANCE OF ONE IMPORTANT IN THEHISTORY.--A CONVERSATION WITH MADAME DE BALZAC HIGHLY SATISFACTORY ANDCHEERING.--A RENCONTRE WITH A CURIOUS OLD SOLDIER.--THE EXTINCTION OF AONCE GREAT LUMINARY.
I HAD now been several weeks at Paris; I had neither eagerly soughtnor sedulously avoided its gayeties. It is not that one violent sorrowleaves us without power of enjoyment; it only lessens the power, anddeadens the enjoyment: it does not take away from us the objects oflife; it only forestalls the more indifferent calmness of age. The bloodno longer flows in an irregular but delicious course of vivid and wildemotion; the step no longer spurns the earth; nor does the ambitionwander, insatiable, yet undefined, over the million paths of existence:but we lose not our old capacities; they are quieted, not extinct. Theheart can never utterly and long be dormant: trifles may not charm itany more, nor levities delight; but its pulse has not yet ceased tobeat. We survey the scene that moves around, with a gaze no longerdistracted by every hope that flutters by; and it is therefore that wefind ourselves more calculated than before for the graver occupationsof our race. The overflowing temperament is checked to its proper level,the ambition bounded to its prudent and lawful goal. The earth is nolonger so green, nor the heaven so blue, nor the fancy that stirs withinus so rich in its creations; but we look more narrowly on the livingcrowd, and more rationally on the aims of men. The misfortune whichhas changed us has only adapted us the better to a climate in whichmisfortune is a portion of the air. The grief that has thralled ourspirit to a more narrow and dark cell has also been a change that haslinked us to mankind with a strength of which we dreamed not in the dayof a wilder freedom and more luxuriant aspirings. In later life, a newspirit, partaking of that which was our earliest, returns to us. Thesolitude which delighted us in youth, but which, when the thoughts thatmake solitude a fairy land are darkened by affliction, becomes a fearfuland sombre void, resumes its old spell, as the more morbid and urgentmemory of that affliction crumbles away by time. Content is a hermit;but so also is Apathy. Youth loves the solitary couch, which itsurrounds with dreams. Age, or Experience (which is the mind's age),loves the same couch for the rest which it affords; but the wideinterval between is that of exertion, of labour, and of labour amongmen. The woe which makes our _hearts_ less social, often makes our_habits_ more so. The thoughts, which in calm would have shunned theworld, are driven upon it by the tempest, even as the birds whichforsake the habitable land can, so long as the wind sleeps and thethunder rests within its cloud, become the constant and solitarybrooders over the waste sea: but the moment the storm awakes and theblast pursues them, they fly, by an overpowering instinct, to somewandering bark, some vestige of human and social life; and exchange,even for danger from the hands of men, the desert of an angry Heaven andthe solitude of a storm.
I heard no more either of Madame de Maintenon or the King. Meanwhile, myflight and friendship with Lord Bolingbroke had given me a consequencein the eyes of the exiled Prince which I should not otherwise haveenjoyed; and I was honoured by very flattering overtures to enteractively into his service. I have before said that I felt no enthusiasmin his cause, and I was far from feeling it for his person. My ambitionrather directed its hope towards a career in the service of France.France was the country of my birth, and the country of my father's fame.There no withering remembrances awaited me; no private regrets wereassociated with its scenes, and no public penalties with its politicalinstitutions. And although I had not yet received any token of Louis'sremembrance, in the ordinary routine of court favours expectation as yetwould have been premature; besides, his royal fidelity to his word wasproverbial; and, sooner or later, I indulged the hope to profit by thesort of promise he had insinuated to me. I declined, therefore, with alldue respect, the offers of the Chevalier, and continued to live the lifeof idleness and expectation, until Lord Bolingbroke returned to Paris,and accepted the office of secretary of state in the service of theChevalier. As he has publicly declared his reasons in this step, I donot mean to favour the world with his private conversations on the samesubject.
A day or two after his return, I went with him to a party given bya member of the royal family. The first person by whom we wereaccosted--and I rejoiced at it, for we could not have been accosted by amore amusing one--was Count Anthony Hamilton.
"Ah! my Lord Bolingbroke," said he, sauntering up to us; "how areyou?--delighted to see you again. Do look at Madame la Duchessed'Orleans! Saw you ever such a creature? Whither are you moving, myLord? Ah! see him, Count, see him, gliding off to that pretty duchess,of course; well, he has a beautiful bow, it must be owned; why, you arenot going too?--what would the world say if Count Anthony Hamilton wereseen left to himself? No, no, come and sit down by Madame de Cornuel:she longs to be introduced to you, and is one of the wittiest women inEurope."
"With all my heart! provided she employs her wit ill-naturedly, and usesit in ridiculing other people, not praising herself."
"Oh! nobody can be more satirical; indeed, what difference is therebetween wit and satire? Come, Count!"
And Hamilton introduced me forthwith to Madame de Cornuel. She receivedme very politely; and, turning to two or three people who formed thecircle round her, said, with the greatest composure, "Messieurs, obligeme by seeking some other object of attraction; I wish to have a privateconference with my new friend."
"I may stay?" said Hamilton.
"Ah! certainly; you are never in the way."
"In that respect, Madame," said Hamilton, taking snuff, and bowing verylow, "in that respect, I must strongly remind you of your excellenthusband."
"Fie!" cried Madame de Cornuel; then, turning to me, she said, "Ah!Monsieur, if you _could_ have come to Paris some years ago, you wouldhave been enchanted with us: we are sadly changed. Imagine the fine oldKing thinking it wicked not to hear plays, but to hear _players_ actthem, and so making the royal family a company of comedians. _MonDieu!_ how villanously they perform! but do you know why I wished to beintroduced to you?"
"Yes! in order to have a new listener: old listeners must be almost astedious as old news."
"Very shrewdly said, and not far from the truth. The fact is, that Iwanted to talk about all these fine people present to some one for whoseear my anecdotes would have the charm of novelty. Let us begin withLouis Armand, Prince of Conti; you see him."
"What, that short-sighted, stout, and rather handsome man, with acast of countenance somewhat like the pictures of Henri Quatre, who islaughing so merrily?"
"_O Ciel_! how droll! No! that handsome man is no less a person thanthe Duc d'Orleans. You see a little ugly thing like an anatomizedape,--there, see,--he has just thrown down a chair, and, in stoopingto pick it up, has almost fallen over the Dutch ambassadress,--that isLouis Armand, Prince of Conti. Do you know what the Duc d'Orleans saidto him the other day? '_Mon bon ami_,' he said, pointing to the prince'slimbs (did you ever see such limbs out of a menagerie, by the by?) '_monbon ami_, it is a fine thing for you that the Psalmist has assured us"that the Lord delighteth not in any man's legs."' Nay, don't laugh, itis quite true!"
It was now for Count Hamilton to take up the ball of satire; he was nota whit more merciful than the kind Madame de Cornuel. "The Prince," saidhe, "has so exquisite an awkwardness that, whenever the King hears anoise, and inquires the cause, the invariable answer is that 'the Princeof Conti has just tumbled down'! But, tell me, what do you think ofMadame d'Aumont? She is in the English headdress, and looks _triste a lamort_."
"She is rather pretty, to my taste."
"Yes," cried Madame de Cornuel, interrupting the gentle Antoine (it didone's heart good to see how strenuously each of them tried to talk morescandal than the other), "yes, she is thought very pretty; but I thinkher very like a _fricandeau_,--white, soft, and insipid. She is alwaysin tears," added the good-natured Cornuel, "after her prayers, both atmorning and evening. I asked why; and she answered, pretty simpleton,that she was always forced to pray to be made good, and sh
e fearedHeaven would take her at her word! However, she has many worshippers,and they call her the evening star."
"They should rather call her the Hyades!" said Hamilton, "if it be truethat she sheds tears every morning and night, and her rising and settingare thus always attended by rain."
"Bravo, Count Antoine! she shall be so called in future," said Madame deCornuel. "But now, Monsieur Devereux, turn your eyes to that hideous oldwoman."
"What! the Duchesse d'Orleans?"
"The same. She is in full dress to-night; but in the daytime yougenerally see her in a riding habit and a man's wig; she is--"
"Hist!" interrupted Hamilton; "do you not tremble to think what shewould do if she overheard you? she is such a terrible creature atfighting! You have no conception, Count, what an arm she has. She knowsher ugliness, and laughs at it, as all the rest of the world does. TheKing took her hand one day, and said smiling, 'What could Nature havemeant when she gave this hand to a German princess instead of a Dutchpeasant?' 'Sire,' said the Duchesse, very gravely, 'Nature gave thishand to a German princess for the purpose of boxing the ears of herladies in waiting!'"
"Ha! ha! ha!" said Madame de Cornuel, laughing; "one is never at a lossfor jokes upon a woman who eats _salade au lard_, and declares that,whenever she is unhappy, her only consolation is ham and sausages! Herson treats her with the greatest respect, and consults her in all hisamours, for which she professes the greatest horror, and which sheretails to her correspondents all over the world, in letters as long asher pedigree. But you are looking at her son, is he not of a good mien?"
"Yes, pretty well; but does not exhibit to advantage by the side ofLord Bolingbroke, with whom he is now talking. Pray, who is the thirdpersonage that has just joined them?"
"Oh, the wretch! it is the Abbe Dubois; a living proof of the folly ofthe French proverb, which says that Mercuries should _not_ be made _dubois_. Never was there a Mercury equal to the Abbe,--but, do look atthat old man to the left,--he is one of the most remarkable persons ofthe age."
"What! he with the small features, and comely countenance, consideringhis years?"
"The same," said Hamilton; "it is the notorious Choisi. You know that heis the modern Tiresias, and has been a woman as well as man."
"How do you mean?"
"Ah, you may well ask!" cried Madame de Cornuel. "Why, he lived formany years in the disguise of a woman, and had all sorts of curiousadventures."
"_Mort Diable_!" cried Hamilton; "it was entering your ranks, Madame, asa spy. I hear he makes but a sorry report of what he saw there."
"Come, Count Antoine," cried the lively de Cornuel, "we must not turnour weapons against each other; and when you attack a woman's sex youattack her individually. But what makes you look so intently, CountDevereux, at that ugly priest?"
The person thus flatteringly designated was Montreuil; he had justcaught my eye, among a group of men who were conversing eagerly.
"Hush! Madame," said I, "spare me for a moment;" and I rose, and mingledwith the Abbe's companions.
"So, you have only arrived to-day," I heard one of them say to him.
"No, I could not despatch my business before."
"And how are matters in England?"
"Ripe! if the life of his Majesty (of France) be spared a year longer,we will send the Elector of Hanover back to his principality."
"Hist!" said the companion, and looked towards me. Montreuil ceasedabruptly: our eyes met; his fell. I affected to look among the group asif I had expected to find there some one I knew, and then, turning away,I seated myself alone and apart. There, unobserved, I kept my looks onMontreuil. I remarked that, from time to time, his keen dark eye glancedtowards me, with a look rather expressive of vigilance than anythingelse. Soon afterwards his little knot dispersed; I saw him converse fora few moments with Dubois, who received him I thought distantly; andthen he was engaged in a long conference with the Bishop of Frejus,whom, till then, I had not perceived among the crowd.
As I was loitering on the staircase, where I saw Montreuil depart withthe Bishop, in the carriage of the latter, Hamilton, accosting me,insisted on my accompanying him to Chaulieu's, where a late supperawaited the sons of wine and wit. However, to the good Count's greatastonishment, I preferred solitude and reflection, for that night, toanything else.
Montreuil's visit to the French capital boded me no good. He possessedgreat influence with Fleuri, and was in high esteem with Madame deMaintenon, and, in effect, very shortly after his return to Paris, theBishop of Frejus looked upon me with a most cool sort of benignancy; andMadame de Maintenon told her friend, the Duchesse de St. Simon, thatit was a great pity a young nobleman of my birth and prepossessingappearance (ay! my prepossessing appearance would never have occurred tothe devotee, if I had not seemed so sensible of her own) should notonly be addicted to the wildest dissipation, but, worse still, toJansenistical tenets. After this there was no hope for me save in theKing's word, which his increasing infirmities, naturally engrossing hisattention, prevented my hoping too sanguinely would dwell very acutelyon his remembrance. I believe, however, so religiously scrupulous wasLouis upon a point of honour that, had he lived, I should havehad nothing to complain of. As it was--but I anticipate! Montreuildisappeared from Paris, almost as suddenly as he had appeared there.And, as drowning men catch at a straw, so, finding my affairs at a verylow ebb, I thought I would take advice, even from Madame de Balzac.
I accordingly repaired to her hotel. She was at home, and, fortunately,alone.
"You are welcome, _mon fils_," said she; "suffer me to give you thattitle: you are welcome; it is some days since I saw you."
"I have numbered them, I assure you, Madame," said I, "and they havecrept with a dull pace; but you know that business has claims as well aspleasure!"
"True!" said Madame de Balzac, pompously: "I myself find the weight ofpolitics a little insupportable, though so used to it; to your youngbrain I can readily imagine how irksome it must be!"
"Would, Madame, that I could obtain your experience by contagion; asit is, I fear that I have profited little by my visit to his Majesty.Madame de Maintenon will not see me, and the Bishop of Frejus (excellentman!) has been seized with a sudden paralysis of memory whenever Ipresent myself in his way."
"That party will never do,--I thought not," said Madame de Balzae, whowas a wonderful imitator of the fly on the wheel; "_my_ celebrity, andthe knowledge that _I_ loved you for your father's sake, were, I fear,sufficient to destroy your interest with the Jesuits and their tools.Well, well, we must repair the mischief we have occasioned you. Whatplace would suit you best?"
"Why, anything diplomatic. I would rather travel, at my age, than remainin luxury and indolence even at Paris!"
"Ah, nothing like diplomacy!" said Madame de Balzac, with the air of aRichelieu, and emptying her snuff-box at a pinch; "but have you, my son,the requisite qualities for that science, as well as the tastes? Areyou capable of intrigue? Can you say one thing and mean another? Are youaware of the immense consequence of a look or a bow? Can you live likea spider, in the centre of an inexplicable net--inexplicable as well asdangerous--to all but the weaver? That, my son, is the art of politics;that is to be a diplomatist!"
"Perhaps, to one less penetrating than Madame de Balzac," answered I, "Imight, upon trial, not appear utterly ignorant of the noble art of stateduplicity which she has so eloquently depicted."
"Possibly!" said the good lady; "it must indeed be a profounddissimulator to deceive _me_."
"But what would you advise me to do in the present crisis? What party toadopt, what individual to flatter?"
Nothing, I already discovered and have already observed, did theinestimable Madame de Balzac dislike more than a downright question: shenever answered it.
"Why, really," said she, preparing herself for a long speech, "I amquite glad you consult me, and I will give you the best advice in mypower. _Ecoutez donc_; you have seen the Duc de Maine?"
"Certainly!"
"Hum! ha! it
would be wise to follow him; but--you take me--youunderstand. Then, you know, my son, there is the Duc d'Orleans, fond ofpleasure, full of talent; but you know--there is a little--what doyou call it? you understand. As for the Duc de Bourbon, 'tis quite asimpleton; nevertheless we must consider: nothing like consideration;believe me, no diplomatist ever hurries. As for Madame de Maintenon, youknow, and I know too, that the Duchesse d'Orleans calls her an oldhag; but then--a word to the wise--eh?--what shall we say to Madame theDuchess herself?--what a fat woman she is, but excessively clever,--sucha letter writer!--Well--you see, my dear young friend, that it is a verydifficult matter to decide upon,--but you must already be fully awarewhat plan I should advise."
"Already, Madame?"
"To be sure! What have I been saying to you all this time?--did you nothear me? Shall I repeat my advice?"
"Oh, no! I perfectly comprehend you now; you would advise me--inshort--to--to--do--as well as I can."
"You have said it, my son. I thought you would understand me on a littlereflection."
"To be sure,--to be sure," said I.
And three ladies being announced, my conference with Madame de Balzacended.
I now resolved to wait a little till the tides of power seemed somewhatmore settled, and I could ascertain in what quarter to point my bark ofenterprise. I gave myself rather more eagerly to society, in proportionas my political schemes were suffered to remain torpid. My mind couldnot remain quiet, without preying on itself; and no evil appeared to meso great as tranquillity. Thus the spring and earlier summer passedon, till, in August, the riots preceding the Rebellion broke out inScotland. At this time I saw but little of Lord Bolingbroke in private;though, with his characteristic affectation, he took care that the loadof business with which he was really oppressed should not prevent hisenjoyment of all gayeties in public. And my indifference to the causeof the Chevalier, in which he was so warmly engaged, threw a naturalrestraint upon our conversation, and produced an involuntary coldness inour intercourse: so impossible is it for men to be private friends whodiffer on a public matter.
One evening I was engaged to meet a large party at a country-house aboutforty miles from Paris. I went, and stayed some days. My horses hadaccompanied me; and, when I left the chateau, I resolved to make thejourney to Paris on horseback. Accordingly, I ordered my carriage tofollow me, and attended by a single groom, commenced my expedition.It was a beautiful still morning,--the first day of the first monthof autumn. I had proceeded about ten miles, when I fell in with an oldFrench officer. I remember,--though I never saw him but that once,--Iremember his face as if I had encountered it yesterday. It was thin andlong, and yellow enough to have served as a caricature rather than aportrait of Don Quixote. He had a hook nose, and a long sharp chin; andall the lines, wrinkles, curves, and furrows of which the human visageis capable seemed to have met in his cheeks. Nevertheless, his eye wasbright and keen, his look alert, and his whole bearing firm, gallant,and soldier-like. He was attired in a sort of military undress; wore amustachio, which, though thin and gray, was carefully curled; and at thesummit of a very respectable wig was perched a small cocked hat, adornedwith a black feather. He rode very upright in his saddle; and his horse,a steady, stalwart quadruped of the Norman breed, with a terribly longtail and a prodigious breadth of chest, put one stately leg beforeanother in a kind of trot, which, though it seemed, from its height ofaction and the proud look of the steed, a pretension to motion more thanordinarily brisk, was in fact a little slower than a common walk.
This noble cavalier seemed sufficiently an object of curiosity to myhorse to induce the animal to testify his surprise by shying, veryjealously and very vehemently, in passing him. This ill breeding on hispart was indignantly returned on the part of the Norman charger, who,uttering a sort of squeak and shaking his long mane and head, commenceda series of curvets and capers which cost the old Frenchman no littletrouble to appease. In the midst of these equine freaks, the horse cameso near me as to splash my nether garment with a liberality as littleornamental as it was pleasurable.
The old Frenchman seeing this, took off his cocked hat very politely andapologized for the accident. I replied with equal courtesy; and, asour horses slid into quiet, their riders slid into conversation. It wasbegun and chiefly sustained by my new comrade; for I am little addictedto commence unnecessary socialities myself, though I should think verymeanly of my pretensions to the name of a gentleman and a courtier, if Idid not return them when offered, even by a beggar.
"It is a fine horse of yours, Monsieur," said the old Frenchman; "but Icannot believe--pardon me for saying so--that your slight English steedsare so well adapted to the purposes of war as our strong chargers,--suchas mine for example."
"It is very possible, Monsieur," said I. "Has the horse you now ridedone service in the field as well as on the road?"
"Ah! _le pauvre petit mignon_,--no!" (_petit_, indeed! this littledarling was seventeen hands high at the very least) "no, Monsieur: it isbut a young creature this; his grandfather served me well!"
"I need not ask you, Monsieur, if you have borne arms: the soldier isstamped upon you!"
"Sir, you flatter me highly!" said the old gentleman, blushing to thevery tip of his long lean ears, and bowing as low as if I had calledhim a Conde. "I have followed the profession of arms for more than fiftyyears."
"Fifty years! 'tis a long time."
"A long time," rejoined my companion, "a long time to look back uponwith regret."
"Regret! by Heaven, I should think the remembrance of fifty years'excitement and glory would be a remembrance of triumph."
The old man turned round on his saddle, and looked at me for somemoments very wistfully. "You are young, Sir," he said, "and at youryears I should have thought with you; but--" (then abruptly changing hisvoice, he continued)--"Triumph, did you say? Sir, I have had three sons:they are dead; they died in battle; I did not weep; I did not shed atear, Sir,--not a tear! But I will tell you when I did weep. I cameback, an old man, to the home I had left as a young one. I saw thecountry a desert. I saw that the _noblesse_ had become tyrants; thepeasants had become slaves,--such slaves,--savage from despair,--evenwhen they were most gay, most fearfully gay, from constitution. Sir, Isaw the priest rack and grind, and the seigneur exact and pillage, andthe tax-gatherer squeeze out the little the other oppressors had left;anger, discontent, wretchedness, famine, a terrible separation betweenone order of people and another; an incredible indifference to themiseries their despotism caused on the part of the aristocracy; a sullenand vindictive hatred for the perpetration of those miseries on the partof the people; all places sold--even all honours priced--at the court,which was become a public market, a province of peasants, of livingmen bartered for a few livres, and literally passed from one hand toanother, to be squeezed and drained anew by each new possessor: in aword, Sir, an abandoned court; an unredeemed _noblesse_,--unredeemed,Sir, by a single benefit which, in other countries, even the mostfeudal, the vassal obtains from the master; a peasantry famished; anation loaded with debt which it sought to pay by tears,--these arewhat I saw,--these are the consequences of that heartless and miserablevanity from which arose wars neither useful nor honourable,--these arethe real components of that _triumph_, as you term it, which you wonderthat I regret."
Now, although it was impossible to live at the court of Louis XIV.in his latter days, and not feel, from the general discontent thatprevailed even there, what a dark truth the old soldier's speechcontained, yet I was somewhat surprised by an enthusiasm so littlemilitary in a person whose bearing and air were so conspicuouslymartial.
"You draw a melancholy picture," said I; "and the wretched state ofculture which the lands that we now pass through exhibit is a witnesshow little exaggeration there is in your colouring. However, these arebut the ordinary evils of war; and, if your country endures them, donot forget that she has also inflicted them. Remember what France didto Holland, and own that it is but a retribution that France shouldnow find that the injury
we do to others is (among nations as well asindividuals) injury to ourselves."
My old Frenchman curled his mustaches with the finger and thumb of hisleft hand: this was rather too subtile a distinction for him.
"That may be true enough, Monsieur," said he; "but, _morbleu_! those_maudits_ Dutchmen deserved what they sustained at our hands. No, Sir,no: I am not so base as to forget the glory my country acquired, thoughI weep for her wounds."
"I do not quite understand you, Sir," said I; "did you not just nowconfess that the wars you had witnessed were neither honourable noruseful? What glory, then, was to be acquired in a war of that character,even though it was so delightfully animated by cutting the throats ofthose _maudits_ Dutchmen?"
"Sir," answered the Frenchman, drawing himself up, "you did_not_ understand me. When we punished Holland, we did rightly. We_conquered_."
"Whether you conquered or not (for the good folk of Holland are not sosure of the fact)," answered I, "that war was the most unjust in whichyour king was ever engaged; but pray, tell me, Sir, what war it is thatyou lament?"
The Frenchman frowned, whistled, put out his under lip, in a sort ofangry embarrassment, and then, spurring his great horse into a curvet,said,--
"That last war with the English!"
"Faith," said I, "that was the justest of all."
"Just!" cried the Frenchman, halting abruptly and darting at me aglance of fire, "just! no more, Sir! no more! I was at Blenheim and atRamilies!"
As the old warrior said the last words, his voice faltered; and though Icould not help inly smiling at the confusion of ideas by which wars werejust or unjust, according as they were fortunate or not, yet I respectedhis feelings enough to turn away my face and remain silent.
"Yes," renewed my comrade, colouring with evident shame and drawing hiscocked hat over his brows, "yes, I received my last wound at Ramilies._Then_ my eyes were opened to the horrors of war; _then_ I saw andcursed the evils of ambition; _then_ I resolved to retire from thearmies of a king who had lost forever his name, his glory, and hiscountry."
Was there ever a better type of the French nation than this old soldier?As long as fortune smiles on them, it is "Marchons au diable!" and "Vivela gloire!" Directly they get beaten, it is "Ma pauvre patrie!" and "Lescalamites affreuses de la guerre!"
"However," said I, "the old King is drawing near the end of his days,and is said to express his repentance at the evils his ambition hasoccasioned."
The old soldier shoved back his hat, and offered me his snuff-box. Ijudged by this that he was a little mollified.
"Ah!" he renewed, after a pause, "ah! times are sadly changed since theyear 1667; when the young King--he was young then--took the field inFlanders, under the great Turenne. _Sacristie_! What a hero he lookedupon his white war-horse! I would have gone--ay, and the meanest andbackwardest soldier in the camp would have gone--into the very mouth ofthe cannon for a look from that magnificent countenance, or a word fromthat mouth which knew so well what words were! Sir, there was in the warof '72, when we were at peace with Great Britain, an English gentleman,then in the army, afterwards a marshal of France: I remember, as if itwere yesterday, how gallantly he behaved. The King sent to complimenthim after some signal proof of courage and conduct, and asked whatreward he would have. 'Sire,' answered the Englishman, 'give me thewhite plume you wore this day.' From that moment the Englishman'sfortune was made."
"The flattery went further than the valour!" said I, smiling, as Irecognized in the anecdote the first great step which my father had madein the ascent of fortune.
"_Sacristie_!" cried the Frenchman, "it was no flattery then. We soidolized the King that mere truth would have seemed disloyalty; and weno more thought that praise, however extravagant, was adulation, whendirected to him, than we should have thought there was adulation in thepraise we would have given to our first mistress. But it is all changednow! Who now cares for the old priest-ridden monarch?"
And upon this the veteran, having conquered the momentary enthusiasmwhich the remembrance of the King's earlier glories had excited,transferred all his genius of description to the opposite side of thequestion, and declaimed, with great energy, upon the royal vices anderrors, which were so charming in prosperity, and were now so detestablein adversity.
While we were thus conversing we approached Versailles. We thought thevicinity of the town seemed unusually deserted. We entered the mainstreet: crowds were assembled; a universal murmur was heard; excitementsat on every countenance. Here an old crone was endeavouring to explainsomething, evidently beyond his comprehension, to a child of three yearsold, who, with open mouth and fixed eyes, seemed to make up in wonderfor the want of intelligence; there a group of old disbanded soldiersoccupied the way, and seemed, from their muttered conversations, tovent a sneer and a jest at a priest who, with downward countenance andmelancholy air, was hurrying along.
One young fellow was calling out, "At least, it is a holy-day, and Ishall go to Paris!" and, as a contrast to him, an old withered artisan,leaning on a gold-headed cane, with sharp avarice eloquent in every lineof his face, muttered out to a fellow-miser, "No business to-day, nomoney, John; no money!" One knot of women, of all ages, close by whichmy horse passed, was entirely occupied with a single topic, and thatso vehemently that I heard the leading words of the discussion."Mourning--becoming--what fashion?--how long?--_O Ciel_!" Thus dofollies weave themselves round the bier of death!
"What is the news, gentlemen?" said I.
"News! what, you have not heard it?--the King is dead!"
"Louis dead! Louis the Great, dead!" cried my companion.
"Louis the Great?" said a sullen-looking man,--"Louis the persecutor!"
"Ah, he's a Huguenot!" cried another with haggard cheeks and holloweyes, scowling at the last speaker. "Never mind what he says: the Kingwas right when he refused protection to the heretics; but was he rightwhen he levied such taxes on the Catholics?"
"Hush!" said a third--"hush: it may be unsafe to speak; there are spiesabout; for my part, I think it was all the fault of the _noblesse_."
"And the Favourites!" cried a soldier, fiercely.
"And the Harlots!" cried a hag of eighty.
"And the Priests!" muttered the Huguenot.
"And the Tax-gatherers!" added the lean Catholic.
We rode slowly on. My comrade was evidently and powerfully affected.
"So, he is dead!" said he. "Dead!--well, well, peace be with him!He conquered in Holland; he humbled Genoa; he dictated to Spain; hecommanded Conde and Turenne; he--Bah! What is all this!--" then, turningabruptly to me, my companion cried, "I did not speak against the King,did I, Sir?"
"Not much."
"I am glad of that,--yes, very glad!" And the old man glared fiercelyround on a troop of boys who were audibly abusing the dead lion.
"I would have bit out my tongue rather than it had joined in the basejoy of these yelping curs. Heavens! when I think what shouts I haveheard when the name of that man, then deemed little less than a god, wasbut breathed!--and now--why do you look at me, Sir? My eyes are moist; Iknow it, Sir,--I know it. The old battered broken soldier, who made hisfirst campaigns when that which is now dust was the idol of France andthe pupil of Turenne,--the old soldier's eyes shall not be dry, thoughthere is not another tear shed in the whole of this great empire."
"Your three sons?" said I; "you did not weep for them?"
"No, Sir: I loved them when I was old; but I loved Louis _when I wasyoung_!"
"Your oppressed and pillaged country?" said I, "think of that."
"No, Sir, I will not think of it!" cried the old warrior in a passion."I will not think of it--to-day, at least."
"You are right, my brave friend: in the grave let us bury even publicwrongs; but let us not bury their remembrance. May the joy we read inevery face that we pass--joy at the death of one whom idolatry oncealmost seemed to deem immortal--be a lesson to future kings!"
My comrade did not immediately answer; but, after a pause and we ha
dturned our backs upon the town, he said, "Joy, Sir,--you spoke of joy!Yes, we are Frenchmen: we forgive our rulers easily for private vicesand petty faults; but we never forgive them if they commit the greatestof faults, and suffer a stain to rest upon--"
"What?" I asked, as my comrade broke off.
"The national glory, Monsieur!" said he.
"You have hit it," said I, smiling at the turgid sentiment which was soreally and deeply felt. "And had you written folios upon the characterof your countrymen, you could not have expressed it better."